Is This the Key to a Print-Web Marriage?
Mid-way through a New York Times piece charting The Atlantic Monthly's recent Web renaissance lies a head-turning quote from James Bennet, Atlantic editor in chief:"A highly turbulent Web site where people are engaging in argument with each other turns out to work very well with the idea of a polished monthly magazine about the same kind of political and cultural debate."It's taken me years of pondering, conversation and conceptualization to arrive at a similar conclusion, yet Bennet nails the relationship between Web and print in one simple, erudite sentence. I guess that's why he's the editor of The Atlantic and I'm a blogger.
What I love about this quote is that it sums up the strengths and limitations of both mediums. Print is an excellent format for long-form, contextualized content that's driven by a top-down editorial approach. The Web works best as the "marketplace of ideas" -- a space where opinions and conclusions are forged through discussion. One form doesn't supersede the other because they both need to exist, and what Bennet is saying -- and proving, based on TheAtlantic.com's traffic boost -- is that a marriage between print and Web can benefit both sides if the attributes of both forms are nurtured. Symbiosis is possible if we let the Web be Web and let print be print.
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