MetaFilter posts tagged with newspapers

The Guardian's global page.

feelinglistless — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 08:49:27 -0800

The Guardian's global page. Everything published on the newspaper's website each day in one long unfiltered list. Also useful, The New York Times Wire.

RIP: Boston Phoenix and WFNX Radio

dunkadunc — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 12:29:35 -0800

The Boston Phoenix will be closing immediately, only six months after reinventing itself as a glossy weekly. The Portland and Providence versions will remain open. [Previously]

Size matters

MartinWisse — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 15:58:28 -0800

The degeneration of the newspaper comic strip in one handy picture. Comic strip shrinkage is not a new problem. Newspaper comics have been slowly shrinking for decades, no longer being the draw they used to be before WWII while circulation drops led to cost cutting measures. Cartoons are expensive, certainly in comparison with the rest of the newspaper and hence they needed to shrink, with the end result being that 6 modern strips can fit into one pre-WWII one...

EU migrants robbing pensioners while Britain's flooded give you cancer

MartinWisse — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 16:12:47 -0800

The curious lifecycle of Daily Express headlines: health scares, weather scares, EU villainy, migrant scares, pension scares.

Down and Out in Paris and Berlin

Horace Rumpole — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 10:20:57 -0800

Russians without Russia is an elegantly designed digital archive of the magazines and newspapers produced by the Russian exile communities of 1920s and 30s.

BIFF WINS AGAIN

Cash4Lead — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 08:11:17 -0800

Jonathan Chait questions the editorial judgment of the Hill Valley Telegraph in Back to the Future Part II. Related: 11 Predictions That Back to the Future Part II Got Right. The recurring prop newspaper in movies and TV. An explanation for the recurrence.

Every newspaper headline published in "The Simpsons"

winecork — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 12:58:20 -0800

This is a compilation of every headline (with screenshots) seen on "The Simpsons". These Simpsons headlines come primarily with the Springfield Shopper, Springfield's only major newspaper. The compilation includes such memorable headlines as "SQUIRREL RESEMBLING ABRAHAM LINCOLN FOUND", "AWFUL SCHOOL IS AWFUL RICH", and "PARADE TO DISTRACT JOYLESS CITIZENRY"

The Times They Are a-Changin'

zarq — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 08:24:49 -0800

In 1962, fifty years ago this month, striking union printers shut down four New York City newspapers in resistance to computerized, automated technologies that were being introduced in newsrooms across the country. Five other area papers shut down voluntarily. The strike lasted 114 days and sounded the death knell for four newspapers. For a brief period, New York was a laboratory that demonstrated what can happen when newspapers vanish. Today, new technology is again shaking American newspapers as the Internet drains away more and more advertising revenue. Is this The Long Good Bye? Additional Reading The New York City strike was bookended by lengthy, expensive strikes in other cities, including a 117-day Minneapolis strike in 1962, a 129-day Cleveland strike of 1962-1963, and a 134-day Detroit strike in 1964. Slate / 2009: Life After Newspapers: Learning from the 1962-63 New York newspaper strike Canadian Journal of Communication / 2006: "Labor's Monkey Wrench": Newsweekly Coverage of the 1962-63 New York Newspaper Strike New York Times archive / 1992: Seeds of a Newspaper Struggle. "The root of Mortimer B. Zuckerman's current problems in trying to take over The Daily News go back to a 114-day newspaper strike that began 30 years ago this morning." Wikipedia on the strike. Washington Post obituary / 2006: Bert Powers; Typographers Union President Led Months-Long Strike." "The bow-tie-sporting Mr. Powers, once described by a New York Times labor reporter as "honest, clean, democratic -- and impossible," was elected president of the New York Typographical Union No. 6 in 1961."

Blackboard Newspaper

roll truck roll — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 10:05:10 -0800

Liberia's blackboard newspaper (via)

We Don't Want a Traffic Jam?

juiceCake — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 10:21:06 -0800

You want us to pay you for directing eyeballs to your sites? Newspaper publishers in France want a law whereby Google (and other search engine services) have to pay for each click made from the search engine to their sites. You click on a link to a French newspaper site from a search engine, the Search Engine has to pay the newspaper for that click. If the law is passed it's likely Google will no longer include links to French sites that require payment for said links.

Ephemeral New York

zarq — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 06:02:34 -0800

Ephemeral New York 'chronicles an ever-changing, constantly reinvented city through photos, newspaper archives, and other scraps and artifacts that have been edged into New York’s collective remainder bin.' You can browse by category on the right. Notable: * Cool Building Names * Out-of-Date Guidebooks * Random Signage * Sketchy Hotels * Disasters and Crimes * Urban Beauty * War Memorials * Houses of Worship * New York Street * Old Print Ads * Music, Art, Theater * Queens * Transit Pages from Ephemeral New York have been linked in some fantastic posts, previously on MetaFilter.

I'm not dead yet!

Horace Rumpole — Sun, 07 Oct 2012 12:56:18 -0800

In the wake of the venerable Boston Phoenix changing to a glossy magazine format and rebranding itself as simply The Phoenix (as well as the ongoing turmoil at the Village Voice), Salon's Will Doig writes the obituary for the age of the alt-weeklies. The Phoenix responds.

Warren Buffett as Teacher

spock — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 14:01:16 -0800

Analog, Warren Buffett and Digital Media - Why Warren Buffett invests in newspapers: " You essentially have a business that will make a lot of money if you are terrific, it will make a lot of money if you're lousy," Buffett said, "...how good a newspaper is depends entirely on the wishes of its owner. There is no correlation between profits and excellence," Buffett added, "there's really nothing like that in American business." Enjoy nearly a full 60 minutes of Warren Buffet's (all too rare) public teaching style in this recently uploaded video from 1992.

