Snailpapers as a term of endearment for print newspapers? The coiner of the word says yes and here's why!
I have come up with a new term for print newspapers -- I call them snailpapers -- and I really created the word as a term of endearment and not derision (although I admit some people might think I am dissing I love print, love paper, loves print newspapers, and I created the term to help fight the demise of print newspapers. I coined the the word lovingly, as a term of endearment, although I also see how some might think I am belittling the print papers. I am not. I am on the side of Mr Paper and snailpapers everywhere, and this new word is my way to bring attention to their plight, in a humorous and loving
way. Long live the snailpapers of the world, even though they come to our doors in the morning with news that is 12 hours old already!
way. Long live the snailpapers of the world, even though they come to our doors in the morning with news that is 12 hours old already!
posted by dan at 7:05 PM
4 Comments:
Kirk, well said, and well written editorial. I agree with 100 percent of what you wrote. Danny in Taiwan, reading as fast as I can. The iTab might be a gamechanger, yes, and also save the press. As a longtime practitioner of the snailpaper kind, printer’s ink in my veins, I hope so. I would hate to see snailpapers go the way of the dodo bird. Hopefully, the iTab will be the savior!
One note, though, Kirk, about free. Rich biz people shell out money for WSJ and other reads like the Economist because they can deduct the subscription from their expense accounts as a write off for tax purposes, so tthey can afford to buy such reading websites. Most of us poor church mice cannot afford it. That’s need to be pointed out. Right?
comments offline from top PHD prof says:
“We have aways had news sources with different temporal characteristics. It really didnt start getting real time until broadcasting arrived.
Before that newspapers were quick, magazines slower, news annuals and books about news events much slower.The problem for newspapers today is to accept the fact they no longer have speed on their side and to adjust their content accordingly.”
I share your love of the trade, but not the medium itself. The environmental considerations aside, by the time I finally was seeing the news in my print paper I had moved on to fresher stuff being delivered in podcasts and on the web. I dropped my local paper a year or more ago, and that was months before immediate news feeds like Stitcher were being delivered on the iPhone. Much as I regret the upheavals going on in my former beloved profession, the realities are what they are.
TV news, of course, I dropped when Walter Cronkite retired.
A second-generation (ex)newspaperman...
HB, good comments, thanks
danny in Tokyo/Taiwan
Dan Bloom has come up with a new word for newspapers. He calls them “snailpapers.” Only the longtime newspaperman insists this is a term of endearment, not derision. He thinks maybe if newspapers poked more fun at themselves instead of getting all righteously indignant about new media, they would generate more sympathy. More on his blog.
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