The NYT's David Carr admits to information overload and the inability to focus for more than a few minutes at a time, using these as an excuse to a) not read/watch anything that takes more than a few minutes and b) wax effusive about the latest Reader's Digest for the literate, "This Week." Here is how Carr describes it:
Recession, the presidential candidacy of Rudolph Giuliani and soccer hooligans in Italy all get the same short-form, high-density treatment. Rather than inveighing against the Web’s hit-and-run informational ethos, Mr. Dennis has rendered it corporeal, producing a 42-page primer on the week that was, without getting bogged down in, or even acknowledging, the details.
Published by the former Maxim publisher Felix Dennis, the publication remains low circulation in the U.S., but is growing. Dennis sure does have a way with words, as he rips on the existing news magazines out there:
He also believes he can get a toehold in the newsweekly market because, he says, the established players Time, Newsweek and U. S. News & World Report have lost touch with the news.
“‘Golfing for Cats With Jesus Who Has Cancer’ is not something that people need to know about,” he said. The Week is all news, all the time, with editors who comb publications and republish annotated accounts from a disparate group of sources. Not only does it have the editorial reach of the Web, but it has the same significant cost benefits because most of the data and reporting are borrowed.
But Carr misses sort of a critical point here. If the way "This Week" will be competitive is by stealing the content from existing crappy publications, and if by so doing it continues to gut the value of long form journalism, how long will it be able to exist as a scavenger?