Print is dead! Long live the Print!

BY ELVIS EROMOSELE

The death of the print newspapers have been predicted since the debut of the World Wide Web. Several big names in the print have closed shop with many new ones filling their places. Others have simply moved their business online, joining the digital train.

But are print newspapers really ready to go out of fashion? Is there room for print and digital to work together? Will digital be the dead or saviour of print?

The Harnessing The Combination Of Digital For Print session at the The Social Media Week 2016 provided a veritable platform to deliberate on these among other pressing questions.

Oyebowale Akideinde, 360NoBS, Co- Founder; Sesan Adeniji, Editor-In-Chief, Mystreetz Magazine and Moriam Musa, Editor-In-Chief, Tribe and Elan provided tantalizing arguments under the guidance of Anslem Jon, Editor-In-Chief, Tush Magazine.

The audience ensured the facilitators couldn’t hide behind vague terms, they provided fuel and excitement.

The consensus was that digital has changed and is changing the way news is consumed.

According to Oyebowale “it is no more 24 hours, it is now 24 seconds.”

Reduced cost, international (scratch that, make it global) reach, crowdsourcing opportunities, creative research access and ‘breaking’ news have all continued to make digital the way to go.

The print it would appear is holding on by the skin of its teeth and the purse strings of the advertisers. But print’s biggest attractions; the exclusivity, keepsake and well researched feature write ups are helping it maintain its hold in the market.

As Jeff Jarvis, of Buzzmachine.com once explained, “It’s not that print is bad. It’s that digital is better. It has too many advantages (and there’ll only be more): ubiquity, speed, permanence, searchability, the ability to update, the ability to remix, targeting, interaction, marketing via links, data feedback. Digital transcends the limitations of—and incorporates the best of—individual media.”

He insisted that the more important bit is that digital reduces the incremental cost of production and distribution of content to zero. And clearly, “It’s impossible to compete with free.”

So will print die?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

But one thing that is sure is that the business model will die. It would however be revived, resurrected, and reinvented.

Undoubtedly, the times are still changing in the media landscape, especially in terms of how we consume daily news. While the differences between online and print media may continue to widen, both expert opinion and public sentiment suggest that similarities between the two will likely keep each relevant in some form.

Both are necessary and neither is expected to go away. The key then is that going into the future, the print and digital media must seek how each can enhance the other.

This is the task that must now be won.

ELVIS EROMOSELE is Corporate Communication Officer at MTN Nigeria