A Case for Print

The NY Times Magazine Food Issue - Oct. 11, 2009

While I may be holding onto a medium that’s nearing obsolescence, let’s face it: The web just cannot replicate (yet) the experience of curling up on the couch to a good story in the New York Times magazine. Maybe I have too much time on my hands, but this experience is no different than engaging in your favorite novel — an experience an e-reader like the Kindle has not yet been able to reproduce.

Romanticism aside, print versions of newspapers and magazines are practical in these ways:

1.  No connection required. With my Sunday New York Times I don’t have to worry about how fast the Internet is moving today.  I can take it with me to school, work or the park and get same the reading experience.

2. Fewer distractions.  Ads are synonymous with the word Internet nowadays, and they run rampant on news websites, too.  They have video and sound.  They flash and race across the screen, and for some things they’re ubiquitous.  You’re bombarded with ads when reading T Magazine online, for example, at every turn… literally.  It’s frustrating.

3.  Usability. I don’t need the latest Firefox plug-in to read my New York Times, and my hand isn’t useless after scrolling through a 5,000 article.  Simply, paper in your hands is easier to scan and flip through than navigating a web page.

These three reasons aren’t enough to make a case for not cutting print editions, but before we get out that guillotine, we should examine the benefits of print editions.  Why do people buy them?  I bought my Sat-Sun NY Times edition so I could get the magazines, which, to me, are worth the money; I pay $3/week. I also want to keep the superior stories or issues.

Reading them online isn’t the same because the photos don’t impact me as much, and those pesky ads are a hassle.  And reading the magazines’ exposes are next-to-impossible online because of the reels and reels of text I have to scroll through.

If anything, the above reasons talk about the limitations of the web and what we need to improve before we give up on print.  How can the news media make websites more intimate and convenient?  Only after answering that question should we even think about doing away with print.  The day that happens, though, I may just shed a tear.

(I definitely acknowledge the ways in which the web is better than print, but to me they are two different beasts and should be handled differently.  They should complement each other.)

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