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Fanatics of the New Yorker Magazine have always been able to get a partial read of some of the content over the web, but for the major pieces on the Bush administration’s shenanigans in Iraq, or the devastating implications of climate change, you often had to wait for the paper edition to hit the newsstands. Not anymore. This week, the New Yorker announced an ingenious new approach, which allows readers to see and print out the whole magazine online, in some cases even before it hits the newsstands in New York. Potential readers can sign up for a 4-week free trial by going online to http://archives.newyorker.com . 

Of course, savvy readers have been able to download New Yorker content for years from the New Yorker’s website at http://newyorker.com, but the new viewer actually adds the drawings, art work and last, but not least, the advertisements from the actual magazine in a format that matches the graphic feel of the New Yorker that New Yorkers actually get to see. 

A brief excursion into the new format shows how much is easily missed by the older text-only format.   The advertisements are, in fact, a major attraction—candy for the eyes, even if you don’t have the cash or inclination to actually buy the product, The New Yorker viewer is the work of an Australian company, Real View Technologies (http://www.realview.com.au/).

While not perfect, the New Yorker’s innovative approach may be a step towards answering one of the trickiest questions in journalism today:  how to get subscribers to pay for on-line content.  It is no secret that general interest print publications –those not consecrated to highly specialized slices of the market—such as “how to groom your Chihuahua,” or “My favorite hunting rifles”-- are sliding towards oblivion.  It’s a question of  “Yesterday’s news in tomorrow’s paper,” but web-based publications tend to be long on opinion and punditry and short on actual news.  In fact, the web has a parasitic relationship with the print media it is slowly asphyxiating. As the print media dies off, the content on the web will turn increasingly anemic unless a business model develops that enables publishers to pay writers to do original reporting. 

One of the ironies of the current market trend is that the migration to the web by general interest readers is being encouraged by some of the leading print publishers. The New York Times, for instance, has one of the most visited sites on the web.  Readership of TIME Magazine’s web offerings so far exceed those of the actual magazine that the publishers decided years ago to funnel all the real news towards the web.  Another factor, as Dan Ockrent, a former editor of Life Magazine pointed out, is the high cost of newsprint and delivery of paper publications. TIME-Warner, Ockrent reported, spends nearly $1 billion a year simply distributing its magazines. 

One casualty from the migration of professional journalists to the web has been the do-it-yourself personal blog.  Sure there are millions of them on line, but readers are gradually focusing on the ones that actually have something to say. 

Illustrating that fact, The Economist noted last week that Jason Calicanis, founder of Weblogs.Inc, and one of the original blog pioneers, had tossed in the towel and decided to give up on blogging altogether, complaining that the market had grown too impersonal, he needed more time for his family, and he simply couldn’t compete.  The Economist aptly headlined its story: “Oh, Grow Up!” (https://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12566826) but went on to point out that some of the on-line publications—notably The Huffington Post, which has a circulation of around 4.5 million, have become influential enough to have had an impact on the US presidential elections.  Another sign of maturity is that the blogs, like everyone else is suffering form an ad market slowdown.

Ultimately, all publications have to deal with the fickleness of readers who bore quickly.  The antidote is interesting content, and that costs money, which is why the New Yorker’s adventure has publishers interested. Hopefully it will interest readers as well.  In any case, the next four weeks are free for anyone who wants to test it out.

Click here to see the new New Yorker format