THE DEATH THROES OF PRINT MEDIA

THE DEATH THROES OF PRINT MEDIA

Steve Winston

I'm on the Web all day long...from 6:15 a.m., when I first sit down to check the e-mail before my morning run, until midnight. And I do get most of my information - both professional and personal - from the Web.

Yet, nonetheless, I'm one of those people who have been mourning the apparent death of the print magazine (and newspaper, and book). And I’ll tell you why…

For one thing, I have serious doubts as to whether the Web will ever be able to apply the same rigorous standards of journalism and objective analysis at which print media (for the most part) have excelled. And I have doubts, as well, that the Web – around which people move with incredible frequency - will ever be able to provide the longer "think-pieces" at which so many newspapers and magazines have excelled.

For me, reading has always been a sensory experience. I still really love reading the paper while I (gulp down) my breakfast (especially if the Florida Marlins have won the night before!). I really get excited when one of the magazines to which I subscribe arrives in the mail; and I really enjoy the feel of the pages on my fingers when I read it. Also, I have an appreciation for great photography as an art-form…and I’m more prone to really explore a magnificent photo in print form that I am on the Web. I really enjoy, as well, the fact that a print piece offers me a medium with no distractions...it doesn't ring, or blink on the screen, every time I get an e-mail (tempting me to leave what I'm reading).

Newspapers have also been a physical chronicler of history in ways that electronic media cannot. For example, I was still a boy when Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated, and when men first walked on the moon. But I can still recall the giant headlines in Newsday the next morning(s). In fact, I remember actually saving the front page after momentous events that I thought would be of historical significance. Sometimes I wish I still had that old scrapbook. What incredible memories of time and place and emotion it would strike!

I think of myself as an early-adapter. Yet, I don’t really know how easy it will be for me to adapt to books on the Web. To me, there's nothing that says "this is my time to relax and escape" like settling down on a thick couch with a good book - in my hands, rather than on a screen.

So, although I spend most of my life online – and couldn’t make a living as a public relations practitioner without the ease (and instantaneous nature) of electronic information and communication - I'm still somewhat emotional about the place of print media in American democracy. I'm hopeful that at least some of the more “important” newspapers and magazines of our day will survive the shakeout.

And I’m hopeful, as well, that at least some print publications that had been written off as dead may not need obituaries, after all.

Otherwise, I’m afraid we’ll find out - too late - that a valuable piece of who we are has been lost.

Steve Winston
President, WINSTON COMMUNICATIONS
(954) 575-4089
steve@winstoncommunications.com
www.winstoncommunications.com

REPORTS OF THE DEATH OF MAGAZINES ARE GREATLY EXAGGERATED

Here's one LinkedIn, Facebooked, Twittering PR maven who echoes Richard Wanderer's belief that magazines are not quite dead yet. And I have to say that it's really refreshing to hear a voice of optimism amidst all the naysayers who bellow with such certainty that the age of the magazine has come and gone.

For all its faults - particularly with its business model - the magazine still does a lot of things better than anything else. It still analyzes the news better than anything else. It still has the ability to get in-depth better than anything else. It still, in its purest and most exciting forms, has the ability to enlighten (and to engage) us better than anything else. It still attracts the finest writers in America - more than any other medium. And - not to sound arrogant - those writers are true journalists (not "citizen-journalists"), who are trained to observe, report objectively, and search for the hidden facts. And, who - even though most of them, because of layoffs, are now doing the job of two, or even three, people - still do it damned well.

In addition, I think magazines still have a kind of excitement to them, a kind of excitement that the web - despite its 24/7 news cycle - cannot yet match. When I walk out to the mailbox and see one of my magazines in there, I know that I'm going to have an hour or two of good reading, written by good writers, and tailored to my taste. And I know that it's going to be an hour or two without any flashing e-mail messages or (hopefully) phone calls...an hour or two, in a quiet place, just for me.

I want to make the point, as well, that not only do I still read magazines, but, as President of a Public Relations/Marketing firm, I pitch them regularly. And they still work pretty damned well for me. Many people, still, like to hold the printed word in their hands, not only read it on a screen. Many people, for better or worse, still ascribe more credibility to something they read in print than something they read online. Many of my clients, still, believe that magazines are just as important - or more important - than the web. And many of them - still - are more satisfied with the results of exposure in print than with exposure on the web.

So, hopefully, to paraphrase Mark Twain...reports of the death of the magazine are greatly exaggerated.

Steve Winston
President, WINSTON COMMUNICATIONS
(954) 575-4089
steve@winstoncommunications.com
www.winstoncommunications.com