I'm trying not to take it personally. NEWSWEEK ended their 79 year run as the number two news magazine with their December 31, 2012 issue. Just because a magazine that has been around since 1933 has decided to go digital doesn't affect me, does it? Let me just take a moment to remove the dagger from my heart.
Most of my career has been spent sending ad materials to magazines and newspapers. For many years we would ship huge packages with 20 sets of film (NRREU & PRRED) plugs progs and tops (a progressive proof run on a press to simulate what it would look like in the magazine before the ad ran.) That process took hours and several people to physically process the materials. All replaced by the touch of a button and a digital transmission in seconds to multiple printing plants.
I spent most of the weekend watching back to back episodes of Downton Abbey. I had heard raves about it from several friends and finally jumped on the bandwagon. The BBC series depicts the cushy lifestyle of one British family in 1912 and the staff that serves them. It's all about the juxtaposition between rich and poor, old and older, tradition and change. Do I identify more with the Dowager Lady Crawley (fabulous Maggie Smith) who laments about any deviation from her youth or Lord Crawley (stoic Hugh Bonneville) desperately trying to keep up with the times while preserving the past.
Change is inevitable no matter how hard we try to avoid it. "Change is good," we say. We really don't have much choice in the matter, do we? TIME marches on ; )
