Blog to print: Doc Searls predicts “that within a year there will be print journals that start on the Web, harnessing blog energy, putting the blog posting, vetting & editing process to work, and running it through to publication with ink on paper. And that it will be far more inexpensive and efficient than the print pub + website on the side system we have today.”

This is not without precedent: there have been successes and notable failures of web to print extensions. My colleague at Hammock Publishing, Jackie Ross, has written recently on that topic, for example. (Ok, she quotes me.) But I think the “blogging process” that Doc outline — the collaborative, community editorial and vetting process — would be a new and excellent approach for many print publications designed for audiences both inside and outside a firewall.

Another thing such a print publication would display (if done correctly) is how uniquely different the experiences can be when encountering the same words online and in print.

Speaking of the intersection of the print and blog worlds, there is an interesting and thorough package of articles in the current issue of Harvard University’s Nieman Report (available via PDF) regarding weblogs and journalism. (I found it via paidcontent.org.)

Shelf life: And you thought the magazines in YOUR doctor’s waiting room were old.

Blurry logic: To photoshop? or, Not to photoshop? That is a question news photographers and editors like to beat to death. For example, here’s a report of a faux-controversy regarding the ethics of stretching out some green space and photoshopping out an unidentifiable foot from a woman’s soccer action shot. (via mediabistro.com)

Deja-story alert: If you missed Aileen Jacobson’s article last week in Newsday about 2003 magazine launches (rexblog flashback), then you may want to read Leon Lazaroff’s version of the same story in today’s Chicago Tribune. Of course, my friend and hero, Samir Husni is quoted in both stories. (rexblog hint: If you are new to following the coverage of the magazine industry, here is some help for you. You can always depend on a constant stream of industry punditry regarding the amazing number of new magazines being launched balanced with a constant stream of industry pundits predicting the future contraction in the number of magazines.)

Slowly burning? M-10 Report explores the recent launches of a couple of magazines including one I’ve blogged before, American Magazine. As I noted earlier, the first magazine ever published in America was called American Magazine and (if I can recall my American magazine history correctly) it lasted only one issue (the founding vaporzine?). The pundits in the M-10 Report think the publishers have a greased American flag pole to climb to be successful (my lame metaphor, not their’s). Me, I think calling the magazine by the same name as the first magazine in America that failed was not a good karma decision. Also, the publishers seem now to be running from the whole Wal-Mart thing that garnered them so much early publicity (and a friendly warning from the rexblog). I guess they are asking themselves this question. As I’ve noted before, since American Magazine is based in Tennessee (albeit, not in Nashville), the rexblog will forego any objectivity in judging its chances for success and will act as if it’s a foregone conclusion that the magazine will succeed.