According to the New York Times: “Another day, another closure. Magazines are becoming thinner as advertising pages fall, and publishers are grimly cutting underperforming titles.”
But the article, “Mostly Gloom for Glossies,” is interesting not because it reports market conditions already well known to the readers of this blog. But because the print version is a static chart that highlights the plights of six glossy magazines while showing lines marking two dozen other magazines.
It’s that the online version is much more useful for being interactive. You can click on each magazine, and more clearly see the trend of its advertising pages — many more were flat than were apparent in the print version of the chart, and flat during this economy is actually good news.
It’s an example of what online can do much better than print.
It’s also an example of reporting that requires far less actual writing. (This post contains more copy than the Times article.) Even as the article compiles a lot of data.