Who Says Newspapers Are Dead?
The L.A. Times is cutting 250 jobs, the Tampa-Tribune is cutting 21, the New York Times is now available only on Kindle during a lunar eclipse, but all is well in dead-tree medialand — in Korea. An anti-Communist group in Seoul plans to distribute 100,000 free copies of its newspaper to North Korean readers via balloons. The so-called Free North Korea Shinmun "will expose and condemn human rights violations in the communist country with articles written by North Korean defectors living in the South." The good news? The paper's made of plastic, so less atmospheric wear and tear. The bad? There's no food supplement made of real food to actually be use to North Koreans.
"Most residents in the North live without hearing news from outside their country," said an official of the group. "We hope the newspapers will spread the desire for freedom by reporting the firsthand experiences of defectors who came to South Korea in search of freedom and human rights," he said.
It was either that or Marty Peretz paratrooping in with remaindered copies of TNR.
