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Newspapers, new media and other interesting stuff, but mostly newspapers

A peek into The New York Times morgue -- that's "archive" to you civilians

The New York Times's morgue would be a fun place to dig through -- you can do some of that already digitally, but going through a paper morgue connects you back to the people of a specific era -- reporters, editors, photographers along with those they reported on.

There's also that wonderful musty smell of old clippings. I love it. Of course, one of these days, there won't be any more paper morgues-- it'll all be digital and for a price you'll be free to browse. What a shame. Another newspaper product will soon bite [byte] the dust!

I love the fact that the Times has moved their morgue to an undisclosed location three stories underground. Sort of like a doomsday-proof vault for old newspaper clippings!

BTW -- that's Marilyn Monroe looking as some clippings if you haven't guessed.

Filed under  //   Marilyn Monroe   The New York Times   morgue  
Posted May 15, 2012

Oy! Small town newspaper editor busted by blogger

Having been a small-town newspaper editor, I feel for this ed. Apparently an article that ran in his paper was plagerized from a blogger's website.

There's no byline in the paper, so who knows how it got there. A freelancer? Did someone just "hand" it in.... yes, that does happen in small newspapers.

Confrontations are never easy and this is not the finest hour for either the editor or blogger or the woman, for that matter. I like the questioning of where the blogger lives, as if that matters -- the implication being that he's sticking his nose into an area that he has no right being in.

I've gotten that attitude for a lot of folks over the years -- mainly from cops, who I swear had thought bubbles over their heads that start out "Hey, college boy. Take your fancy pants outta here ..."

I guess the upside is that the editor was big enough or smart enough to pay the blogger and the blogger got his money. But I seriously doubt that the story would have run if the editor would have known it was going to cost him $500. To a small paper, that amounts to something like the YEARLY budget for coffee!

Read more of the story at the blogger's site.

Posted May 15, 2012

Prom dresses -- made from newspapers!

Bilde

Detroit Free Press slideshow

The Detroit Free Press had a contest for high school students to design and make prom dresses out of newsprint. Hit the above link to see the eight finalists.

Prom dresses out of newspapers! Lets see you do that, interwebs!

Filed under  //   Dress  
Posted May 9, 2012

Suit yourself? :-0

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This is a game. how many things are wrong with this?

OK. You got the headline, right? RIGHT?! But, check out her right arm. It looks like she's able to scratch her right knee without bending down. Photoshop disaster for sure.

In defense of the crap headline, I can guarantee that whomever did this had a serious case of tunnel vision. Either they worked so hard to get the ripply water reflection correct they didn't realize what it says, AND YES, it does say that.

OR,

They worked really hard to sneak this by, in which case the staff should hoist them atop shoulder and proceed to near by beer-selling establishment.

That's if said person still has a job there.

Filed under  //   Romenesko   jimromenesko.com  
Posted May 7, 2012

Newspapermen still sexy -- at least Hollywood thinks so!

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The Daily Mail's synopsis of the upcoming movie, The Paperboy:

The Paperboy, being described as 'an explosive sexual thriller', tells the story of Jack James, played by Efron - the son of the Moat County Tribune's editor and publisher.

Sibling rivalry: Zac and Matthew McConaughey star as brothers in the 'explosive sexual thriller', due out later this year

While Jack's older brother, Ward, reports for the Miami Times, Jack has settled for a job delivering papers for the Tribune. [ Hit the link for a photo or Efron holding some bundled newspapers. Like I'm including that photo over Nicole Kidman! ]

But when Ward and his partner, evil dandy Yardley Acheman, come to Moat County to investigate the four-year-old murder of the local sheriff, Jack assists them in the inquiry.

Nicole, meanwhile, stars as Charlotte Bless in the movie - a woman who writes letters to death row inmates amd who is having a correspondence with the murder suspect, played by John Cuscack.

