My favorite Steve Martin riff from the era when comedy was something you bought on 33 1/3 RPM vinyl records was his tips on how you, too, can become a millionaire and never pay taxes!*...."First, get a million dollars..." Well, Dave Eggers (top) got a wad of cash for writing a best seller memoir called "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius," but he's actually paying it back, in part, by trying things that we mere working-stiff non-millionaire mortals can't. He threw his proceeds back into his love for writing, founding the cutting-edge literary journal McSweeney's. So what's his latest cutting edge project?
Not just any newspaper -- but one with the kind of long articles you used to get a generation ago, with literary journalism by the likes of Stephen King and even some bona fide investigative reporting by former Philadelphia Inquirer ace Bob Porterfield (UPDATE: co-authored by Patricia Decker -- sorry for the earlier omission). Is there a catch? The San Francisco Panorama will only publish one time, ever. Its cover price? $16.
"The Panorama is a perfect partner," says Michael Stoll, a former reporter and editor at the Examiner and Philadelphia Inquirer who is now the Public Press' project director and has been a key liaison on the Bay Bridge piece. "They share the same love of the medium but haven't joined the stampede that has given up print for dead."
The Porterfield investigation will encompass more than 10,000 words and half a dozen graphic elements, split between a main piece and several sidebars. It's the kind of thing, Eggers notes, that is hard to do online. This, in turn, suggests a multi-platform approach, in which Twitter or Web updates are used for breaking news and print becomes an outlet for analysis and commentary. "The only thing that doesn't work," Stoll says, "is a single-media strategy."
I have to give Eggers a lot of credit for thinking outside the honor box -- while one-time-only, $16 editions aren't a strategy for saving newspapers, maybe some people in the business will pick this up and get inspired again about great journalism, about what might work in the more traditional print format, and what doesn't. On the other hand, my fear is that Eggers' extravaganza won't help journalism at all -- but offer us a sad, expensive reminder of what used to be and what could have been.
* Garbled joke re-telling fixed from original version, thanks to interestingly named commenter "Masswhole."
As we are lectured by journalists that we need to embrace all this change, they are the ones who go kicking and screaming into change. Change for you, but not for me.— jmc
'Newspaper' and 'genius' should never be found together in a sentence, nor should 'great' and 'journalism' except with regard to the independent media. Now please don your kneepads and return to genuflecting at the crotch of your corporate masters.— JC Denton- Uh, JC, I think you're new here -- go back and read the archives.— will
Comment removed.- Good point -- who remember stuff from the '70s. I'll fix it.— will
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- "The San Francisco Panorama will only punish one time, ever". Unfortunately, Bunch will continue to punish his readers for some time.— Joe Funk
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- When are we going to get the article about Harry Reid stiffling debate on an important bill and spewing falsehoods on the floor of the Senate showing his incompetance and ignorance?— reddog44
- Doesn't he have about 60 years of Republican falsehoods to catch up on first, reddog? I wanted to be a journalist when I was younger, but I could see the way newspapers were going and the fact that the American public cares less about truth and more about rhetoric. I'm spending my time and money now to get an education that will make me marketable in other countries. The citizenry has stagnated and is making the mistakes that past empires have made. It's a scary proposition for the future of the U.S.— HandNik
- Longshanks is at it again. When liberals lie it's journalism. When conservatives do it it's propaganda. This profit above else mentality you speak of is a weak attempt at discrediting capitalism. The "profit is evil" crowd overlook the fact that it is the profit motive that drives innovation and the economy as a whole. Let me ask you LS, do you collect a paycheck for your labor? Bad news pal, that's profit. Don't be angry because some people have chosen lines of work that get them bigger checks than you.— pjsz1261
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Is $16 some magic figure on the right? That's what Sarah Palin charges her idiot fans to pose with them for a photo.— Hamlet- How about fistgate? I think that's the next story "journalists" wont cover becasue he's a member of the Obama Administration when if it were a republican, it would all headlines all the time. Not an important story, the head of "safe Schools" is handing out deviant sex kits and hiding it from the public. Very fasco-liberal. This is how public opinion is formed in this country folks. The media is nothing more than a propaganda tool in the time honored tradition of josef Goebbels— tr88
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Will Bunch, a senior writer at the Philadelphia Daily News, blogs about his obsessions, including national and local politics and world affairs, the media, pop music, the Philadelphia Phillies, soccer and other sports, not necessarily in that order.
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