I’ve thought for a while now that the last best hope for newspapers and magazines was some sort of e-reader or tablet, that could present a reasonable facsimile of a publication but eliminate most of the production and delivery costs. Plus, the Web/computer has seriously wounded reading (as opposed to scanning or grazing). It’s a terrible medium for it and we need something better.
Like what Sports Illustrated has whipped up for a demo. It’s interactive, but it’s still recognizably a magazine. It’s pretty awesome. Watch SI‘s editor demo it here:
I’d subscribe to that, wouldn’t you? Get a move on, Apple. (h/t Stephanie Clifford)
— The New York Observer reports that Rupert Murdoch is throwing $15 million into a new New York City edition of The Wall Street Journal with a former New York Sun deputy editor at the helm. Says John Koblin, who got the scoop:
Mr. Murdoch, who was an admirer of Mr. Seeley’s former paper, seems intent on creating a New York Sun on steroids.
Murdoch wants the Journal to be a first-read newspaper, which it’s never been. It remains to be seen how seriously the Times will have to worry about that. That will depend on what portion of that $15 million goes to the newsroom and whether it’s an annual amount or just a startup number. Because that kind of bread can pay a lot of reporters’ salaries.
— The NYT has a smart, interesting story on how the weakened dollar has affected the National Hockey League, of all things:
…the landscape in Canada has changed drastically, because of a rise of more than 50 percent in the Canadian dollar since 2002. A stronger currency has made it cheaper for the six Canadian teams to pay their players in United States dollars and to reduce debts. It has also inflated the revenue of the six Canadian franchises and, in turn, the league’s revenue. That has hurt some of the weaker teams in the United States by pushing up the minimum amount teams must spend on payroll.
But it could have been better. The story is too sports-focused. A nice broadening graph or two saying how what’s happening in the NHL is playing out in other aspects of American/Canadian trade would have been great.
UPDATE: Fixed the NHL part of the headline a couple of minutes after posting to focus on the dollar, not the loonie.
Ryan Chittum is a former Wall Street Journal reporter, and deputy editor of The Audit, CJR’s business section. If you see notable business journalism, give him a heads-up at rc2538@columbia.edu. Follow him on Twitter at @ryanchittum.