QotD: Newspapers versus News Magazines

Time magazine has a list of the ten most endangered newspapers.

That's interesting, because our paper had a list of the ten most endangered magazines named Time. Seems like a duel on a Titanic lifeboat before it's winched down the side, no?

Or not. I remain enthusiastic about the paper's survival, for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with the pleasant sound my whistling makes as it echoes off the tombstones. I do think we'll survive. Newsmagazines, less so. I can't remember the last time I bought one. Not even after 9/1l1 — even by then the desire to remember an event with a glossy print recap had vanished [. . .]

I think the last time I looked at a newsmagazine, it was full of things that were Generally Wrong or Growing Concerns or Worrisome Trends, with lots of ads for acid-reflux pills. The default mode of these magazines a long time ago seemed to be banging the tocsin with a bloody shirt, to horribly mix metaphors, and it's not surprising; the default position of journalism is reminding us how far we live from the fabled borders of Utopia, and how we might speed the journey through the magic accelerating powers of wise, targeted legislation.

James Lileks, Bleat, 2009-03-11