Panorama seeks to expand reach of newspapers
Julian Guthrie, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
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A small group of young writers and artists who work out of the back of a stationery shop in the Mission District - and are dedicated to preserving the printed word - have turned their attention to "old" media: the newspaper.
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On Dec. 8, McSweeney's, an independent publishing house founded in San Francisco by writer Dave Eggers, will release its version of a newspaper, San Francisco Panorama, and selected content will be featured in The Chronicle starting in December.
San Francisco Panorama will have more than 300 pages of content, ranging from Stephen King's reporting on the World Series to explanatory graphics on subjects as diverse as the conflict in eastern Congo and how to make the perfect bowl of ramen. There will be contributions from writers as varied as Michael Chabon, William T. Vollmann, Junot Diaz and Robert Hass.
"We started this six months ago with an eye to reinventing the form," said best-selling author Eggers, who fell in love with papers and print while working on his college newspaper. "When I was hearing about the death of newspapers, it hit me viscerally: What if I don't have a newspaper in the morning? If newspapers are going to survive, they're going to have to do things the Internet cannot do."
One-day-only paper
As newspapers across the country grapple with a bad economy and changing media landscape, retrenching in size and staffing, Panorama is a celebration of print. Big (at 15 by 22 inches), bold and colorful, with a mix of experimental graphics and serious journalism delivered in a literary style, the one-day, one-time-only paper is intended to get people to think about the centuries-old medium in new ways.
"This is a time to roar back and assert and celebrate the beauty of the printed page," said Eggers, whose book "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" made him a literary sensation when it was published in 2000.
Eggers, who doesn't spend much time online and doesn't have Internet access at home, said, "It is our unorthodox belief that the Web and the newspaper can coexist, but that physical forms of the written word need to offer a clear and different experience. We are setting Panorama up so that basically nothing is copyrighted. Anyone who wants to borrow our ideas can do so."
Welcome attention
John Sturm, head of the Newspaper Association of America, a nonprofit representing 2,000 newspapers, cautions that a one-time paper produced by a literary publishing house is entirely different from a daily news enterprise. But he welcomes any effort that brings attention to the medium.
"My view," Sturm said, "is although online revenues are becoming a larger part of what companies earn, ink on paper is going to be vibrant and supported by advertising for some time."
In addition to publishing select content from Panorama, The Chronicle is offering readers the chance to preorder the one-time product through SFGate.com.
"The Panorama may be the biggest, most creative and famously bylined edition of a newspaper ever printed," said Ward Bushee, The Chronicle's editor.
Eggers, 39, who will ultimately edit everything in Panorama, last year was a TED prize recipient - one of three inspirational world thinkers chosen by the Technology Entertainment Design organization - and named by Utne Reader as one of "50 visionaries who are changing the world." Last week, at the National Book Awards, he won the Literarian Award for his service to the literary community.
Original approach
Sitting on a worn sofa at the back of McSweeney's office, Eggers scanned proofs of Panorama. The broadsheet will have typical sections: news, arts, sports and food. It also will have a magazine, 16 pages of comics with work by Art Spiegelman and others, pullout posters, and more than 100 pages devoted to books.
But the storytelling in Panorama will be unlike that of daily newspapers. A piece called "From Beast to Bun" details the buying, carving and cooking of a lamb and includes 58 semigraphic photos spread over two pages. (The lamb was cooked on a makeshift spit on the sidewalk outside the McSweeney's office.) A feature on NASCAR was written by San Francisco novelist Andrew Sean Greer, who traveled to Michigan to cover the story with his car-obsessed husband. A piece on the elections in Afghanistan, written by J. Malcolm Garcia, is more about the realities on the ground than the voter outcome.
"The Afghani election story is amazing," said Eggers, who let writers set lengths on their stories. "It happened weeks ago, but the piece is timeless, in the same way you read John Hersey on Hiroshima today. The most beautiful piece in the whole paper is Greer's. It's about love, marriage and America."
Lisa Hamilton, a Mill Valley author, wrote a first-person feature called "Water: A Road Trip," which she said goes "beyond any generalized experience of water in California" to "reflect on the lives of people directly impacted by water politics."
"The assignment began as a short piece and grew and grew," said Hamilton, one of 150 freelance writers, designers and artists who contributed to the paper. "It's what McSweeney's does with everything: Instead of considering limitations, they look at possibilities."
How it all started
In 2002, Eggers opened 826 Valencia, a nonprofit writing and tutoring center for youth that has since been replicated in a half-dozen cities nationwide. He began thinking about the newspaper project by peppering his students with questions.
"This started as a listening tour," Eggers said of Panorama. "I asked my students: Do you read a paper? Have you ever subscribed to one? Have you ever paid for one? The answer was no, no and no. One thing I hear again and again is, 'What's in it for me?' Because I work with kids, I see every day their enthusiasm for the printed word. Young people still buy books. They read as they always have. But there needs to be something in it for them."
Having grown up with the Chicago Tribune, Eggers says he looked forward to the pullout posters and the teen section. "I miss a lot of things they used to do. I remember as a kid waiting for the full poster with the lineup of the Chicago Bears. You'd put it on your door."
Children's features
Panorama will include a kids' page, complete with comics, games, a coloring section, an easy-to-assemble cutout carousel by artist Chris Ware, and movie reviews by kids. Eggers sent three children, ages 8, 11 and 13, to review "Fantastic Mr. Fox."
In addition to working at the Daily Illini newspaper at the University of Illinois - where he did journalism and graphic design - Eggers found work early in his career writing book reviews and freelancing for The Chronicle. He maintains a "deep affection for The Chronicle, ever since they gave me a job when I was a struggling young J-school grad."
With all that McSweeney's does - whether through its journal, Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, its monthly magazine the Believer, or now, San Francisco Panorama - the objective is to produce great writing in great packaging.
"This is all a part of the same dream," Eggers said. "It is our belief that if you make something beautiful, people will want to hold on to it."
Getting copies
San Francisco Panorama can be preordered at www.sfgate.com/panorama or store.mcsweeneys.net.
It also will be sold at select bookstores.
The cost is $16.
E-mail Julian Guthrie at jguthrie@sfchronicle.com.
This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco ChronicleRead more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2009/11/24/MNP11AEM9D.DTL#ixzz0XsuTbwSD

