High-tech media, old-style issues

[Commentary] Magazines, like the rest of the media, are thought to be in trouble. This is especially bad news for the conversation on which democracy depends.

For magazines are the place where news is put in perspective, analyzed, considered in context and in depth. But we write at a moment of technological hope, as some of the more affluent magazine publishers have prepared their inaugural issues for Apple's iPad, which went on sale this weekend. They are betting that it will do for digital content what the iPod and iTunes did for digital music: replace messy free content gotten on the sly with easily accessible, paid editorial content in full-color electronic magazine format. But even if the iPad turns out to be magazines' hoped-for savior, if it brings along the values (or lack of values) currently characteristic of much of the new media, a question looms: At what cost? This raises the question: Is online content held to the same standards as its print equivalents? Given the prevailing business model, in which advertising is the principal revenue source for the vast majority of magazine websites, our answer is no. If the future of the information highway is digital, then it behooves us to be concerned with the rules of the road. And if there is a trade-off between speed and standards, then we must come to terms with the question of whether there ought to be any speed limits and, if so, how are they to be determined?

Whatever the future of print, the main future of the media will be digital. Anyone who cares about the future of our democratic society, let alone the future of print in general and magazines and/or iPads in particular, should take up the challenge of debating and discussing -- and, we would add, codifying -- the values, standards and practices that ought to prevail online.