The publisher os the Bellevue Business Journal / Eastside Business Newspaper (in Wastington state) delcared yesterday “Print is Dead” when announcing the cessation of printing and an expansion of its online focus.
Joe Kennedy, longtime Publisher of Bellevue Business Journal and Eastside Business newspapers in Bellevue, Washington and former Publisher of The Valley Business Journal in Temecula, California has declared the print news industry “dead” and instead of printing newspapers, will be focusing time and resources on continuing to expand reach to readers online and through the use of social media.
“It’s no secret that the print news industry has been hurting for some time”, Kennedy said, “but with the amazing and exciting evolution of social media, it has become all but irrelevant. We have reached many, many more people online with our news sites than through the print papers for the past couple of years. It is about time that we focus all of our resources reaching the majority of readers online and where they want to be engaged.”
While not a major publisher and therefore likely to be ignored as a significant move, it is a significant move. It will be interesting to see how widely this story is covered.
This could be dismissed as insignificant if it was a one off, but this is happening on a weekly basis now. Newspapers and magazines are closing down all over the place to focus online. In a few years the problem for newsagents won’t be overstock, it will be finding enough stock to fill the shelves!