A Message To Print Media...Get With The Times Already!

I just wanted to drop you a line, print media. I just wanted to tell you to get with the times already! And coming from slow-to-change Old Man Savastano, that is sayin’ a lot!

As my loyal readers will tell you, print media, I have this long-running (since 1998) obsession with posting articles for others to read, originally in my e-newsletters, later on blogs, and now on social media. Marketing and business articles across the board go on my personal and business sites and pages, and funny stuff and political ranting go solely on my personal sites and pages (as to only offend my closest friends).

So, guess what is really annoying to me, print media?  While 98% of what I read and deem to be post-worthy comes to me by electronic means, every once in a while, I actually pick up a piece of, you guessed it, print media. And believe it or not, quite often I find an article that I really like and would like to post.

But, when I pick up my electronic device and set out to find the article in your antiquated and dying medium, guess what I have a really hard time finding, or never find at all? That’s right! The article in your printed piece of media that I wanted to share with hundreds, if not, by Facebook’s friends of friends or LinkedIn’s connections of connections calculations, thousands of people.

I get that it costs money to produce your printed piece that is riddled with advertising, but at the same time, in today’s age of digital sharing, not posting the same articles that are in your printed piece to your website as well so that people who find them interesting can share them seems crazy to me. We all know that you should be transitioning as much as you can to digital right now, print media.

At a time when my hundreds of magazines per month has dwindled down to just a few print stragglers, at a time when I have decided to never again renew another print magazine subscription, and at a time when the last thing in the world I would ever tell someone to do is to buy a copy of a magazine so they could read an article that I liked as opposed to just posting it and giving them the ability read it instantaneously, it is time for you, print media, to get with the times, otherwise, next time, I will remember that I cannot find the articles that are in your print version also in a digital version online, and immediately, without bothering to look at it, put your piece of print media right where it belongs…in the recycle bin.