Daryl Cagle, the well-known newspaper cartoonist (who also runs a very popular website or two) has written an essay about the decline of newspaper circulation, the movement of advertising money to the web, and the difficulties faced by cartoonists during this transition. It’s notably devoid of the kind of chest-beating radicalism that one usually finds in conversations surrounding this set of topics, on both sides of the “argument.” Well worth checking out. I couldn’t find a permalink, but it’s currently the main feature on Cagle’s blog at MSNBC.

Excerpt:

Every day I read something from journalists obsessing about the future of print. The internet is gobbling up newspaper readers and advertisers. The future looks bleak for ink on paper as newspapers respond by downsizing, degrading their product and hastening their own demise. There seems to be a generally accepted axiom that the internet is the future for journalism. Columnists are transforming into multimedia bloggers and cartoonists feel pressure to animate their political cartoons. It makes perfect sense to chase the shifting audience, but the move to the internet doesn’t make much business sense. …more

Via Spurgeon

(Note to Eric: I’ve added a “newspaper cartooning” category to the categories list).

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