The Future Of Publishing Blog by Thad McIlroy

Literacy and the Future of Publishing

December 30th, 2008

Literacy and the Future of Publishing

If you’ve examined my short essay on the subject of literacy and the future of publishing you will find it both brief and dated (although, arguably, this subject does not evolve rapidly). I’ve been meaning for some time to recommend the TED site…what richness lies there! When it comes to the subject of literacy, Dave…

December 24th, 2008

It’s Not Just Reporters Losing Their Jobs

New York City, ever self-fixated, is treating the current downturn in the newspaper and magazine industries as a tragedy affecting mainly itself (oh yes, and a few folks in Chicago and LA), forgetting that this recession spreads far beyond its narrow borders. An article yesterday in Canada’s The Globe & Mail (the rough equivalent of…

December 23rd, 2008

Does the Kindle Set Fire to Books?

Gosh am I slow on the uptake! Here I am in an unseasonably cold Vancouver, BC winter, each night placing kindling under the larger fire logs to ensure they’ll ignite. I just looked for a definition of kindle and find “kindled – ignited: set afire; ‘the ignited paper’; ‘a kindled fire.’” So is that the…

December 13th, 2008

Sam Zell can go to ….

Where the …. is the outrage at what Sam Zell has perpetrated in his financial manoeuvrings that have brought The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune and 23 television stations into bankruptcy? The aptly-named “Grave Dancer” has just dug a mass-grave for thousands of innocents who work these enterprises. The New York Times first report…