The movie is based on the novel by Peter Dexter, who wrote the screenplay for Mulholland Falls.

Filed under  //   Hollywood   Nicole Kidman   The Paperboy  

100 years into the future, where will history be?

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Sunday, for those few who avoided all of the media bombardment, marked the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.

Local papers, of course, dug through their morgues to find the actual front page reporting the disaster, or found local readers who had a frail copy and ran with that story.

I think holding a front page of a newspaper that's 100 years old makes the history come alive. It puts me right back there when the event happened and I can imagine how a person of that era felt or reacted on reading the news the first time.

One hundred years from now, how will those citizens of 2112 react when the local (or national) media outlet plays up the 100-anniversary (of whatever earth-shattering importance is to come) story feel when the website (if they still call it that) offers up the page that reported the event.

It won't be yellowed with time. There won't be any creases where various owners had folder it into scrapbooks or family albums and Bibles. Assuming the electronic page has been preserved (most likely as a PDF), it will as fresh as the day it hit the Interwebs. There's no hint of dust or must or being hidden away for the ages. No hint of age. No hint of the passing of generations.

Where's the history in that? Where's the mystery?

Filed under  //   Front pages   Titanic   history  

DATELINE 2015: The New York Times ceases to exist as we now know it!

Eric Johnson, Founder and Managing Member of Ironfire Capital throws down and prophesies the end of The Old Gray Lady.

Watch the slideshow. It's only 10 slides and here are his conclusions:

Newspapers supported by classifieds and ads will likely cease to exist after 2015• The only viable news business models moving forward appear to be:

(1) Financial data subscription (e.g., Bloomberg/ThomsonReuters),

(2) Cable subscription (e.g., Comcast, Disney, CBS),

(3) Costs for digital news getting spread across page views of larger Internet company (e.g., Yahoo!) or

(4) Copycat blogging supported by banner ads (e.g., Huffington Post)

Only other possible model is support by a benefactor (e.g., Apple or the Steve Jobs Foundation)

If the New York Times can’t make it alone, why would any other smaller newspaper?

Investigative reporting will become even more invisible than it is today in the coming years.

I can't argue with his points, but who knows what will happen in the next three years? I'm thinking that the printed version will still be here, more expensive, more thinner and less available on newsstands than it is now.

Filed under  //   Ironfire Capital   The New York Times   The Old Gray Lady  
Posted April 6, 2012

Props to Mad Men for getting "Subway Fold" right

This season's Mad Men kickoff episode included a scene on a train wherein Pete Campbell, a Partner at the Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce ad agency shows us how to do the "Subway Fold."

See my previous post (http://perryp.posterous.com/?tag=subwayfold) on how a real person does it -- in Atlanta.

Props for that ... something that a true New Yorker would do. Especially back in the day.

 

Shlops for screwing up the SCDP gag ad, which you can faintly make up in the scene, since the ad did not run until the next day.  Oh well, even fake newspapers have trouble with ad scheduling once in a while 

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Filed under  //   Mad Men   Subway Fold  

File this under Shoulda Woulda Coulda

Nieman Reports' Spring 2012 edition takes a look back and ahead with six newspaper editors thinking about what they could have done and what they should be doing.

Nothing earth shaking. No real break throughs. For my money these guys and gals are still two steps behind the ball.

Filed under  //   Nieman Reports   Shoulda Woulda Coulda  

Art or fashion? Italian uses newspaper for both

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Italian artist Ivano Vitali uses actual newspaper pages to create some interesting fashions and other objet d'art.

The newspaper pages are turned by hand in wires of various sizes without the use of water, glues, dyes. and fixatives.

The pages of the newspapers are in lots of ripped strips of Various Measures Transformed into a thread and then, without using water, glue or coloring

Hit the link to see more of his work. Some of which, you would not want to get caught wearing out in the rain! a newspaper bikini? Really?

Filed under  //   Art   Fashion   Ivano Vitali