Print vs Digital and Self-Publishing Journalism

  While the concept of self-publishing books through Amazon has garnered a lot of attention, what are we to think about self-publishing journalism?  With the rise of citizen journalism, anyone can produce content, but thoughts about publishing it are largely limited to blogs, websites and other online capabilities.  E-zines do exist, but are really only utilised in addition to a real-world print publication with added rich content.  There are few online only magazine and news sites that use the model of the digital flipbook.  This may come from an assumption that journalism content is more detachable from its form than books, for example.     

    In the World News Future and Change Study, editors and publishers indicated they were looking to invest more in new digital media revenue streams and less in production costs, however there are alternatives than forecasting the death of print media.  In an article in a print and digital magazine called What’s Next, Andrew Losowsky says the future of print is actually in digital.  Self-publishing sites such as www.magcloud.com offer options to combine digital platforms and print to create runs of magazines up to the number of people who order them.  This form of bespoke printing may not work on such a large scale right now, as it is used more for short-run print products, but the concept could be adaptable.  

The important point is that print and digital don’t need to be opposing forces, but can and should work in tandem.  In the article, Losowky quotes Russel Davies, “Print has evolved over hundreds of years to be exactly how we want to read.  Screens are way better at many things. However we’ll use screens for those things, and keep print for the things it does best.”  

What's Next, Issue 2 Collaborate, Digital Edition <http://www.whatsnextmagazine.net/wp-content/themes/sappiwhatsnext/assets/downloads/issues/whats-next-magazine-issue-2.pdf> [accessed 22/01/2012]

World News Future and Change Study, World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers November 2010 <http://elearn.uclan.ac.uk/webct/urw/lc693393467011.tp693393503011//RelativeResourceManager?contentID=699075264021> [Accessed 22/01/2012]