Print Is Alive
March 30, 2010
I quite enjoyed “Opinion: Print Is Dying … Really?” The author is a learned individual named Graydon Carter. His premise is, as the title of the article makes clear, that print is not dying. Like me, Mr. Carter trots out an obligatory reference to Gutenberg, who is probably spinning in his grave at his recent celebrity status. There is also a reference to monks, a trope that I confess to riding to exhaustion when I get the chance. I don’t do much in the new media space because I like to read stuff in print. I am just finishing The Predictioneer’s Game: Using the Logic of Brazen Self-Interest to See and Shape the Future and a lightweight discussion of the wild and crazy Caravaggio, both on paper.
Mr. Carter said:
Americans have taken to inhaling their news in catch-as-catch-can fashion from whatever screens they happen to have at hand: televisions, computers, cell phones, even those little TV sets in elevators. But in this age of constant information availability, it’s important to take a step back every now and then — once a month sounds about right — to immerse ourselves in the stories that define our times. At Vanity Fair, our writers continue to do what they’ve always done, ferreting out everything there is to know about a given subject and then pulling it all together in a gripping, satisfying narrative. A good Vanity Fair story should have at least a couple of the following elements: access, narrative arc, friction and disclosure. A great one has at least three and a truly great one has all four. Additionally, our stable of world-class photographers continue to find creative, visually arresting ways to reveal truths about our subjects in images that will stand up to any thousand words you throw at them. The fact is that people still want great, well-told tales. We see it on vanityfair.com, where our longer articles routinely top the Most Popular list. We see it in the fact that our print circulation (both newsstand and subscriptions) is emphatically up at a time when everyone tells us it is supposed to be down. [emphasis added]
This is indeed encouraging. I have had the good fortune to be interviewed by a reporter working on a Condé Nast publication’s story. I am not sure that calling me is going to advance the cause of “everything there is to know.” In fact, I thought the reporter whom I shall not name seemed particularly clueless about the subject of the article.
I am also not sure about the following items and their impact on the finances of Condé Nast:
- Staff cutbacks at some of the properties and selling off some properties so that content volume has been affected
- The costs of printing, mailing, distributing, and picking up unsold copies of magazines
- The costs of maintaining various electronic properties and improving the functions of some of those properties before they become technology laggards, not technology leaders
- Packaging print and online in such a way that advertisers get their messages to their targeted demographics
- Making investments in digital content pay off in a manner that allows the company to grow and generate margins that meet the needs of stakeholders.
In short, I don’t think print is dead. Those with money to buy a $30 hard copy book or pay upwards of $6.00 for a magazine are going to be around for a while. The problem is that the information consumption patterns and methods are changing. Print is a bit like writing cursive. Schools are dumping the teaching of handwriting. I suppose cursive is irrelevant just as print may be irrelevant to information consumers who are decades younger than I.
Stephen E Arnold, March 29, 2010
No pay for this write up. I will report this injustice to the Kentucky Division of Forestry. Save those trees. Buy a computing device with lead and mercury infused components.
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