The Baby Died - Morbid Curiosities found in Old Newspapers

cilantro — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 14:05:09 -0800

A fellow tried to impress his friends by fitting a billiard ball in his mouth - he died. A young woman laced her corset too tightly - she died. A woman fell down the stairs, which caused one of her hairpins to penetrate her skull - she died. And, of course, many people had horrible encounters with mill and farm machinery. Predictably, they died. (warning-occasionally graphic descriptions of death and dismemberment, mostly from the late 19th century). Luckily, not everyone died. Some just had a bit too much too drink, others... well, they probably also had a bit too much to drink. The Baby Died - a collection of Morbid Curiosities found in Old Newspapers.

The News Corporation scandals

East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 08:54:11 -0800

Murdoch's Scandal - Lowell Bergman (the journalist portrayed by Al Pacino in The Insider) has investigated News Corporation for PBS Frontline [transcript]. He depicts Rupert Murdoch's British operation as a criminal enterprise, routinely hacking the voicemail and computers of innocent people, and using bribery and coercion to infiltrate police and government over decades. Enemies are ruthlessly "monstered" by the tabloids. Bergman also spoke to NPR's Fresh Air [transcript]. But the hits keep coming: in recent days News Corp has been accused of hacking rival pay TV services and promoting pirated receiver cards in both the UK and Australia. With the looming possibility of prosecution under America's Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, how long will shareholders consider Rupert Murdoch irreplaceable? [Previous 1 2 3 4]

Another brick in the paywall

storybored — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 19:14:56 -0800

Newspapers have two principal sources of revenue, readers and advertisers, and they can operate at mass or niche scale for each of those groups. A metro-area daily paper is a mass product for customers (many readers buy the paper) and for advertisers (many readers see their ads.) Newsletters and small-circulation magazines, by contrast, serve niche readers, and therefore niche advertisers — Fire Chief, Mother Earth News. (Some newsletters get by with no advertising at all, as with Cooks’ Illustrated, where part of what the user pays for is freedom from ads, or rather freedom from a publisher beholden to advertisers.) Paywalls were an attempt to preserve the old mass+mass model after a transition to digital distribution. With so few readers willing to pay, and therefore so few readers to advertise to, paywalls instead turned newspapers into a niche+niche business. What the article threshold creates is an odd hybrid — a mass market for advertising, but a niche market for users. Clay Shirky on the economics of newspaper paywalls and why article thresholds seem to be the way of the future.

J. Hoberman Fired by Village Voice

bubukaba — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 15:09:57 -0800

Yesterday, the Village Voice fired J. Hoberman, long-time champion of independent and experimental film (and its senior film critic of 24 years). Hoberman promises that there's a blog in his future. The Voice has an archive of his writing for them since 1998. Here are his Top 10 lists for the years 1977 to 2006, and here they are for 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011. Here is a compilation of his advice for aspiring film critics. A critic who came of age in an era when the lines between "film critic" and "film scholar" were blurrier, Hoberman has also written books about American movies and the Cold War and the forgotton history of Yiddish cinema. Here are some interviews with him about his work.

LAT at 130

Horace Rumpole — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 10:22:32 -0800

Yesterday, the Los Angeles Times celebrated the 130th anniversary of its first issue, and marked the occasion with 130 photos from Los Angeles history, as well as a gallery of historic front pages.

Not Me implicated.

mightygodking — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 11:24:02 -0800

Bil Keane, creator of famous (and often mocked) newspaper comic The Family Circus, has died at 89.

How to fail at digital publishing

nam3d — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 15:37:29 -0800

How to fail at digital publishing

SAUSAGE MAN WINS ACCOLADE

Acheman — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 03:09:22 -0800

GUNMAN SEEN OFF WITH MUG --- DEALER SOLD TEA TO COPS --- MICE FORCE PENSIONER OUT OF HOME --- Just another day for the South London Press. The South London Press has been covering the boroughs of Lambeth, Southwark, Lewisham and Wandsworth since 1865. The flickr group 'SOUTH LONDON PRESS' documents the SLP's particularly poetic sandwich boards, from the sublime to the spectacular via the poignant and the merely everyday.

"...we still can’t tell whether we are all about to die or whether we are being sold a bill of goods."

zarq — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 08:52:36 -0800

'The stories about epidemics that are told in the American press—their plots and tropes—date to the 1920's, when modern research science, science journalism, and science fiction were born.' This is the story of how the media back then (January, 1930) helped fuel fears about a parrot-fever pandemic, and the subsequent public backlash. (Via) Article is from 2009.

Public Relations vs. Journalism

thisisdrew — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 22:47:13 -0800

PR Industry Fills Vacuum Left by Shrinking Newsrooms - "You would go into these hearings and there would be more PR people representing these big players than there were reporters, sometimes by a factor of two or three" ..it's getting tougher to know when a storyline originates with a self-interested party producing its own story.

The Newspaper Map

Bora Horza Gobuchul — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 10:52:40 -0800

The Newspaper Map: browse thousands of local, regional and national newspapers from around the world, based on geographical location. Filter and translate languages, see newspaper archives back to the early 19th century, and find fourth estate Twitter and YouTube feeds. A mobile version is also available. via

"The man who gave comics its memory" Bill Blackbeard 1926-2011

jessamyn — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 08:28:08 -0800

Bill Blackbeard, founder of the San Francisco Academy of Comic Art, passed away March 10. The Comics Journal calls him "without question or quibble the only absolutely indispensable figure in the history of comics scholarship for the last quarter century." Most comics fans have read The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics edited by Blackwell and Smithsonian Press editor Martin Williams, or one of the 200 other books he edited. The SFACA collection, 620 boxes of which have been completely cataloged are owned by the The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum where they are available to researchers. Here is a list of other comics research libraries. [previously on MetaFilter]