You wouldn’t think those two have much to do with each other, but Steve Rubel sees a correlation, and what he sees isn’t good for newspapers and magazines. I spend a lot of time focusing on both of these industries from a copyright standpoint, as I have a background in both and feel both are overlooked in the broader media debate. I think Steve makes some good points but I’m not sure his conclusions match his facts.

He cites three factors related to rising gas prices in his “perfect storm” (I’m sorry Steve, good blog, but please let that tired phrase die):

1. Delivering hard-copy media will be more expensive. My take: Very true.
2. Greater awareness of consumers of environmental impact (paper vs. bits). My take: Also true, but not as big yet as Steve might think. Discover Magazine in a recent all-environment issue did a flow chart on its physical magazine, from print to landfill, but they obviously didn’t think their print subscribers would read that and cancel (it did point out the tons of recycling done and the recycled paper used). The Onion also did a take on this, about printed enviro pubs, showing that it has cultural resonance but also that it’s something to be spoofed rather than something to cause alarm. (Of course, irony of ironies, I read both articles in the printed versions and don’t have links.)
3. 3G phones such as the iPhone make reading digital text easier. My take: Very true.

Note that only #1 has to do with gas, but that’s okay. The fact is, there isn’t an industry out there that won’t be affected by gas prices. Even Costco, where people are flocking to shop because of tightened pocketbooks, can’t raise retail prices fast enough to compete with the rising wholesale and energy prices they’re having to pay.

We can look at all three of those points by Steve, and many other factors (look here), for why there is pressure on the medium of print. But what does that really mean?

I’d like to believe print and digital can coexist, as Joe Wikert writes. I’ve read books on my PDA, usually in snippets while waiting for a train, etc. (Believe it or not, one was Walter McCullogh’s “John Adams,” which in retrospect I’ll say should not be read on a Treo screen.) I prefer physical books, and just purchased five at lunch today at a nearby bookstore (I walked, thus not using gas). I subscribe to two newspapers and four or five magazines, but I read an ungodly number of publications (or at least portions of publications) online everyday.

We all live in a world that is both physical and digital. There’s no reason why our media has to decide to only occupy one place or the other. One area where Steve is dead-on is the challenge newspapers and magazines are facing in monetizing online works. As I’ve heard at the last few Digital Hollywood conferences, there are no clear answers yet. Right now digital newspaper and magazine offerings are rarely solvent, instead sustained by revenues from the print side. If enough people abandon print media for the digital equivalent and new ways of generating online revenue haven’t arrived, the layoffs we’ve seen in newsrooms will seem like child’s play.

And where is copyright in all of this? Much of the current strain is based on business models, namely advertising. But when, say, newspapers and wire services have their works stolen and reproduced online and the infringer ignores your requests to stop, that obviously further dilutes the audience you have for the few advertisers willing to move into the online space. Piracy also makes potential advertisers more skittish; they pretty much know Business Week stories won’t be photocopied and faxed everywhere, but they know a BusinessWeek.com story could be posted all across the web.

So if you read a blog that posts full stories from other publications, please read those stories at the other publications instead. Support the reporters, editors and copyeditors who brought you the journalism that is apparently important enough that you’re willing to give it your most precious commodity due to it being finite, time. And advertisers, go beyond sticking a toe in the pool; jump in. The water’s fine.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 28th, 2008 at 4:50 pm by Patrick Ross and is filed under advertising, economy, internet, market forces. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.