Print isn't dead

I’ve never believed that print is dead. I’ve always believed that there are two problems with print journalism today.

One is lack of advertising, some parts of which will come back, and two, when nobody is buying your magazine or your newspaper, it’s because you’re not writing what people want to read.

Michael Bloomberg, publisher quoted in The New York Times after he bought Businessweek magazine.

I’d add a third point. Print started on the path to unsustainability twenty years ago when corporate spivs started buying media companies and pumping them dry to squeeze unrealistic profits from them.

You can’t run a publishing business like a grocery store.

There’s no question the Internet is hurting print publications, but the technology is speeding up a process that was already well under way much earlier.