The dying print media

One of the stories form last year is how print media is dying off. I don’t think it’s going to ever completely die, nor would I want it to.

As someone who is writing this from the airplane where there is no Internet access but loaded up with plenty of magazines, I can really appreciate the benefits of online media.

First, online you can almost always comment on the article. Disagree with what I’m saying? Did I miss something? Have something to add? You can comment on this.  By contrast, print media offers no such thing. This is a major shortcoming.  For example, reading Time Magazine can be frustrating because I see so much editorializing in what is supposed to be “news”. The online version of such biased reporting would get called out.

Second, another problem with print media is the lag time. As I read the articles on Windows 7 in print magazines, a lot of it is already outdated or far too general. Do casual computer enthusiasts buy computer magazines? That would be an interesting thing to find out but based on circulation numbers, it would appear not so much.

Lastly, the format of many print magazines is incredibly inefficient compared to online magazines. It’s usually not their fault but many have not taken advantage of their print medium as well as they could have.  There are notable exceptions – Worth Playing is very awesome in its print edition. PC Gamer takes good advantage of its print edition and PC Magazine, started to make a lot better use of its medium but it appears to have been too late.

I enjoy reading media on paper. I just wish that those who ran such publications would adapt to the changing circumstances. 

Suggestions for “old” media.

1. Be more honest. If it’s hard news, just the facts please. Nothing is more annoying that reading not-so-subtle political biases that try to pretend to be objective.  Huffington Post and National Review make no bones about where they come from. By contrast, Time and Newsweek patronize us with their claims of objectivity even as they spin consistently one way.

2. Increase the quality.  If a doofus like me can crank out the same level of material as what’s in a print magazine, something has gone very wrong. And yet, often as I read these magazines, I can’t help but think that I or many other bloggers could have produced the same stuff. It’s not hard to read a Microsoft position paper or media guide and sum it up into an article.  I find myself increasingly going online if I want to get to material that is truly newsworthy.

This is an area where print game publications do a better job than the print tech publications. PC Gamer, for instance, gets a lot of news on games that I just can’t get elsewhere. By contrast, I rarely find info in print tech publications that hasn’t already been described in great detail on CNET, ZDNet, or Toms Hardware (or Neowin or Betanews for that matter).

3. Make full use of the medium.  CPU magazine (Computer Power User) is one of the few tech magazines that really seems to use its print existence to its advantage.  The litmus of a well done print publication in my opinion is if you would still want to read a 3 month old issue you got your hands on. CPU magazine meets this criteria. PC Gamer meets it as well.  Time Magazine, increasingly, does not. Newsweek doesn’t. PC World, a long-time favorite of mine, often does not. Smart Computing does not. 

I’m always surprised to see tech magazines with articles that simply show a table of hardware with brief ratings on them. Those magazines were put to bed 2 months ago. If I’m buying a computer, I’m going to go online for ratings. What I would use a print magazine for is to get more in-depth coverage produced by professional journalists.

Just my 2 cents. Comment away!