Advertising Age ran a piece this week called Newspaper Death Watch. I find it quite ironic that it appeared in the print version, but the content of this article amuses me even more. It’s true that the industry is getting its collective ass kicked by internet news, RSS, mobile phone content and other factors–ad revenues are down across the board and the revenues companies find online aren’t as satisfying as the rates for a print ad in WSJ at its peak.

A look beyond the headline of this Ad Age piece reveals a practice I have loathed from the beginning of my days as a writer–the desperately sensational headline which is directly contradicted by the content of the article. For starters, the Ad Age piece quotes Jeffrey Cole, director of the Center for the Digital Future at the University of Southern California at Annenberg, who predicts the industry has twenty years left in it. Hardly a rallying call to throw in the towel. While there’s a major market correction going on in the print world, it is by no means time to call in the newsprint version of Doctor Kervorkian just yet. Continue reading Advertising Age on the Death of Newspapers →