Columns

I <3 PRINT MEDIA
This week’s issue is unfortunately themeless. Despite persistent attempts on my part to convince the Critic team that “moneyz” was a good theme idea, it fell flat.

Me: “ ‘Moneyz’ is such a funny theme idea!”

Everyone else in the world: “But what does it mean?”

Me: “It’s funny, ok?”

No one else agreed. So, as a result of this hostile reception, “moneyz” was smudged off the whiteboard, to be replaced with nothing. Nevertheless, our themeless issue has some interesting content.
 
Josh Hercus warns against the rock bottom of all photo poses: the duckface (page 18). Joe Stockman summarises the recent revolutions in the Middle East (page 24). We attend the annual Hyde Street keg party, and give a full run down (pages 10, 11, 13 and 18). Charlotte Greenfield discusses the role of journalists in a world where news is freely and quickly available from the Internet (page 20).

From my own media-centric point of view, the role of journalism in the Internet-era is fascinating. What became evident during the recent Christchurch earthquake was that, try as they might, news websites couldn’t keep up with the lightening speed Twitter updates from within Christchurch itself. In short, the public is now able to access fuck-loads of up-to-date information from around the globe without the cost of a subscription (and without the concern that the information is in some way compromised by the media outlet being editorially beholden to someone else). Newspapers are constantly on the backfoot, and I’m not just referring to the ODT.

All of this leads to the question that’s often voiced amongst Internet-news-site addicts: why do we even need print media any more? Can’t we just read news on the Internet and like, save trees and stuff?
 
NO WAY, KEEP PRINT MEDIA PLZ. Aside from the intolerably harsh glare a computer screen gives off, print media can be something the fast paced Internet media can’t. It’s concise. Because there’s only so much a magazine or newspaper can fit, the editor is forced to pick and choose. As a result, while the Internet can become a bewildering maze inundated with information overload, print media has narrowed things down to the most important/interesting/least factually incorrect. Quality over quantity, people.

Dazed and Confused’s publisher Jefferson Hack has an interesting idea on the subject: “You click, you take, you share, you file [on the web] but the magazine is this collected memory, this souvenir of the culture that's moving fast in front of us. So that's how I see it changing. Magazines won't disappear, they'll even become more important in some ways." Cool man.
 
But back to Critic. In a publication aimed at a group of people who are perpetually on the Internet, what on earth is Critic for? Entertainment during dull lectures. Providing a forum for angry strangers to hate on one another. Information about vaguely important stuff. And of course, Critic is, as its name suggests, the critic of the university, OUSA and the DCC among others. Yes, even our mummy company OUSA.

Stay classy,

Julia Hollingsworth