That’s my quick takeaway, at least, following the Las Vegas CityLife interview with NSFWCorp Editor-in-Chief Paul Carr.
This quote in particular called out to me (re: what some might see as this backward-oriented sense of innovation”):
“They all want to keep their jobs, and the way to do that is by slashing print, because that looks forward-thinking. They’re making ‘tough choices.’ Great, you can make tough choices, but — it’s the Tim Armstrong at AOL thing. He’s great at making tough choices. They’re all stupid, but they’re tough.
No one gets fired for making tough choices. No one gets fired for gambling on the Internet; these are not fireable offenses. Doubling down on print, someone’s getting fired, and then replaced by someone who makes tough choices.
So we’re making tough choices, to do print.
I feel sorry for big media companies, because there’s such an expectation of stability.”
Bold. Yes, very bold. But it’s a smart move in terms of both editorial freedom and, of course, revenue. In fact, NSFWCorp seems to be doing what the nation’s best alt-weeklies have been doing for decades: smart, niche journalism packaged with a smart, humorous angle. And Carr is spot-on when he says that this simple idea actually serves to broaden news writing – not shrink its scope.
So I’ll be watching what sort of content these cats publish in the coming weeks/months. I think it’s an exciting prospect.
And either way, the interview above is full of really killer insights into the current state of our industry.
Sandy 