Historicist: "The city that nobody loves"
Elsewhere in the Ist-a-Verse
It's official, Dose is dead. At least the paper version. CanWest pulled the plug on the rag today and will instead be focussing on the property's online and mobile media components (read: ring tones and downloads)
We can't say we're too surprised but the paper seems to have never gotten much traction among its 18-34 target demographic, one that really only uses newspaper to pad boxes and line bird cages.
The paper managed to limp into its second year but apparently placed lower among Vancouver newspaper readers than the Globe and Mail. That a notoriously Toronto-centric broadsheet can outperform a free paper all the way across the country wasn't a good sign. It also apparently lost around $5 million a year for CanWest. Ouch.
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Personally I think that sucks. Sure, it wasn't the best thing ever, but have you ever tried to read the Metro or the 24 hours? They're fucking worthless.
You get what you pay for, I guess.
(too predictable?)
The deputy editor of the Star once told me that I and the rest of the Dose demographic generation were personally and collectively responsible for killing the newspaper by using the Internet-- not just this paper, but all papers.
He didn't have much of an explanation as to how we could be solely responsible for something that came into being before we entered the work force for real, or how it was that members of his generation were profiting from the net on a much grander scale.
But there you have it. Our consumption habits make it all our fault, just as the death of email will one-day be attributable to the actions of a bunch of now-fifth-graders.
Personally, I'm looking forward to a time when paper is only used as a medium to print messages that will outlive the paper itself. Daily news seems like a frivolous use of a natural resource.
"Personally, I'm looking forward to a time when paper is only used as a medium to print messages that will outlive the paper itself. Daily news seems like a frivolous use of a natural resource."
That's a very grand, and amazingly short-sighted opinion. Daily news, weekly news, hourly news...just the NEWS, really...ought to be free and easy to access - without expensive, fragile, or complicated intermediary steps. And without pressure to be "profitable". We shouldn't get comfortable with the commoditization of information.
The internet is NOT this egalitarian fantasy land that most middle-class kids think it is. You can't just pick up a laptop with a wireless connection from a box on the street corner.
Personally, I'm looking forward to the day when all our ex-suburban, environmentally-retarded, eco-pundits drop their VISA card activism (right, because buying organic bananas at SuperStore is saving the earth) and wake up to real ideas about sustainable living.
Although I can't help but agree with Micheal's ideas on the wasteful use of paper seeing that the shelf life of a news paper is slim, the head of this piece is ignorant. To believe that the 18-34 age group doesn't read or care about news papers is an obviously internet biased opinion. Which leads me to the reason that papers will always be around in one form or another. People don't want to read crap, and the key to a good paper is a good editor. And I'm sure if there is one thing we can all agree on is that the internet has alot of crap on it.
Which is exactly why the reason that our national paper (The Globe and Mail) would outperform a rag like the Dose. People want to read intelligent, informative writing, not celebirty gossip. (e.g. Crap)
A writer for Dose once told us, "We are basically run by the advertising department. If Kit-Kat was sponsoring us that day, we were supposed to write a piece about 'taking a break'."
Mr. Obvious, you and I are on the same page. It's nice to know that other people are on the same wave length, sometimes I really do wonder how naive people are. Although personal portable computing is the future, it is not coming tomorrow or even in the next 50 years in the society we live in. An acceptance has to be made by the social elite (aka the ex-suburban, environmentally-retarded, eco-pundits in 25 years when it's no longer cool to preach) that people who are poor don't have the luxury of time to bike to work or the spare income to afford a laptop and are no less social conscious than them, yet simple less fortunate.
Yes, that's right. The future I was looking forward to is TOMORROW MORNING.
You know what's short sighted? Expecting everything RIGHT NOW and assuming everyone else does too.
We get it Jill - you're embarrassed.
