My prescription for saving the print edition

Here’s my latest Editor & Publisher Online column, posted today: “Don’t Redesign the Print Edition to Ensure Failure.”

It’s an opinion piece about how the wave of print-edition redesigns by the newspaper industry is largely missing the boat.

Publishers need to focus on their core older audience when it comes to the print edition, and stop fruitlessly redesigning with the goal of attracting younger people to start reading the newspaper in paper form. And they must guide their older readers to digital offerings that supplement the thinning print product, rather than expecting them to continue to read print forever even as the quality of the product received continues going downhill.

Otherwise, look for printed newspapers to slide even faster than they have been.