Newspaper / by Bill Frakes

I've spent most of my adult life working for print publications. Almost the entire time, I have had to suffer through conversations about why print is dead. I see photo staffs being eliminated to save money at newspapers who are struggling financially because they can't sell their products. That makes very little sense to me as a long term plan. It's a desperate stab literally in the dark to raise short term numbers without any initiative, cleverness or creativity. Eliminating content providers eliminates content production and doing that is not going to attract or retain content purchasers.

Boarding my flight from Oslo to London, I watched passenger after passenger grab 2 or 3 newspapers from racks next to airplane door.

The entire flight virtually every seat was filled with people reading the morning newspapers.

The plane was WIFI equipped, but for this flight, on this day, newspapers ruled the air.

Makes me wonder if they know something we don't.