People who care about prints were starting to feel discouraged that printed journalism would be over very soon. Everything you wish to find is now online and with a simple click to a search engine, you get bombarded by thousands of links. Especially during the last years many magazines and newspapers have turned to digital since it is also convenient. The pandemic has created a declining turn for the world’s economy including prints. However, you might be wondering ‘what’s the problem with that?’
Printed press finds fans all over the world too disappointed to know that prints over the last several years are decaying or rotting. The industry is going down slowly and the pandemic has helped a bunch. A sick economy means fewer advertisers, cutbacks, fewer employees, circulation declines, and you name it. As much as we love printed press we should come with peace with the fact that it is slowly going down.
However, is it actually that bad? In 2020, right in the middle of the pandemic, 60 new magazines were launched. That is according to professor Samir “Mr. Magazine” Husni the founder of the University of Mississippi’s Magazine Innovation Center, who has been keeping tabs on magazine launches in the US for more than 40 years. He says that he believes that even though prints show a decline, there is still much vitality and interest in magazines, that can’t just let them die and disappear. And the launches seem to keep coming.
An interesting fact is that younger generations like generation Z, also find printed press more appealing than digital. As they support, they do not care that much about the information that magazines offer, since the media is full of it, but what they find interest in is the aesthetics of printed magazines as a whole. Also another study has indicated that there is something romantic to touching the pages and going through a printed magazine. That is why companies invest so much money on good quality paper. Another reason for loving prints instead of digitals is that it gives the feeling that what people read is more credible and correct.
The truth, on the other hand still remains, that the number of magazines launched in 2020 is much lower than the ones launched in 2019. Nonetheless, having in mind the difficulties surrounding printing, the product we get is much better in quality than it was before. More pages and better paper all contribute to that sense of luxury print lovers are looking for.
Sources: thefederalist.com, forbes.com
Words by: Vasiliki Roussou