The print media isn't going anywhere. The future you're looking forward to will likely never, ever materialize - and if it does, it won't be within our lifetimes. Paper is a natural resource, yes, but it's also a renewable resource, it's easily recycled, and it's biodegradable.
You'll see newspapers printed on Hemp, long before you'll see homeless people reading their (presumably?) government-issued digital news readers.
Or perhaps the news is too frivolous for that as well?
"We can't say we're too surprised but the paper seems to have never gotten much traction among its 18-34 target demographic, one that really only uses newspaper to pad boxes and line bird cages."
I've gotta disagree, Ron. Everyone I know my age (which happens to be the lower end of that lovely demographic) reads Dose. Like, everyone. Some more than others, of course, but I can't think of a friend who doesn't pick up a copy of the paper. I am really sad about this - I do the crossword on the way to work each (week)day. As a student, it's the best cheap newspaper by miles (and it's definitely better than the slightly-more-expensive Toronto Sun).
And yeah, I'd disagree about my demographic's lack of reading the newspaper, too. At U of T, they give out free Toronto Stars every day the school entire year (perhaps not in the summer, but I'm not entirely sure), and everyone I know at least flips through a section or two (if they don't read the whole thing).
This is a shitty day for Toronto newspapers. I completely accept the fact that Dose is advertising dominated (the Kit Kat thing isn't surprising at all, they once sold their entire cover to Axe), but they don't bullshit it either: they tell readers each issue who's sponsoring them, etc. etc. It's not latent, it's very clearly sponsored to keep alive.
I don't know about anyone else, but I'll certainly miss Dose.
it really is a shitty day for toronto newspapers. i do agree that the idea of a daily printed newspaper probably isn't the best. but i saw it as more then just a daily newspaper. dose made a very honest effort to expose and showcase local and emerging artists and designers and to pay them. it was really nice to know that there was an outlet which actually supported the creation of experimental design for a mass audience. the idea that Team Macho could do a spread and be seen across the country in a matter of days AND get paid for it, was very reassuring that toronto design might be moving towards something less conservative...
"Personally, I'm looking forward to a time when paper is only used as a medium to print messages that will outlive the paper itself. Daily news seems like a frivolous use of a natural resource."
i know i didnt just look at dose for its news content, i look at its art direction its illustration its design, and to me that wasn't a frivolous use of natural resources.
hopefully something will come along to take its place
Finally! Gen Y kids speak up for themselves!
Yes, to everything Jeremy and David just said.
I picked up Dose everyday. I read it cover to cover. I mean, it was free - what's not to like? I loved that I could read about a broad spectrum of things going on in the world, in art, in music, in current events, in politics and even a page or two of fluffy, gooey, sugary celebrity gossip - all in one elegant capsule tabloid. My boyfriend always did the crosswords too.
As a young illustrator myself, It was definitely exciting to see artists like Seth Scriver and Team Macho get such broad exposure. They definitely deserved it.
Dose was also pretty transparent about the fact that advertising was the only reason they existed.
Meanwhile, Now and Eye pretend to be indie-rock, and then cram 20 pages of classifieds and sex hotlines into their pages, leaving about 4 left for actual content. Plus they are lame.
More than all this, I happen to know that not only was Dose the only paper catering to the younger (Student, and post-student) demo, They actually hired them to work there too. In fact, they were pretty much the only media place around that was hiring people my age for actual real jobs with benefits and actual money.
My chronically unemployed journalist boyfriend had just started an interview process with them a couple weeks ago which mysteriously and abruptly stopped. Now we know why, but what's even more sucky is now he has 70 other kids his age with similar qualifications to compete with in the already miniscule job market.
Shitty indeed.
I never read Dose, but I love the logo, and I loved that they avoided the typical front cover portrait shot and used a lot of illustration and design inside. And the boxes. I particularly love how the boxes get scraped and plastered and scraped again, their paint job really helps show the process. I *was* going to do a series of photo-animations of the boxes this summer, but now I doubt they'll still be around.