I just read in the plane a few days ago that the Rocky Mountain News, a Denver area newspaper was going to close down for good, a few months before its 150th anniversary. "Due to evolutions in the media business, the article said..." You bet! Everywhere in the world it's the same. I thought this shop would illustrate this downturn perfectly. I also thought to myself, "What would Gutenberg think if he could see that more than 500 years after his fabulous invention (he is said to have invented the printing process circa 1450), the ink has now turned virtual!?" FYI, I took this shot on rue de Savoie in the 6th arrondissement.
OOO I love your door photos!! This one is especially good. I love the blue.
ReplyDeleteThat;s a sad photo of a sad situation Eric. I know it very well of course. Newspapers closing all over.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, it's a wonderful photo of this poor doorway with its crumbling paint etc.
Lynn is underneath me! YAY!
ReplyDeleteYou're right, it is worldwide. The San Franciso Chronicle (the only local newspaper here) might be for sale, too, in a couple of months.
ReplyDeleteI think I know where you took that picture. I used to live nearby, right above a library. 20-some years later, it's become an Internet cafe. Seems appropriate ;)
LOL Suzy. Well...I don't quite know what to say ;) .... snigger.
ReplyDeleteI think this is the way things go sometimes. I know that I don't buy the newspaper, (not that I did before) but I read my news on the internet. I don't even watch the news on TV --mainly because of all the commercials for "try this drug to cure one thing and don't worry about the six other side effects that come with it". It is sad, but times do change.
ReplyDeleteI still love my New York Times delivered everyday to read with my coffee. I even buy books!!! I listened to a program on NPR that said libraries are going to be A THING OF THE PAST, AnD BOOKSELLERS ARE RECEIVING CHEAP BOOKS BEING DISCARDED BY LIBRARIES.(sorry for the caps). Ah, it was Larry McMurty who was being interviewed and said that.
ReplyDelete{I hope you're wearing your best French knickers under that crown, ET Suzy.}
ReplyDeleteI love door photos, too! This is a beauty.
The internet is convenient and immediate but there's a certain romance I love about reading a real newspaper, book or magazine. I'm all for continuing the romance as long as possible.
Phx: you buy books?!! Wow. That is so last century. ;)
ReplyDeleteI'm another fan of Paris doors! These are lovely.
ReplyDeleteAs Christie said, it's the way things go sometimes. Things change. It's not reading itself that's disappearing, it's the medium through which we get our reading material. I love books, but I wouldn't mind trying something like a Kindle - one small device can have a few hundred books on it. That saves a lot of trees.
I recently found your blog via Nadege and am enjoying the Paris photos.
ReplyDeleteThis was recently in the Economist online, about electronic books and newspapers ... thought it relevant to your post and comments.
http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13109804
Cheers.
The daily paper here just downsized to a smaller format, more like a tabloid size. I, too, read most of my news on the internet. But I still read actual printed books (not on Kindle), and some papers and magazines. What would Guttenberg think of all this?
ReplyDeleteI have been following your blog for several weeks and you are on my blog list. Thank you for educating us about Paris each day. I wish I had known about this blog when I was still teaching French.
ReplyDeleteOn the subject of the downturn of printing, two of the four magazine subscriptions that I take have recently stopped publishing just in the last two months. The future of printing seems very ominous.
Merci
As a journalism student that I once was, I remember how our professors used to talk about the internet revolution and how it would be the end of newspapers, books and magazines.
ReplyDeleteI know many newspapers have closed since then, but I don't believe we will ever completely stop using paper. In fact, is it just me or the amount of paper one uses at offices all over the world just keep growing and growing?
The Los Angeles Times, LA's only real daily paper, has drastically shrunk in size and even more so in quality.
ReplyDeleteThere are two ways of thinking about this. One reaction is to stop buying it but there is also another theory that one shouldn't abandon a paper in its time of need. They advise buying copies of it no matter what as the alternative is to have no paper at all.
Suzy -- you go, girl!
ReplyDeleteGreat photo, Eric -- and disturbing subject. I work for two magazines and we talk about this all the time. So far, we're convinced that people will not be reading magazines online in the too near future (mainly because they're very visual). I admit that I do read the NY Times online most days—but it's not really satisfying. As for the Kindle—if I was a student, I'd sure rather carry one Kindle than a bunch of 10-pound textbooks. But I still want an actual book in my hand—one with real pages I can turn. Then I want to put it on the bookshelves and let it (and all the others on the shelves) add their warmth to the room.
