Toaster Status and the Wall Street Journal – Must Read

It was 1963, a golden age for newspapers. Budgets were high, TV a threat but not enough to take advertisers money. Photographers had stopped carrying around fake birds to frame shots and the Internet was only a word circulating through the deepest geek circles.

Then one morning, in the depths of San Francisco’s financial district, a young 23-year-old journalist was hired by the Wall Street Journal. Green, ambitious and full of energy, the young reporter worked his way to the top.

Now after 26 years, managing editor Paul E Steiger is packing his bags and moving on.

But unlike some exits, Paul took the time not to reflect just on his own career, but on the industry itself.

In just shy of 2,500 words, Paul laid out the history of the modern newspaper and the threat the Internet poses. It is a must read.

Best quote?

After a print journalist suggests the Journal give away its online content for free an online editor responded, “It relegated their site to “toaster status,” as in savings banks giving away cheap gifts for opening an account.”

And obviously the online guy won.

Esquire Napkin Project

Looking at recent multimedia happenings today and found Esquire’s Napkin Fiction Project.

It’s ingenious.

Here is their take.

It’s an old story, we figured. Someone, in a bar somewhere, scribbling on a napkin in the failing afternoon light; the kind of story or list or note that might be crammed in a pocket and pulled out years later to tell something deep and forgotten — perhaps life’s most intimate first chapter, nearly lost forever. So we gave this spontaneous medium a shot. We put 250 napkins in the mail to writers from all over the country — some with a half dozen books to their name, others just finishing their first. In return, we got nearly a hundred stories. We present most of them here — from lush to spare, hilarious to terrifying.

Anyhow, spend a few minutes and check it out. I lost almost an hour reading, laughing constantly of course. (This is Esquire you know)