« hybrid | main | I s RSS a bad idea? »
"I think that general-interest magazines may well be fated to fade away. General-interest anything is probably cursed. For the truth is that interest never was as general editors and publishers thought it was, back in the mass-media age. Old media just assumed we were interested in what they told us to be interested in. But we weren’t. We’re proving that with every new choice the internet enables."
Reading the Jeff Jarvis piece you linked to carefully, I found it ironic that he complained about the stacks of magazines piled up that he didn't have time to read, but that he was simultaneously making pronouncements about what was in those magazines. This is more than just a debating point: why pay much attention to someone who is, by their own admission, relatively ignorant? I read TIME and find myself better informed because of it.
I totally don't buy his argument that general interest anything is probably cursed, and offer as a case in point the firstpost.co.uk magazine you linked up last week. It's very much like USAToday (another pub that's not going away) in both feel and news gathering methodology.