by Arthur Goldstuck (@art2gee) In the undeclared war between printed and digital media, there are many dates that will live on in infamy.
28 October 2008: The Christian Science Monitor closes its daily print edition.
13 March 2012: The end of the Encylopaedia Britannica as a set of printed volumes.
And 18 October 2012: Newsweek announces it will cease publication of its weekly magazine, and become a digital-only publication.
The announcement last Thursday sent shock waves through the print media industry, representing a capitulation to the inexorable rise of digital media. Newsweek said it would lay off a portion of its staff, and those who remain will produce a paid-for online magazine called Newsweek Global. It will continue to exist alongside Newsweek’s online sister publication, the startlingly inappropriately titled The Daily Beast.
In an interview with the New York Times, editor-in-chief Tina Brown confessed: “You cannot actually change an era of enormous disruptive innovation. No one single person can reverse that trend. You can’t turn back what is an inexorable trend.”