Onward State, a student-run blog about Penn State University, had reported via Twitter on the evening of Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012 that legendary (and recently fired) Penn State football coach Joe Paterno had died. CBS sports and other news outlets soon picked up the story.

Only problem was, JoePa wasn’t dead. Not yet, anyway.

Paterno, age 85 and in the hospital for complications from his lung cancer treatment, had been taken off a respirator—this much was true. He passed away the next morning, but not before the footballs hit the fan. The Paterno family issued a blunt rebuttal of the report, saying that the family patriarch was fighting on. CBS sports retracted its report. Angry Penn State fans made, well, angry tweets. And the managing editor of Onward State, Penn State student Devon Edwards, resigned immediately from his post, saying in a message on the blog:

I never, in a million years, would have thought that Onward State might be cited by the national media…In this day and age, getting it first often conflicts with getting it right, but our intention was never to fall into that chasm. All I can do now is promise that in the future, we will exercise caution, restraint, and humility.

It’s easy to be critical of Devon Edwards, but the fact remains he’s just a kid. He made a mistake, but he handled it in a very adult manner by issuing a sincere apology and resigning. He doesn’t deserve to lose his job, but given the intense emotion surrounding the release of Paterno, the anger from fans, and the heinous crime that was covered up or at least handled poorly by Penn State’s football staff on Paterno’s watch, it’s probably for the best.

Let’s just hope that Devon Edwards doesn’t become a Steve Bartman, the Chicago Cubs fan who tried to catch a foul ball during a playoff game with the Florida Marlins—a ball that Cubs outfielder Moises Alou was also trying to catch. Cubs fans like to think that Bartman cost them a World Series. Bartman was doing what any fan would do: trying to catch a foul ball. In the heat of the moment, he didn’t make a good decision.

Edwards is guilty of the same. In this insane, information-crazy media world into which we’ve found ourselves thrust unprepared, a world in which everything is “so 12 seconds ago,” Edwards made a mistake in the heat of the moment. In the rush to be first, to scoop the world, he goofed by not practicing one of the most basic tenants of journalism: check your facts.

Steve Bartman has since become a ghost, not talking to the media and certainly not attending Cubs games. His mistake ruined him in many ways. It would be a shame if this happened to Devon Edwards, too. Get back on the horse, kid. You’ve learned an important lesson about the sorry state of the media. Consider this a challenge to the next generation of journalists to change it.

What hasn’t been written about as much is Jobs’ human side—his driven personality that often set him at odds with coworkers, his abrupt management style…even rumors of firing employees in elevators only to have a subordinate contact them later to say they could keep their positions.

That’s not to say Steve Jobs was a bad person. But he was human, complete with flaws and prone to make mistakes, just like the rest of us.

Events like Jobs’ passing almost always have lessons that can be applied to the craft Trade Press Services practices: writing.

Like Jobs and every other great leader, great writing has personality. It inspires. It can be visionary. It can stake a course that others say will surely fail, only to succeed beyond expectations. Or it can fail miserably. It can be abrupt, insulting, offensive and sometimes too honest.

Do these statements sound like the people you admire? Like John Kennedy, whose words could drive mankind to set foot on the moon, but whose personal life included secret affairs and private liaisons with movie stars. Or perhaps Martha Stewart, whose business savvy took her to the top of several empires, but who was brought down by greed and scandal.

The lessons that writers can learn from Jobs’ death are not the obvious ones—the ones learned from his commencement addresses and interviews about striving and “going for it.” The lesson for writers is to make sure your writing is alive with personality. Like those who inspire and motivate us, writing must be full of character: frown lines, wrinkles, toothy smiles, unmanageable coifs ala Einstein and Twain, outrageous statements, lies, truths, humor, anger, fear, greed, hate and love. Like the people who inspire us, your writing should be human.

That’s what separated Steve Jobs from other CEOs, many of whom are widely disliked and distrusted in these bad economic times. Jobs was human and was never afraid to show it.

According to a press release from the leadership of Condé Nast, Hearst Magazines, Meredith Corporation, Time Inc. and Wenner Media, the ads will feature:

headlines such as, “We Surf the Internet. We Swim in Magazines.” And “Will the Internet Kill Magazines? Did Instant Coffee Kill Coffee?” These will be accompanied by iconic images lifted from the pages of America’s best-known magazines. A second phase, which will start appearing in June issues, will embed multiple cover images from widely recognized publications into the ad’s text to convey key phrases.

According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, magazine publishers are buoyed by a recent bump in print advertising sales and data from Mediamark Research & Intelligence showing a 4.3% increase in magazine readership over the past five years.

The press release states the ads will reach 112 million readers a month, while the WSJ story says the total value of the ads is more than $90 million.

One such ad features Michael Phelps:

Another substitutes popular magazine titles for words:

A YouTube video features the CEOs of the five companies explaining in their own words their rationale for the campaign:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Is this a desperate last gasp? A long-overdue statement of the facts? Or are they missing the point about the future of magazines altogether? (And is it a little odd they’re promoting the virtues of magazines to people who are already reading one?)

In my next post: industry reaction, and my thoughts.

The popular PBS children’s show Reading Rainbow was canceled recently due to a lack of funding. It ended a 26-year run with host LeVar Burton (you may know him as Star Trek’s Geordi LaForge or Roots’ Kunta Kinte) during which the show taught children that reading could be a lot of fun.

A recent AP/Ipsos poll found that in 2007, one in four Americans didn’t even crack a book.

Around the country, newspapers are going under as subscribership drops and advertising revenues dry up.

Is the evidence overwhelming? Is reading…dead? And perhaps a more important question for you, the business leader: Is it worth spending your advertising dollars on print media? In short, yes.

Reading isn’t dead—not even close. Information is as important as ever. Today, the ability to rapidly consume, digest, and act on information is perhaps the most important skill an executive can possess.

Reading Rainbow wasn’t canceled because reading isn’t important. It was canceled because the Dept. of Education wanted to focus their funding on the how of reading—spelling, phonetics, grammar—and not so much on the why. Americans’ reading habits have bounced all over the charts over the years. And while newspapers are going away, real-time information sources on the Internet are exploding.

How do trade publications fit into this mix? For most industries, trade journals are still the top source of industry-specific news. Increasingly, print is being supplemented with the web, which can serve as an online archive for printed journals, a way to expand and enhance printed content, and a convenient way to provide timely, brief news updates.

But in the end, it’s the content that matters, regardless of how it’s delivered to your brain. Trade Press Services can help you position yourself and your company as subject matter experts whatever the media type. Call or e-mail us today to learn more.