More on "They Can't Go Away"

For every worthwhile newspaper that goes out of business, we are worse off for it. By worthwhile, I mean any large city daily newspaper. Why? Because newspapers are instruments of learning and information. Even though they may sensationalize at times, most of the information found in a daily newspaper is useful to the reader.

I know that people can get information online. But think of how you use a newspaper. You read some of it and page through some of it. How often do you see "news" to you when you are paging through. Probably often.

If you see something in the paper that you did not know, you are getting news. Often while paging through a newspaper, you will learn someting new or gain new insights. There is a great value to printed newspapers.

Now, turning to business-to-business magazines, the same principle applies. Readers often page through magazines in addition to reading the articles, ads, and other features of interest. We often page through several times. It is much harder to do that online. You can search product and companies, but only a printed magazine delivers this information to you in a format that you can read and page through and do it again.

Not all printed magazines are worthwhile. There are many me-toos that are just trying to cash in on the success that other magazines have experienced. Just like the big three automakers have over the years overloaded the market with cars, and just like retailers have overloaded the landscape with stores, we do have too many magazines in some markets. If those go away and the worthwhile ones remain, we are fine. But, we can't afford to lose the magazines that inform and instruct.

They can't go away. We really need printed periodicals. Otherwise, we will be less informed.