I think I'm happy that less trees are being wasted on papers that are just going to be thrown out later in the day. Now a book, that's something you can hold on to for a while. So Mr. Guterberg isn't totally out of the picture. Amazon.com has that new Kindle thing, but I just don't see it being extremely popular.
ReplyDeleteI also love these old Parisien doorways, and I keep photographing them. I think I have hundreds of photos with doorways, windows, balconies etc. :-) There's always a story - like with this beautiful one.
ReplyDeleteI'm a big newspaper and magazine buyer, when I can. As a journalist, you are meant to read most of the papers each day, though that's sometimes hard to do. Generally, I buy the Daily Express, The Guardian and at weekends, the Guardian, the Observer (same paper but on Sundays), The Times, The Telegraph. Sometimes I'll buy the Daily Mirror, which is a tabloid and sensationalist, but is actually well written (a journalist course I went on years ago brought this one out on top for the best writing!) and is important to read to get all views from different viewpoints and to varying targeted markets.
ReplyDeleteMagazines I usually buy if I have written for them or am trying to get into them. I buy Tatler and Marie-Claire mostly. When I lived in a bigger place and was easier to buy foreign publications, I would always buy Paris Match.
The above experience cannot be equalled by reading online in my opinion, though of course in work, a lot of my news comes from the wires or other news sources online.
With the paper I was writing locally having recently closed, it's very close to me, this dire situation. If I had the cash, I'd start up one of my own. It would be a mix of news and features. News on its own is obviously not surviving well, regionally at least.
I like the artistic quality of Eric's photo and also that he is showing us another instance of the persistence of the past in Paris, yet how in this case the specific persistence may have run its course to the end.
ReplyDeleteIt is brilliant that Eric could associate this with the contemporaneous demise of the Rocky Mountain News and other print media.
But he has me thinking how that something else in Paris will logically come to an end and be replaced. It is only a matter of time, however long, before a PDP of the future, as yet unimagined, will have its own GA SUZY raving with enthusiasm every time she sees the successor to the Iron Lady herself.
We can already see hints of this elsewhere in France.
I think that Gutenberg would approve, after all he started it all by inventing(?) the first form of mass communication.
ReplyDeleteWell, the book and newspapers markets are quite in troubles...And this picture is sad. I don't want to read my books on a computer screen as I said before. I love paper! ;)
ReplyDeleteMy father (he is publisher) told me that when the results of the sales were not negative, they could consider themselves as lucky...that's terrible.
SPECIAL MESSAGE TO Jeff, PHX CDG, Petrea, Tall Gary, Carrie and Maria: I received a wonderful postcard yesterday from LAX with kind words from you all. Thanks a million, I'm really touched... I love this PDP thing. A special bond, as PHX said to me :)
So Eric, how is it down under?!
Guille, so glad you got the card! La reine is always in our thoughts.
ReplyDeleteYeah I agree, I want my newspapers and magazines in paper too. It's the only right way. I never read the news online and I could NEVER read a book on a screen either.
ReplyDeleteI love paper and stationeries.
Alors, Eric -- Ou tu es en ce moment??
ReplyDeleteHi Eric! I am sitting here with Haley and she is admiring your photos and so impressed with the amount of bloggers. Gorgeous photo . . . hope you are having fun in KiwiLand.
ReplyDeleteI love the photo.
ReplyDeleteI love my books.
The photo makes me think tho,that history repeats itself.
Mr. Gutenberg's invention was the internet of its day and the beginning of the end of oral histories passed from generation to generation.
Though greatly diminished,oral history didn't end completely, but was rebalanced with the written word, as, I suspect, books will be with the internet.
Beautiful photo. Reminds me of the book "Lost Illusions".
ReplyDeleteIt is such a shame that all these newspapers and magazines are shutting down as online reading booms. Gutenberg would indeed be disappointed. Or perhaps he would applaud the advances in technology. It seems like more and more people are going online to find information on Paris or just about anything else before they check out a newspaper or library.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful picture, regardless!
very interesting thought, Carrie, AS USUAL!
ReplyDeleteI think that perhaps Drummond has a point. We are here right now because we're reading on line, non?
ReplyDeleteOne thing the British love is a newspaper but even here there is a downturn in sales. It is so sad that the physical has been replaced by the virtual byr Drummond has made a valid point, we are still reading and communicating. So long as they never replace photographers!
ReplyDeletesad, really.
ReplyDelete