Big New Kindle for Newspapers

Can the Kindle save print journalism? On Wednesday, Amazon will unveil a new “large-format” device that’s ideal for reading newspapers and magazines, and The New York Times is partnering on the project. The company already has a deal with Amazon and is apparently making “modest” profits from the $14-a-month Kindle subscriptions. Other companies, like News Corp. and Hearst, have also expressed interest in creating large-format devices for their publications. It’s a dilemma for media outlets: jump on the Kindle bandwagon and risk being standardized like musicians in the iTunes system, or create one’s own platform. No matter the format of these new reading devices, will they save the industry? “Nope,” Peter Kafka writes. “It doesn’t matter how you deliver the information if you can’t afford to generate it in the first place.”