In the latest installment in a series, a healthcare editor responds to the question – is print media dying? To view earlier installments please click here.
Ken Anderberg, Publisher/Editorial Director, Health Management Technology: The main problem with print – which is being corrected – is that we all gave away our content for free online. We’ve allowed others to “steal” (aggregate) our content with no payment in return. Meanwhile, the aggregators attract advertisers to their sites. If all print media put up pay walls or registration walls, the aggregators would be out of business – they would have no content to post to drive traffic. Bloggers also would have a tough time recycling the news/content created by real media outlets. E-readers, also, will only be attractive to a small percentage of the population. The real question might be “how is technology making people dumber?” – because they may know a lot of “headline” facts but they’re not reading deeper into subjects. They’re reading Cliff Notes instead of novels. All the technology offerings (e-newsletters, digital editions, blogs) are part of the mix, but print still offers the best platform for reading.
