Quote, unquote: Reactive media habits

This summer is the first time I really felt the seismic shifts that are taking place in the media. I felt it because having lived through most of the year on the Internet, I was thrilled to return to the pace and texture of a well-edited magazine. While the Internet provides instant access to the world in a strange way, it doesn’t really come alive until you ask it something. It needs you to be the editor....

Many of us are moving from buying print products we trust and identify with, to signing up for really simple syndication feeds and Internet newsletters. Of course we only sign up for what we are interested in. Unlikely we would ask Google to send us all you’ve got on hippies, bees, golf, United States Justice Department, spam, Dubai, Lebanese immigrants to Canada and electronic book publishing. Not that I couldn’t. I just wouldn’t think of it. It was the magazine that invited me. We are diminished by our flight to reactive media habits. We shall miss our editors.

-- Michael Atkins, President, Laurentian Media Group, in Northern Ontario Business