Dave Eggers, philanthropist, teacher-at-large, and author of You Shall Know Our Velocity among other things is pretty confident about the future of print.  So much so that he will return anyone’s email if they have doubts about print media’s viability.  Here is an Excerpt from an email Gawker published:

“As long as newspapers offer less each day- less news, less great writing, less graphic innovation, fewer photos- then they’re giving readers few reasons to pay for the paper itself. With our prototype, we aim to make the physical object so beautiful and luxurious that it will seem a bargain at $1. The web obviously presents all kinds of advantages for breaking news, but the printed newspaper does and will always have a slew of advantages, too. It’s our admittedly unorthodox opinion that the two can coexist, and in fact should coexist. But they need to do different things. To survive, the newspaper, and the physical book, needs to set itself apart from the web. Physical forms of the written word need to offer a clear and different experience. And if they do, we believe, they will survive. Again, this is a time to roar back and assert and celebrate the beauty of the printed page. Give people something to fight for, and they will fight for it. Give something to pay for, and they’ll pay for it.

We’ll keep you posted throughout the summer about our progress with this newspaper prototype, and any other good news we come across.”  Read The Whole Email

Video below, Dave accepting his 2008 TED Prize, author Dave Eggers asks the TED community to personally, creatively engage with local public schools.