FREE Beer, Wine and the Demise of Print Media at Fort Mason
I’m sitting here in Paul’s flat in Greenpoint, Brooklyn and I’m cripplingly exhausted. I took a red eye last night from San Francisco and I almost never sleep on planes. Last night was no exception. I spent part of the flight watching Quantum of Solace and the other part observing as everyone got nervous about Swine Flu when a woman spent most of the night puking. Oh, and I fidgeted…creeping Jesus did I fidget. The foreign woman sitting next to me must have had her excitement, over seeing New York for the first time, tempered by the fear that she was sitting next to deranged speed freak who NEVER STOPPED MOVING. At least that’s what she probably thought. If she only knew the half of it…
So, needless to say, I don’t feel quite up to my usually snarkiness today. That’s why I’m just gonna cut and paste what was sent to me about the event at Fort Mason. I know I’ve done the whole “cut and paste” thing in a few recent posts, but sometimes the demands of the world call for such measures. This is one of those times. So without further ado here is what a reader names Liz Wu sent me:
Thursday May 7th at Fort Mason – FREE wine and beer following the discussion:
WHAT COMES AFTER NEWSPAPERS?
From town tabloids to major metropolitan dailies, newspapers seem to be in their last throes. The availability of free and instant news online, the high profit margins demanded by media conglomerates, and the steep declines in advertising revenue have hit newspapers hard. They have been forced to lay off employees, trim their pages, close print operations or — as The Hearst Corp. has threatened to do to the San Francisco Chronicle — shut down completely.
Will a new model or medium rise to do what newspapers have aimed to do for over a century — pursue accuracy and objectivity, doggedly investigate stories, act as a check on power, embody a community’s conversation with itself, and write a first draft of history? Or will the demise of newspapers mean a radical shift in what we know and how we know it? The New America Foundation and Zócalo host a panel-including former Washington Post managing editor Steve Coll, Slate founder Michael Kinsley, and former San Francisco Chronicle executive vice president and editor Phil Bronstein-to discuss the decline of print media and the future of journalism.
FREE but RSVPs required
If you go, let me know how it is.
