Sign of the Times: Newsweek Abandons Print

The cover of Newsweek's first edition in 1933.

For good or ill, it seems an historic tipping point has been reached, as Newsweek magazine announces its exit from paper-and-ink format:

We are announcing this morning an important development at Newsweek and The Daily Beast. Newsweek will transition to an all-digital format in early 2013. As part of this transition, the last print edition in the United States will be our Dec. 31 issue.

Meanwhile, Newsweek will expand its rapidly growing tablet and online presence, as well as its successful global partnerships and events business.

Newsweek Global, as the all-digital publication will be named, will be a single, worldwide edition targeted for a highly mobile, opinion-leading audience who want to learn about world events in a sophisticated context. Newsweek Global will be supported by paid subscription and will be available through e-readers for both tablet and the Web, with select content available on The Daily Beast.

Andrew Sullivan, whose Daily Dish blog appears on the Daily Beast website, is anxious to trash all printed media right away. An excerpt from his longish meditation on this subject:

The shift in my own mind has happened gradually. Even up to a year ago, I was still getting my New York Times every morning on paper, wrapped in blue plastic. Piles of them would sit in my blog-cave, read and half-read, skimmed, and noted.

Until a couple of years ago, I also read physical books on paper, and then shifted to cheaper, easier, lighter tablet versions. Then it became a hassle to get the physical NYT delivered in Provincetown so I tried a summer of reading it on a tablet. I now read almost everything on my iPad. And as I ramble down the aisle of Amtrak's Acela, I see so many reading from tablets or laptops, with the few newspapers and physical magazines seeming almost quaint, like some giant brick of a mobile phone from the 1980s. Almost no one under 30 is reading them. One day, we'll see movies with people reading magazines and newspapers on paper and chuckle. Part of me has come to see physical magazines and newspapers as, at this point, absurd. They are like Wile E Coyote suspended three feet over a cliff for a few seconds. They're still there; but there's nothing underneath; and the plunge is vast and steep. . . .

Print magazines today are basically horses and carriages, a decade after the car had gone into mass production. Why the fuck do they exist at all, except as lingering objects of nostalgia?

Your Head Trucker thought about writing a short eulogy here for the printed word, which sustained his spirit for so many years - but the modern world has no sympathy for such tristesse over antiquities like books and magazines, so I'll just keep my thoughts to myself. Besides - it's all about the money, anyway, as it always is.

Bonus: Just for fun, a report from 1981 on the future of online newspapers, then just barely a reality for a select few, as television was in the 1930's:

Right Wing Ruckus over the Gays

The right wing has its knickers all in a knot this week over them awful gays. So what else is new? Jeezus, don't those people ever think about anything else? Keith Olbermann has the definitive report:

As HRC reports, first it was rock 'n' roll oldtimer Pat Boone scratching a hate letter in the mud with these comments:

...there is a real, unbroken line between the jihadist savagery in Mumbai and the hedonistic, irresponsible, blindly selfish goals and tactics of our homegrown sexual jihadists.

Hmm. Now just what would a sexual jihad look like, I wonder? What a maroon.

Next, after that inspirational note the right wing is deluging Newsweek with fire-and-brimstone letters over their great cover story this week on "The Religious Case for Gay Marriage," which exposes the illogic of upholding so-called "Biblical standards of marriage," when in point of fact marriage in Biblical times is something nobody wants to go back to. Bravo, Newsweek!

Here's a link to hear the mag's religion editor, Lisa Miller, talking with HRC's Joe Solmonese about the bombardment of rightwing hate mail over the story:

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid4576406001/bctid4653963001

Go check out the stories at the HRC site, send an email, make a donation. God will love you for it.

America Loves the Gays

Two men marry in Connecticut on November 12th (Newsweek)

. . . at least more than they used to. Newsweek has just polled 1,006 Americans and got these encouraging results:

the latest NEWSWEEK Poll finds growing public support for gay marriage and civil unions—and strong backing for the granting of certain rights associated with marriage, to same-sex couples. (Click here to see the full poll.)

Americans continue to find civil unions for gays and lesbians more palatable than full-fledged marriage. Fifty-five percent of respondents favored legally sanctioned unions or partnerships, while only 39 percent supported marriage rights. Both figures are notably higher than in 2004, when 40 percent backed the former and 33 percent approved of the latter.

When it comes to according legal rights in specific areas to gays, the public is even more supportive. Seventy-four percent back inheritance rights for gay domestic partners (compared to 60 percent in 2004), 73 percent approve of extending health insurance and other employee benefits to them (compared to 60 percent in 2004), 67 percent favor granting them Social Security benefits (compared to 55 percent in 2004) and 86 percent support hospital visitation rights (a question that wasn't asked four years ago).

In other areas, too, respondents appeared increasingly tolerant. Fifty-three percent favor gay adoption rights (8 points more than in 2004), and 66 percent believe gays should be able to serve openly in the military (6 points more than in 2004).

Despite the recently approved state measures, public opinion nationally has shifted against a federal ban on same-sex marriage. In 2004, people were evenly divided on the question, with 47 percent favoring a constitutional amendment prohibiting gay marriage and 45 percent opposing one.

In the latest poll, however, 52 percent oppose a ban and only 43 percent favor one. When respondents were asked about state measures, the numbers were closer: 45 percent said they'd vote in favor of an amendment outlawing gay marriage in their states, while 49 percent said they'd oppose such a measure. . . .

One reason that tolerance for gay marriage and civil unions may be on the rise is that a growing number of Americans say they know someone who's gay. While in 1994, a NEWSWEEK Poll found that only 53 percent of those questioned knew a gay or lesbian person, that figure today is 78 percent.

Drilling down a bit more, 38 percent of adults work with someone gay, 33 percent have a gay family member and 66 percent have a gay friend or acquaintance.