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Reading A Paper Really Says 'I Can't Afford An iPad'
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The Newspaper Association of America, the trade group that promotes advertising in print, is doing a new campaign that tries to sell the act of reading a printed newspaper as sexy. This is not a joke. They're trying to get across that being seen reading a newspaper makes the reader seem smart, which they conflate with sexy. In the small print, they include the online versions of the newspapers, but the idea is to try to keep the print version alive. I think they know it's over, but they don't want to go down without a fight. And there's a lot more competition for them online. Once they stop considering themselves "newspapers" and start considering themselves local news organizations for which the medium is less relevant than the content, they'll start to make headway in the new age. Certainly, I wouldn't want to be without newspapers, which provide a lot of material for this column. But hanging on to the old ways isn't helping. At least, have you seen a printed newspaper lately? The phrase "shadow of its former self" comes to mind. (New York Times)
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