I’ve been following the print vs web issue for some time now – as many of you, I’m sure.
It’s a known fact that the newspaper industry is in big trouble. And, the decision for The Christian Science Monitor – a century-old paper – to go web-only, at the exception of a weekend magazine, is another proof that things are changing as explained in “Christian Science Paper to End Daily Print Edition,” an article published yesterday on the NY Times website:
Before The Monitor, a handful of small papers had shifted away from print. This year, The Capital Times in Madison, Wis., went online only, and The Daily Telegram in Superior, Wis., announced it would publish online except for two days a week.
Longtime readers “love coffee and a newspaper. So do I,†Mr. Yemma [CSM Managing Editor] said. “There’s nothing like it. But everyone, sooner or later, is going to have to make the transition, and that’s recognized.â€
Announcing the transition 6 months before it happens, the Christian Science Monitor is doing a great job explaining the decision in a complete Web package including several articles, a letter to the readers from the managing editor, a video and several slide shows.
Now, the question is: will higher ed magazines and other news-oriented publications follow or is it an opportunity for them to remain the only print pieces people will receive in the mail? What do you think?
This morning, a colleague and I discussed the merits of moving one issue of our quarterly alumni magazine to an online only version, while continuing to publish three issues the traditional way. This is a conversation we’re going to have for several reasons:
Rising costs for paper and postage. We all know the price will only continue to go up, up, up.
Environmental impact. We could reduce our impact by 25 percent by putting one issue online.
Staffing issues. Moving one issue to an online version would ease some of the burden on our graphic design staff, who are also responsible for admissions/recruitment, development and other publications projects.
But we have a fairly conservative alumni base. We’re going to do some homework first to see how receptive the audience may be to moving one issue to online.
It’s a baby step in light of what the CSM is doing, but as they say, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
College and university magazines are not the best vehicles for delivering news. For that, the web is the ideal medium–it’s immediate, it’s nimble (if well designed), and it can deliver what you need to know when.
It would behoove all communications shops to create digital magazines to complement their print pubs–digital mags can do many fun things that print pubs can’t. However, magazines (when done well) remain the best vehicles for engaging people with respective institutions.
People are kidding themselves if they think that a digital magazine can just replace–rather than complement–a print publication in terms of effective engagement.
Think about it for a minute: A print magazine arrives in the home our our readers. Folks need to go searching for digital mags. If it’s e-mailed, you’re still probably reaching only a fraction of you mailed datebase, and even then you’re probably reaching them at work. And if they do open, the e-mail they can still be easily distracted by the ping of e-mail or whatever else is just a click away.
Print magazines are utterly portable–they’re read on the train, in airports, on the subway, in bed. They’re waiting for you on the weekend when the last thing you want to do is turn on the computer. They require no electricity or batteries on the reader’s part. And they remain the best vehicle for delivering stories–that wonderful combination of narrative and art that moves a reader and connects them with their institution.
Yes, folks may save a little bit of money on the production end by scrapping a print pub in favor of a digital pub. But what would they be losing? I’d wager they’d be losing far, far more than what they gained.
Thanks for your perspectives, Andy and Matt.
Got 2 follow-up questions for Matt:
Why do magazines remain the best vehicles for engaging people with their respective institutions?
Do you think it will be the case in 15 or 20 years when a bigger part of the alums are digital natives or immigrants?
Karine,
Let me tackle your second question first….
At the heart of your question is this: will magazines, as we know them, exist in 15 or 20 years? My answer is an unequivocal, yes, because I believe people will still be reading in 15 or 20 years. And no matter how great the electronic medium is for delivering information–it’s a lousy vehicle for Reading, with a capital R. And I don’t think that’s going to change in two decades. People will still be reading books and magazines–reading for story–until their is a vehicle that can deliver this content just as well electronically. And the Kindle doesn’t cut it.
And while I believe that the daily newspaper is a dying breed, digital natives and immigrants won’t become so single-faceted that they won’t value the elegance and intimacy of printed material. The airplane has been around for almost a century now and people are still driving cars. Intercontinental train travel (today’s newspapers) has changed dramtically, but people still love their cars.
As to your first question: Why are magazines the best vehicles for institutional engagement? Because people spend more time with a magazine–a good magazine–then they do with a web page or a video. And investment of time=engagement. Yes, digital stories and videos, when well done, can pack a wallop of emotional impact. But think about what you are doing when you are reading: You’re immersing yourself in that narrative world. Can one become more engaged than that?
I have reams of survey data that speaks to the power of our magazine–and it’s relatively consistent across age demographics. I don’t think that is going to change in two decades time. And here I’d like to quote my good friend Brian Doyle at the University of Portland, who makes the case for more eloquently than I:
The magazine is the continuing case statement for investment in the university. No other form of communication arrives with such cheerful regularity, such inventive itch for conversation, such insistence on the continuing value of education and epiphany, such artless art, such happy welter of voices and faces and ideas and debate and challenge, such essential proof that the university is a vigorous, energetic, remarkable, and crucial community in which people should with joy invest
money, children, time, and good will. No newsletter, web site,
fundraising letter, annual report, video, dvd, or visit from a
representative can so thoroughly and so consistently bring the
university into the home of the reader. Let me repeat: the magazine is the continuing case statement for investment in the university.
The magazine with lots of stories, faces, laughter, poignancy, emotion, zest, photographs, that’s a case statement.