Michael Wolff:
But one effect of its Internet traffic and notoriety and the ensuing attention of cable news shows is that the original Allbritton idea for a Capitol Hill paper—one that now largely reprints Internet content—has become, with its special-interest-size circulation of 32,000, a major success. Internet cachet, in other words, has enabled a tabloid-size print version of Politico (also called Politico) to thrive and more than double the company’s revenues.
I’ll have more on the piece later, but this particular bit above reminded me of the newspaper prototype Dave Eggers and McSweeney’s are putting together for the fall. A lot of the pessimism surrounding print has been slightly misguided, I think. Printed, general-interest newspapers may not have a future, but that’s because it’s a combination that can’t compete with online media. Printed media, if done well and in the right context, can still thrive.