A new golden age for print?

It’s been a long time since buying a newspaper was part of everyday life. Twenty years ago, the local weekly or your red-top tabloid were where you found out what was going on in the world. You might even have had the odd freebie pushed through your letterbox for more community news and ads.

These days, it’s a very different story. We hoover up our info on screen from the BBC, Guardian or Daily Mail online… and then there’s Twitter, Instagram or a Google search.

Popular national dailies, which in the late 1990s sold well over two million copies every day, now barely shift a third of that number.

It’s much worse for local dailies. I was a journo with one medium-sized, city-based regional when it regularly produced 108-page publications, which were bought by nearly 100,000 people every day, and read by double that number. The circulation of that once-revered paper’s now about 6,000.

Which might suggest that there’s no longer a place for the printed newssheet. But don’t be so quick to ring the death knell for the inkies – at least, not if you’re in internal comms.

What’s the landscape of print in internal communications?

Here at 44, we produce a range of award-winning print publications which are the perfect way to get important messages out to hard-to-reach audiences. People who don’t sit in front of a screen to do their jobs. Work in warehouses, in factories or outside. People who don’t have access to a company mobile phone. People who find it much simpler, quicker and more satisfying to pick up a bright and breezy 16-page tabloid, while they’re taking a break in the on-site canteen rather than to go home and try to launch something digital from their own laptop.

In fact, the freefall demise of the daily and weekly rag might even have helped us connect and engage with those people. The novelty of picking up a real newspaper – seeing brilliantly designed pages, cracking headlines, clever type and glorious images – can bring a smile to the face of even the most hard-bitten member of the team.

And for those who produce and publish, there’s the knowledge that with a newspaper, you can pace your messaging so well. A big front-page splash about a new initiative, turning inside to a clever feature with multiple entry points for the reader, graphics and big numbers, pictures of real people, pull-out quotes which nail a particular point. All seen and read in the correct order – the bold headlines, teasers and sidebars pointing the way.

Oh dear. Apologies. I’m getting all whimsical – but my point remains.

So we’re not consigning print to the recycling bin just yet here at 44 – in fact, we think for internal communicators trying to reach particular audiences, this might be the new golden age.

What do you think? If you have any thoughts on what you’ve read, drop us a line or comment below.