Media Vent
By Bob Sacks
About Bob
Bob Sacks (aka BoSacks) is a printing/publishing industry consultant and president of The Precision Media Group (BoSacks.com). He is also the co-founder of the research company Media-Ideas (Media-Ideas.net), and publisher and editor of a daily international e-newsletter, Heard on the Web. Sacks has held posts as director of manufacturing and distribution, senior sales manager (paper), chief of operations, pressman, circulator and almost every other job this industry has to offer.
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The Publishing Community Will Not Perish
I have a question I want to put forth to the members of the fifth estate and my readership community. If my beat was a metro coverage -- and if there was an onslaught of murders happening in my turf -- shouldn't I do my best no matter how depressing and horrific the news to inform my readers of the dire events happening in our community? The obvious answer is that, yes, it is my professional responsibility.
Today, the media publishing news is not so much about death but about contraction and the loss of published titles, jobs and a missing vibrant economy to grow in. The news continues to be sad and, to those directly affected, depressing. But just like a murder spree, the story has to be covered. It has to be dissected and understood. We need to know what is happening and why. We need to understand that although many jobs are lost and others are under great stress, neither the community nor the industry will perish. The economy, the industry, the country and the world will suck in its gut, exhale and move on. There is no other greater truth than the fact that we will survive. We might change, we might apply old talents in new positions, we might learn new skills, but above all else we will eventually turn the tide, grow and, yes, even prosper after this period of contraction and reassessment.
How we get from here to there is the mystery. How long will the trauma continue? Neither I nor anyone else has the answer. But the fact that these troubled times will be behind us some day is an absolute. The earth will not stop turning, the economy will eventually grow, and people will always be in the need to know. They will satisfy that need by reading what authors and publishers produce.
Should you be prepared for unexpected changes in our industry? Yes. Will there be a day when society won't need to store and distribute information in a multitude of ways? No. We are an essential and critical part of civilization, so we will prosper and perhaps help stimulate that prosperity by the very nature of what we do: educate, entertain and inform.
I read your article and your sadness really comes through.
You are right, things are always dying and renewing, changing. Change is painful, because you lose things you hoped would never change, though deep down, we all know everything is always changing, dying and renewing.
Take heart! Embrace the change. As a writer, don't confuse the problems facing traditional publishing with the death of reporting. As you assert, reporting and writing and communicating will always be vitally necessary. What isn't necessary is paper and huge delivery costs. (The changes happening now would have happened with or without the current economic problems.) There were cab drivers, who drove carriages, before there were today's cabs.
Neither the cab nor the carriage would have had any utility without their drivers. What has happened is that a revolutionary new distribution system,with much lower costs has jolted an antiquated system where news, information and communication were delivered in a more expensive manner.
That is all. As a creative force behind the delivery system, as a gifted writerand communicator - rejoice! Your work can reach farther, faster -can be reposited and found by those who desire it and need it over the internet more easily and inexpensively than ever before. The old system of delivery is all that has chnged - for the better. The MESSAGE in your work is still the beating heart of the publishing community and will never perish.
Capt Bo: You and I are constantly accused of being negative and pessimistic, but you and I know that we're just reporting what the data tell us and what we see. Your comment about the "murder spree" was quite good. Entrepreneurs look the market square in the face and find things that need to be done. They don't have illusions; if they do, the market punishes them with rejection. If one of the most hated men in media, Rupert Murdoch, sees opportunity when others don't, that should make people quite curious. We're seeing the unraveling of "big publishing" and its high fixed cost operations. It's amazing to see, especially when I'm sitting on the digital side of the Internet revolution. Content is not dead; content is alive and growing.
Steve:
Great point and one that I agree with, publishers must supply the reader with what the reader wants on the platform that the reader wants it on. I am an equal opportunity platform provider. I don’t care what the substrate is. And I agree with you about social networks being an important source of information, so long as it is not the only source. Publishers need to balance “user†input and informed journalism. There is room for both platforms in a successful publishing business model.
BoSacks
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I agree! I think we need to use every medium we have to connect with our readers, and I think we need to understand what our readers are looking for, whether it be print or online publications, social networking, or any other form of communication. It shouldn't be an either or situation.
Brent
I don't know that i agree fully with your position here.
People are increasingly satisfying their "need to know" by tapping into their peers and social networks. We must remember, in the publising industry, that our audience is interested in much more than what authors and publishers produce - they want to know what their peer did, what their peers like, what their peers said, how they acted and more.
Incorporating the ability for readers to connect with each other is just as important as presenting them good information. If publishers and authors don't do this, other people will.
SK