Editorial:
Paper Is Dear;
Pixels Are Cheap
During the week of July 29, 2007, an announcement to readers of
The New York Times began to appear on the front page of each day’s
newspaper. Framed by a box, the daily announcements were identical.
Beginning on August 6th, readers were notified, the familiar if
sometimes intimidating page size of The Times would be reduced by
margin of one-and-a-half inches in width.
The announcement indicated that this change would bring The Times
into accord with the “national standard” for large-format
newspapers, reducing newsprint costs and making things less difficult
for printing plants that produce various national editions around
the country.
Hollow in the Cheeks
While Robert Langdon,
the prominent symbologist, has ventured that the newly slenderized
Times is part of a subliminal campaign to wage war against the widely
discussed obesity epidemic, most observers saw it simply as a cost-cutting
measure reflecting the general decline of the print newspaper business
in the United States.
When The Times announced its format change, the paper did indicate
that there would be somewhat fewer words on a page, but that the
design would maintain the accustomed feel of the paper. Nowhere,
however, did the paper indicate that its trademark promise, “All
the News That’s Fit to Print,” would be changed to “All
the News That Fits.”
When August 6th arrived and we opened the new, leaner edition, it
felt a bit like meeting an old friend who had been pleasantly plump
after a crash diet; somewhat gaunt, hollow in the cheeks, not completely
healthy looking. With two-thirds of RLTE’s editorial leadership
spending the summer in Truro, Massachusetts, this sense of loss
was exacerbated when we measured The New York Times up against the
less celebrated Cape Cod Times, and found that the Cape Cod paper
was a half-inch wider. This only added to a sense that the paper
of record was now being delivered in miniature.
Troubling Development
The assault on our aesthetic
senses, however, became troublingly more substantive when we reached
The Times’ editorial page. It didn’t take an announcement
to see that the letters to the editor had radically shrunk. Filling
a large part of that first day’s letters section, was a boxed
statement. Despite opening with a dubious piece of “good news,”
the first paragraph of the statement said it all:
“Beginning today, we present a bigger sampling of letters
online, to make up for the reduced size of the print edition of
The Times. The available space for letters in print has been reduced
by about a third.”
The statement went on to talk about the expansion of letters on
line:
“Online, we present a bigger sampling of letters on subjects
of greatest reader interest. And we will run other letters that
were selected for publication but for which there was no room in
the print version.
“All published letters, whether in the printed paper or on
The Times's Web site, may be edited, for accuracy, clarity, grammar,
style and tone. And all letters will be archived and become part
of The Times’s permanent record.”
Phooey! All readers know that for the New York
Times, and other arbiters of truth, print still connotes the gold
standard for solid information. It says so on [their] masthead.
The claim that the paper’s editors are able to decide what
is “Fit to Print” implies that some things are deemed
“Not Fit to Print.”
Like it or not, those letters “selected for publication but
for which there was no room in the print version” may enjoy
a healthy readership, but will not carry the same authority that
results from publication in the paper’s printed pages. By
establishing this new-fangled division among letters, a cultural
class division between digital and print publication will be reinforced
by The Times.
It would be disingenuous for the learned bunch that runs the paper
of record to claim ignorance of the distinction, as they have tirelessly
promoted it for more than a century. “All the News That’s
Fit to Print,” not “All the News That’s Fit to
Upload.”
Paper is dear; pixels are cheap.
When we began publishing Rejected Letters to the Editor, we had
three goals in mind. First, we wanted to publish as many knowledgeable
and farsighted letters as possible, in order to enhance the quality
and substance of public discussion and to expand the visible spectrum
of ideas beyond the customary confines of the commercial news media.
Second, we wanted to encourage newspaper and periodical readers
to become more engaged in the course of human events; to compose
bold, well-informed and visionary letters to the editor, challenging
those editors to learn from the wisdom of public intelligence.
Third, and perhaps most difficult, we wanted to challenge responsible
periodicals to expand the number of pages they devote to vigorous
public expression. The shrinking of the New York Times is a distressing,
if unconscious, sign of the times. The reduction of real estate
available for public expression is a sorrowful step backward when
visionary journalistic steps forward are called for.
Civil
Discourse is Diminished
Jane
O’Shaughnessy spoke perceptively in letter (August 7) that
appeared in the print edition responding, in particular, to the
editorial page’s liposuction.
“In giving up space for letters to the editor in the printed
paper… you’ve sacrificed not just an inch and a half
in page width but also a significant amount of important civil discourse.”
Our sense is that The Times will not continue to print letters from
readers discouraged by the lessening of the letters page, but Ms.
O’Shaughnessy’s incisive thought will remain true.
Following The Times’ thirty-three percent cutback on the number
of letters it will print, Rejected Letters to the Editor is even
more committed to offering an alternative to the woeful inhibition
of “civil discourse” at a moment which can ill afford
it.
Hence, RLTE Is Expanding!
Beginning with the next issue of Rejected Letters to the Editor,
in a small effort to counter recent regressive developments, we
will be expanding the width and size of our publication. RLTE as
you read it now is 800 pixels wide. The new version will be 1150
pixels wide—nearly a full third larger.
We don’t rely on paper to spread the word. Unlike the newspapers,
magazines and other publications whose rejected letters and op-eds
we publish, for RLTE pixels are the gold standard. And we are dedicated
to providing even more space for those writers whose letters will
no longer be “fit to print,” or no longer fit.
—Stuart
Ewen, Editor-in-Chief
—Robin Locke Monda, Managing
Editor
—Elizabeth Ewen, Editor-at-Large
Comments
will be reviewed and
posted on a daily basis.
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