Invisible Inkling

Ryan Sholin on the future of newspapers, online news and journalism education.

All About newspapers

Transatlantic passenger ships

July 8, 2008 – 6:37 am

Mindy McAdams offers 10 simple facts about the survival of journalism.
Number 5:
“Newspapers were a nice business. Publishers could make the product insanely cheap (remember the penny press), and the advertising would cover the expenses, plus generate fantastic profits. However, this is clearly over. It’s done. It worked for a long time, but now, like trans-Atlantic [...]

Declare your independence from the curmudgeon tribe

July 4, 2008 – 12:01 am

More than a year ago, I wrote a blog post aimed at the curmudgeons in your newsroom.
The ones who prefer hand-wringing editorials to reorganization plans.
The ones who prefer complaining about bloggers to starting a blog.
The ones who prefer whining about Google and craigslist and every other disruptive organization to becoming a disruptive organization.
Jay Rosen has [...]

Why we don’t read your paper

June 25, 2008 – 1:30 pm

Tim Ball, in a post titled “Newspapers and why nobody reads them” writes:
“The problem for newspapers isn’t that I’m getting this information from another source. It’s that I don’t want it at all, and the local-local focus of metro newspapers in the last several years has made them not just less valuable to me, but [...]

On print redesigns

June 24, 2008 – 7:20 am

Brothers and sisters in the print design world, you know I love you.
You bust your collective ass day after day to dress up content that may or may not be as award-winning as your design work, and in the end, you usually just get laid off for your troubles.  Because when management looks around that [...]

If you think online news is difficult…

June 16, 2008 – 10:01 pm

If using a Web-based content management system is difficult, try putting together a print edition in an old version of Quark and then come back and tell me how hard it is to push the Publish button.
If editing video takes too long, then go back to developing your own prints in the darkroom.
If exploring the [...]