The Sky is Falling, It’s the End of Print, Etc. (And I Feel Fine)

January 14, 2009 • 12:48 am • POSTED BY Adam Flanagan

I sort of blame myself for all the hysteria going on in the press right now about the economy, the automotive industry, the publishing industry, you name it. As many of you know I went on a bit of a rough patch bender early last year, and well, since then the world has been falling apart. The sky is falling. Sorry. Who really cares though? Chin up. Let’s put our head in the ground and walk on the clouds, what else do we have to lose? This is what we needed. I’m hear to tell you that 2009 is going to be a great year, because the world revolves around me. So let’s whip up some mass hysteria that 2009 is set to be a record year for all of those people that surround Adam Flanagan. If mass-hysteria can actually influence negative outcomes, why can’t the inverse happen?

Here’s my theory. A lot of this hysteria about the world ending, and other such establishments coming to a close really has me excited. Not because I’m a negative person and I can’t wait for this whole ship to sink to the bottom of the ocean, but because it’s times like these that offer chances for the little people, who have nothing to lose, to achieve greatness. A nice example of this is Apple. Remember when Napster had all those record executives crapping their pants and running for the door with lawsuits for college kids in their hands? That was awesome, unless  you were one of those college kid scapegoats, and what did it give us? The iPod, which led to the iPhone, which helped revitalize the success of Apple, a computer company that was the underdog rival of big bully Microsoft. They had nothing to lose and decided to go for it. In the end, the record industry and recording artists are still around. Kanye can still afford his Louis Vuitton, and I can’t even remember the last time I actually illegally downloaded an entire album, but I’m not paying $17.99 for a 12-song CD at Best Buy. We all ended up in a better place.

The country just went through 8 years of the worst presidency of my life, and since 1981 (most of my life) we’ve either had a Bush or a Clinton in the White House in some form or fashion. What did that give us, Barack Obama, an African American president, definitely the greatest accomplishment of the USA in my generation.

Rising oil prices and global warming are signaling the downfall of the automotive industry, and an influx of people moving to urban areas. Thank goodness, cars are expensive, and the suburbs sucked. I actually doubt automakers will go away. Some underdog genius is going to come along with his Mr. Fusion strapped to a DeLorean and change everything. I can’t wait.

You might be asking yourself what exactly brought on this cheering supportive rant for the end of industries? For the last 10 years or so, since I decided to choose graphic design as my art school major, people have been talking about the “end of print.” It wasn’t just because of that surfer-cum-designer David Carson and his grunge, illegible aesthetic. It was also the advent of the internet, then that bubble burst. My dreams of an entry-level $60k salary, with a slight knowledge of HTML turned to an entry-level $25k salary with a slight knowledge of Flash. Finally, people have been talking about it again, and I might actually get the chance to see a sort-of-kind-of, not really, death of print. I’m speaking mostly of those articles on blogs, and even magazines and newspapers, about the end of magazines and newspapers.

The one potential death of print victim that truly has interested me most, and seems to be commonly discussed, is the end of the New York Times. I’m the reader who only buys the Sunday Edition, mostly for the Magazine, and reads the rest of the week on his iPhone for free (with ads). I appreciate the paper, but come on, do we really need the weekly paper? Any idea how much paper that uses, how many trees are cut down to print those papers? Me neither, but I know you’re a green-sustainable-conscious type of person who was just about to curse me for wanting to get rid of your weekly left-leaning newspaper. Hypocrite.

I realize Des Moines might lose it’s Des Moines Register along with many other smaller cities, sorry Mom and Dad. Yes, I understand those are jobs that are being lost. Adam Garcia and I even discussed in-depth the potential impact this has on the class-divide for those with internet and those without. We agreed that we like the potential renaissance of the town-crier. Ultimately new opportunities will come around, people will find new roles, jobs, and means of getting the news that are probably going to be way better.

About the New York Times, The Atlantic recently published an article, End Times, by Michael Hirschorn, hypothesizing what it would be like if the NY Times ceased printing in May. Which was then dismissed by Condé Nast Portfolio in an online story for it’s blog Market Movers. Both articles I read online, and I liked The Atlantic article the best, because Portfolio had one of those annoying advertisements that slide across the screen and are impossible to close. Then New York magazine went and published a story about how it’s actually the future of the New York Times that we’re witnessing. Once again, I read the article online, before my actual printed “outside of New York” subscriber edition even got to my doorstep. The New Journalism: Goosing the Gray Lady, by Emily Nussbaum, discusses how these programmers/artists/journalists with fancy buzz word titles are attempting to forge the future of the NYT by creating online experiences like Faces of the Dead, while also looking very far into the future by imagining and creating new technologies for experiencing the news. I particularly like the pseudo-joke experiment of the print-on-demand news kiosk.

Could it be that the NYT, one of the giants of the newspaper industry, is actually an underdog saving itself? The unfortunate problem is that the NYT hasn’t actually figured out how to make money off the internet yet. Perhaps it’s on a Googlesque, Web 2.0, path of create the technology, then figuring out how to profit from it once everyone can’t live without it. Maybe there’s a solution in one of Stephen Colbert’s recent guest’s book, The Tyranny of Dead Ideas: Letting Go of the Old Ways of Thinking to Unleash a New Prosperity. Yes, that  Colbert link was to Hulu.com, the future of television entertainment, which still has our classic advertising, but in a nicer smaller dose. I guess we just need to let go of some of those old ideas, and just move on.

Okay, so what’s my point? I’m saying you turn that frown upside down, because these shitty times are full of great opportunities. It’s this moment right here when the underdogs can take a risk and move past those old giants. Watch out Crispin Porter+Bogusky, Wieden+Kennedy, JDK, Fallon, Duffy, and Ogilvy, because there are some underdogs in this industry too. We’ve got very little to lose, and we realize this is our chance, an opportunity to take a risk and make a jump that could let us stand on your shoulders. Trust me, 2009 is going to be great.