Teach Your Children Well: Get Careers in Internet Linked to Print

Everywhere in the marketplace we encounter hybrids: autos that run on gas and electric; corn with gene-resistant bugs. Likewise, the hybridization of the print business—from technology (sheetfed presses that switch from UV to conventional inks; offsets with flexo inside) to markets (commercial firms jobbing newspapers, e.g., Transcontinental's $1 billion bet on a plant for the San Francisco Chronicle).

The hybridization of print media was celebrated in the Dec. 4 issue of BusinessWeek, whose editors expressed surprise at the continued growth of catalogs despite the leaps made by online media. Reporters discovered that catalogs, showing product coloration more reliably (and reducing costly returns) reach welcoming recipients, and continue to outstrip Internet channels. Giving online its due, of course, is its role as an instantaneous cash register for orders.

But there is another lesson here: The Internet, for all its upside potential, needs published sources as a foundation for its content, and a fulcrum for its reach. This perspective of the essential role of print ought to be imparted to the “YouTube” and “MySpace” generation, aka today's students.

Unfortunately, there has been a presumption within educational institutions, even some offering print degrees, to propagate the misconception that conventional print must die, though the moment of its expiration is continuously postponed. Such prejudices against print are distressing when you consider that these programs have been underwritten by the printing industry—betrayed, perhaps, by the folks entrusted to serve as its advocates.

Examples of this are embodied in two studies done for the Electronic Document Systems Foundation—the 162-page “Printing in the Age of the Web and Beyond” (2001) and the 24-page “Criticality of Printed Information in the Retail Industry” (September 2006). Both purport to examine how print integrates with Internet-based media.

Yet both are laced with naïve assumptions, and present conclusions, undoubtedly prepared by cohorts of unpaid undergrads, that conflict with the very facts supposedly meant to support them. These projects provide a double disservice—they reinforce for students' a dismissive, even disdainful view of print as “so 1990s.” And they carry an overarching bias of the teenaged ghost-authors, who presume that Podcasts, Blackberries and Web mashups will triumph over traditional print.

That they should be given better guidance during their research, and especially in the preparation of conclusions, is the least of the criticisms that could be mounted against such studies. Like the many prognostications of paperlessness that we have endured over the years, the world view inferred here is disconnected from the facts supposedly buttressing the conclusions. In one study, charts show 98% of retailers use printed ad inserts, and 75% produce coupons, yet researchers detect vague suspicions of the value of this print. Other data, finding “the respondents expect the use of print signage to stay the same or increase, and only 12% expect it to decline” somehow concludes “the growing acceptance of electronic signage indicates a challenge to suppliers…Be prepared to repurpose printed copy into electronic signs.” Or this from 2001: “Business cards may be a thing of the past in 2020. Hand-held devices can be used to 'beam' personal information from one hand held device to another…[and] they will curtail the production of business cards.” Such speculation reveals the prejudices of the writers.

Let's use International Printing Week, Jan. 14-20, to promote the print business as a worthy career choice—and a good target for investment. Our industry institutions should avoid being paid to position the print industry as “old news,” when truly it is “good news.”

bill.esler@reedbusiness.com