PDF To the Rescue...Helping the Newspaper Industry

Because we all have shared interests in pressing issues…



Home



SE Video



About



Contact SharedEmergency

PDF To The Rescue…Helping The Newspaper Industry

2009 April 1tags:Communication,Journalism,Media, Newspapers,Technology by Mitch Chester

As newspapers seem to drop into financial abyss week after week across the United States, we all share theemergency that journalism will lose some of its most effective vehicles for keeping the nation well informed. For those that do not care,

think again

. A vanished press means more undiscovered corruption, less understood societaltrends, the diminishment of community bonds and the unweaving of an intelligent population, to name just a fewconsequences.

News flash…

economics is killing America’s once vibrant and diversified print media. Newsroomand freelance staff cuts, smaller editions, closed bureaus, mass layoffs and shuttered papers are cascading into aninformation disaster. Newspapers still,and will always, play a crucial role in preserving our democracy, but they area threatened species.

Update:

There is a simple solution.

There are many unique, ground-breaking and complex answers currently under consideration to solve thisissue, anda whole host of reasons why each solution may or may not be economically feasible. But with all the fears of avanishing press, it’s time to focus on the positive…what well-established technology can do to fix an increasing print media void.

There is one exciting, but simple, opportunity that deserves serious exploration…your newspaper can bedelivered via PDF document, to your computer, at any time of the day regardless of the user’s operatingsystem, hardware or even software.

Take, for example, what you can see right now onGuardian.co.uk . Three British newspapers,

The Guardian

,

The Guardian Limited

and

The Observer

offer an on-linedelivery model (for off-line reading) which has not yet caught on in America, but perhaps it should. By giving you the opportunity to print, on 8.5 x 11 paper, color or black and white copies of newspaper content (full articles, pictures, pictures and ads), you choose what you want to publish and how. The

G24

selection on the Guardian siteincludes the latest news stories, business reports, sports features and media articles. Each section is several pages long, prints out with quality, and can be taken anywhere toread, with or without a computer, and at your leisure and comfort.

With PDF (portable document format) delivery, expenses can be slashed. No longer would the traditional newspaper require trucks and drivers, insurance for vehicles, fuelfor transport, huge quantities of ink and tons of newsprint. Readers can down load their daily papers at home, or at the office. Businesses can still sell papers, but producethem on site for their customers. The carbon footprint of the traditional newspaper can be significantly reduced with this inexpensive process. What’s more, papers can stillcharge for subscriptions while employing targeted advertising for maximum customer impact and revenues. PDF delivery isan obvious approach to attack the exponentiallyincreasing budgetary demands newspaper publishers face every day and which gone unchecked, may result in cities and towns without their traditional local paper.

G24

is nothing less than revolutionary, yet surprisingly simple, and based upon the the universally accepted open source PDF format which was first developed in 1993 byAdobe. It’s an old, but obvious, tool to tackle a new problem. Put another way, the newspaper is using high quality color desktop publishing to give you a customizednewspaper you can assemble in mere seconds, and delivered to your printer when you want, and as much as you wish. The content can be updated several times a day.

The United Kingdom is not alone in using PDF as a low-cost but creative news content delivery system. According to M

ediaLifeMagazine.com

, PDF has been used todeliver news content in Canada by the

Toronto Star

.

Makes you wonder, why not here? Imagine the

New York Times

or

your local paper delivered in this format. No morelarge and unwieldy news print to turn or fumble with.

If reporter positions and responsible editorial content can be preserved because outdated delivery overhead and expenses can be eliminated, the news gathering process will be less threatened and has a better chance to thrive. The Internet, rather than being an enemy of the press can be facilitated by a Web 3.0 that serves to

preserve

your local

Herald

,

Gazette

, or

Times Union

.

As editors and publishers seek the to frame the architecture of future newspapers, PDF delivery is a worthy area forimplementation in an effort to save the American newspaper.

Edit This from

→

Communication,Journalism,Media, Newspapers,Technology

My Account My Dashboard New Post Edit Post Blog Info

→

Page 1of 8PDF To The Rescue…Helping The Newspaper Industry «6/27/2009http://sharedemergency.wordpress.com/2009/04/01/pdf-to-the-rescuehelping-the-newspape...