The printed word remains a popular way to get news, despite what some believe
For years doomsday seers have been predicting the end of print news, claiming that in the future all magazines and newspapers will be only digital. However, with the recent relaunch of Newsweek‘s print magazine, another look into the future of physical copes of the news is in order.
According to the Media Daily News 55 percent of Americans still read their local newspaper only in print form, with no digital overlapping. A further 15 percent read both the physical and digital versions of the news; 10 percent read on their phone, online and print; and 4 percent read on their phone and the print version.
These statistics paint a very different picture than the one the doomsday folks predict. Combined, the numbers show that 84 percent of the American population reads print news.
This is not the only evidence in contrast to the idea that print news is no longer wanted in the modern world. In the past year several digital only news sources have created a print front. For example, the music site Pitchfork.com just launched a print quarterly journal, according to the LA Times. Another site with Tumblr roots, The Los Angeles Review of Books, only recently created a quarterly journal as well.
The world of print media has been in question since the internet, and web news sites, were invented. But instead of following the negative and threatening predictions, news media with a physical manifestation is growing, and the readership of print media is still more prevalent and powerful than that of digital alone. And so, at least for now, the destruction of the news type that one can hold is not eminent, and the “end is nigh” voices are still merely crying wolf.
