In a digital world, print shows it still matters

CLOSE

To paraphrase the unfortunate soul in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” who gets fireman-carried out to be dumped on a cart with a bunch of victims of the Black Plague, print is not dead.

In fact, it’s getting better.

With so much emphasis on digital journalism, sometimes we forget the impact good ol’ paper and ink can have — and how much people still appreciate it.

The past week, however, brought print newspapers back into the public consciousness, as two tabloids and the nation’s most esteemed broadsheet all used their front pages to react to events they cover.

On Dec. 3, the New York Daily News, never inclined to shy away from provocative covers, took tweets by political figures offering thoughts and prayers in the wake of the shooting in San Bernardino, California, and said in a headline, “God isn’t fixing this.”

On Dec. 5, the New York Times published an editorial on its front page, the first op-ed to run on the paper’s front since 1920. The editorial urged more action on the part of government officials to end gun violence in the United States — a more measured response than that of its tabloid counterpart, but no less controversial.

Closer to home, the Philadelphia Daily News on Dec. 8 took a photo of Donald Trump with an upraised hand and gave it the headline “The New Furor” — drawing on its proud tradition of puns with punch to compare the billionaire presidential candidate to Adolf Hitler after he pledged to keep Muslims out of the U.S. (Full disclosure: That headline came from Joe Berkery, a Daily News copy editor whose wife is employed by the Courier-Post.)

The New York Daily News a day later continued the Trump-as-Der Furher comparison, with a caricature of Trump lopping off the head of the Statue of Liberty.

Whether you agree or not with each of these covers, their ability to generate attention and start conversations can’t be denied. Pundits debated the merits and motivations behind each one; they were shared and posted all over social media.

The sheer durability of print — it’s tangible, something you see on a newsstand and can hold in your hand, something you can hang on your bulletin board or save in a scrapbook — lends it a gravitas digital just doesn’t have. World Series champions can’t hold up a webpage while riding in a victory parade and a screenshot that might be changed as information changes or a news story evolves just isn’t the same as that image, those words on a real, live, inky page.

And maybe those of us who’ve long evangelized the power of the printed word are finally being heard in the wilderness of the worldwide Web.

In a story headlined “Print is the new ‘new media,’” the Columbia Journalism Review took note of a handful of news outlets that have made the seemingly counterintuitive transition from digital to print, including Tablet, Politico and CNET.

Tech news site ReCode noted in a Dec. 8 post that Apple, the great disrupter whose gadgets have forever changed the way we consume our news, is tweaking its news app.

“In the morning and in the afternoon, Apple will assemble a handful of stories it thinks all of its users would want to see,” ReCode wrote.

“You know — like a newspaper.”

I feel better already.

Phaedra Trethan: (856) 486-2417; ptrethan@gannettnj.com