Big Newspaper, Huge Success

by Bruce Schimmel

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Published: Feb 2, 2010

I had a Crocodile Dundee moment the other day, visiting my colleagues at City Paper. You remember the scene. Dundee, Australian bushman visiting New York, is threatened by some punk brandishing a skinny stiletto. “That’s not a knife,” says Dundee with a sly grin, as he slowly unsheathes a gargantuan Bowie. “That’s a knife.”

Such were my thoughts as I hoisted an issue of Panorama — a new, huge newspaper from San Francisco — and dropped it on City Paper’s lunchroom table with a thud that shook coffee cups.

“Holy shit,” gasped one staffer. “Oh. My. God,” said another. “The sheer volume is impressive,” offered a third, as she peered out enviously from behind some flimsy tabloid.

“So this is what people used to read.”

Some people still do.

Some people are even willing to pay, and handsomely, to have and to hold this creation. The first, and so far only, issue of the Panorama came out in early December, and it quickly went into a second printing, totaling some 40,000 copies. Even at $16 a pop, the publication — listed as issue 33 of McSweeney’s quarterly lit mag — has been back-ordered from Amazon since late December. I got my copy overnighted directly from the publisher.

The publisher of the San Francisco Panorama is David Eggers, author of What is the What, Zeitoun and A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Eggers says he published this newspaper of staggering proportions to remind us of the greatness of a really big paper.

“It’s amazing how it exploits everything that print can do,” concluded City Paper editor in chief Brian Howard. Which, fortunately, for the future of bigger and better newspapers happens to be many things at which the Internet sucks. Huge, colorful pages packed with information — that you can pin to your wall or put into your pocket.

Like a full-color, double-page centerfold graphic titled, “SF Sound: A partial survey of the past 50 years of popular and unpopular music in the San Francisco Bay Area.” It’s very big, some 20 by 30 inches, with the names of hundreds of bands, arranged in a starburst. Imagine what something like that would do for Philadelphia.

Panorama’s 10 sections total 120 broadsheet pages, which include original investigative stories (remember them?), sports, the arts, food and op-eds. Gigantic photos and outsize graphics are everywhere. Also included in the package is a magazine of 112 pages, and a book review of 96.
Of advertising, there is much, including a full page from Urban Outfitters. (This one really hurt. Urban Outfitters was a stalwart advertiser at City Paper when I started it. But, alas, no more.)

A score of comics, including stuff from Chris Ware, Daniel Clowes and Art Spiegelman. Several centerfold posters and even pop-ups made of cardstock that you can fold. And, of course, crosswords, puzzles and games. Because paper, after all, is for writing on.

Panorama is big enough to fill a month of Sundays. I wish I could show you online, but you really have to see it in person. Which of course is Eggers’ point.

In newspapering, size does matter. Holding the real thing feels good. And in an increasingly virtual, disconnected world, I believe that people crave the sensuous pleasure of a physical object, especially such a beautiful one.

Watching my CP colleagues paw through Panorama made me think how people could learn to love paper papers, again. But as legacy newspapers confront the beast that gobbles their content, grabs their readers and targets their eyeballs, publishers are abandoning print for an Internet model that, tragically, doesn’t add up. Meanwhile papers are being downsized — undercutting what they do best. It’s a vicious cycle that’s hastening the demise of the printed word, if not journalism itself.

I plunked Panorama on the desk of City Paper’s publisher. “This is nice,” remarked Paul Curci, my former partner. (I sold the paper in 1996, and am not involved in its management.) “It’s nice,” said my old friend. “But it’s not sustainable.”

Well, that depends. A weekly publication of this magnitude probably isn’t viable. According to Eggers’ extensive production notes (which come with the paper), in addition to some 200 contributors, it took seven people nearly a year to make Panorama. Still, it should be profitable, if it isn’t already. With a selling price of $16 on something that costs $7 a piece to make (which includes $80,000 for writers and artists), Eggers should get the kind of return to thrill anyone.

It thrills me. I believe there’s quality journalism and a bit of money to be made with a Philadelphia Panorama. As a one-shot, certainly, through perhaps even as a monthly. The sheer scale, timeliness and beauty would beat the stuffing out of Philadelphia Magazine, snagging their advertisers with cheaper rates along the way. And a Philadelphia Panorama would certainly spur legacy papers to return to doing what newspapers can do better than anything else.

So, is the future of newsprint a throwback to the past? Or is Eggers’ fledging publication just a swan song for a dying industry? We’ll see. Whether this big paper kicks off a grand renaissance in newspapering, rising like a phoenix from today’s sad rags, will ultimately depend on whose table the Panorama lands.

So let me ask you to pick up your own copy of Panorama at store.mcsweeneys.net, and please let me know what you think.

(bruce@schimmel.com)

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