Don’t be fooled by a few exceptions
Few takes on the media industry make me sigh with exasperation more than “print is back”.
In recent weeks we’ve been told by media commentators that “everyone is talking about print” on the back of The Onion bringing back its print edition and The Spectator US doubling its number of magazine issues.
Similarly, I’ve been at too many conferences when a moderator who should have known better has stroked the mostly middle-aged audience by telling them that the format of their youth and early career “still has real value”.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I love print. I spent 20 years working on magazines and newspapers, designing pages, subbing copy to fit, picking pictures, doing late-night rip-ups and enjoying every second (well, almost). When one is in front of me, I still take real pleasure in flicking through a magazine or a print paper. The feeling of paper between thumb and forefinger and the smell are still alluring.
But in truth I rarely do it any more. I live in a household steeped in journalism and yet we never – never – buy a print newspaper and magazines only cross the threshold very rarely. (The only regular exception is Private Eye, which doesn’t really have a digital offering.) And we are in the prime print demographic.
Don’t trot out the “ah, but millennials and Gen Z really like vinyl records” argument. Not as much as they like digital music, that’s for sure. And here’s a fun fact for you: 50% of people who bought vinyl in America last year don’t have a record player. They are buying records as collectibles, not to actually play them.
So no, print is not back and it’s never coming back in a meaningful way. Certainly, it can exist as a promotional tool for your digital offering, or as an expensive luxury for diehards, or as a vanity publication. But even this will become more difficult very soon as the number of places to sell it and the number of firms willing to distribute it fall off a cliff.
It is certainly not bad reporting to note when publishers do revive or enhance print products, but the problem is how it’s received.
Newspeople are sentimental and that’s been one of the reasons they haven’t left print behind as quickly as they should have. My real problem with the print-is-backers is that they are encouraging the magical thinking that print might revive itself. This gives people a reason not to commit themselves fully and irrevocably to digital, even when they know very well that this is “the future” (actually the present, but we’ll set that aside for now).
I’ve sat in management meetings where everyone has happily talked about digital initiatives but only really came to life, with opinions and facts and anecdotes to bolster them, when attention turned to print.
We need to put this to bed. Digital demands our full and undivided attention. That’s why I applaud the decision announced this week of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution to cease print publication from the beginning of next year. They have done this even while print is profitable because they want everyone to focus on increasing digital subscriptions.
Every newsroom should listen to Andrew Morse, the AJC’s publisher. He told the New York Times: “Unless news organisations have the courage to disrupt themselves faster than the marketplace is disrupting the industry, really important institutions that have existed for generations will cease to exist. I love print, but I love journalism more.”