Print will live on, but without much help from big companies

My friend, Internet guru and excellent blogger Shel Holtz, has posted the most compelling argument I've yet seen for the long-term survival of print journalism. Its role may change, but it ain't going away, says Shel. Why? Because it's an extremely useful medium that cannot be replicated on a computer screen or an iPod. People continue to enjoy reading things printed on paper. Shel points to a recent Readership Institute poll that shows newspaper readership is stable, and in fact it's up in many major daily papers. The problem, which is a tough one for publishers, is that advertising revenue is declining quickly -- even though readership is not.

This just kills me, because I am continually reminded that big corporations continue to eliminate successful print employee publications in favour of online vehicles. They may do this because the majority of their employees say they prefer to get their information online. But they forget that even if 60 per cent of their employee base says they want online over print, that's 40 per cent of their people they are disenfranchising by cutting them off from their preferred medium. And, besides, that 60 per cent who say they prefer online information will almost surely read less online than they did when the company rag was published.

The irony is that big companies don't have to worry about their internal publications losing advertising, because most internal pubs don't have any advertising. Executives, and the communicators who work for them, should be worried about losing readers, who will ultimately lose interest in the company. Why they don't understand this is beyond me.

Go ahead. Fill your boots. Embrace the new media, but don't do at at the expense of the old.