The San Francisco Panorama was a one off three hundred and fifty page broadsheet newspaper published on 7th December 2009 and available from San Francisco Bay Area street vendors until it sold out at around 12pm that day. If you missed it, it was also issue #33 of quarterly literary journal McSweeney’s and can be brought on their online shop (albeit for three times more than the $5 it cost on the day, plus postage).
The paper aims to recapture the classic era of print journalism and contains authentic, factual local and global news and sports coverage, plus comment, full colour comics (by Daniel Clowes and Art Speigelman), arts reviews, a food section and fiction, all written, reported and designed to first rate standards by some of the most interesting writers, artists and photographers around today.
The project was conceived by novelist Dave Eggers, who founded McSweeney’s in 1998. A self-confessed lover of print journalism, he has said that “The Panorama is just a reminder that readers will be more likely to pay for the physical paper if they’re given something very different than what we get on the Internet.”
What strikes me is the sheer scope of the writing and the free range the writers were obviously given to reach their finished pieces. It’s an engrossing read you’ ll want (and need) to really spend some time with. Highlights include William T. Vollman’s encyclopedic investigation into labyrinthine world of corporate gold mine battles in Southern California, and design agency Volume Inc.‘s mesmerising double page spread depicting the length and breadth of San Francisco’s music scene.
Proof that lots of words can still work if there’s great ideas.