“Providing Local News Through Collective Intelligence”“Where you Live, What You Think”WHAT IS THE PRINTED BLOG?The Printed Blog is an independent media outlet that aggregates user-generated content from the Internet and publishes it twice daily via print. The result is a revolutionary newspaper that reads and functions like a web feed – yet can still be enjoyed on the train or spread across the breakfast table, for an uninterrupted, pleasurably tactile experience.The selection of content in The Printed Blog is based solely on the votes of readers and their geographic location. In such a way, The Printed Blog revolts against the top-down, ‘one size fits all’ model of newsprint, as we know it. Instead of one paper serving hundreds of thousands of people, as is often the case, THE PRINTED BLOG publishes hundreds or even thousands of highly-localized editions based on what a community declares is important to them. The papers are distributed to neighborhood pickup points in A.M. and P.M. editions, and will incorporate rapid turnaround reader input.We at The Printed Blog believe that there will always be a readership for off-screen, printed media – but in order for that media to survive, it must leverage the best information technology has to offer. Through the integration of online social networks and web-based syndication technologies, The Printed Blog is tapping into the wellspring of brilliant bloggers that has revolutionized collective media. As our society moves towards individualized information, The Printed Blog has the courage to respect our readers. We recognize the value of what individuals have to say, and publish the information they ask for. Why rely on a handful of outmoded sources, when you know there is great content out there? We know you are writing, learning, DIGGing, and sharing – this isn’t about the newspaper, this is about you.

Arnold,

It's been almost seven months but I'm adding your 1/27/09 letter to the mix here:

Hi Tyrone,Happy 2009! How was your reading in Brooklyn this past weekend? I wish i could have been there, but I am in California as I am teaching at Stanford right now. You and Tom are inspiring poets. I hope that we can include Tom in the newspaper project.I have not been able to keep up with our blog, but I keep all this info in my head for when we meet to talk about this project. I have been traveling, teaching and applying for a lot of grants. How are things with you and what does your year look like?I guess one important thing to say is that I see a major funder of this project as being Creative Capital but they are taking two years off from funding and when they start again they may not be funding literary projects, but visual art projects.I have identified an information designer who would like to design the financial pages of the newspaper. He is friend of mine who is doing an MFA in interactive design at UCLA right now. His name is Christo Allegre.Christo introduced me to Asad Raza the theorist and writer who i mentioned earlier as someone to contribute to the sports pages.Also I have been thinking of asking Kara Walker and Laylah to collaborate on the comics pages.I am friends with Arnold Rampersad and I think he could contribute a serious piece of literary criticism or literary biography that would be great. He wrote the most recent book on Ralph Ellison. I can't wait to read this book.Also do you know Hilton Als. I think he'd be great. I really enjoy his fiction and memoir writing.Other artists/writers who i'd like to see involved are Brian Bauman and Tonya Foster.Hopefully we can meet this year and begin to flesh out our vision for this project and start to move forward so that we can begin to look for funding.More soon and love,Arnold