mayday, mayday

Everywhere you go, there are stories that the print industry is dying a slow and painful death. For someone like me, this is completely disheartening because I hope to become a fashion journalist in an upscale print publication, such as Vogue or Harper’s Bazaar. A CBC video that I watched portrayed the increasing fear that many print publications had about the growing threat of the internet. It is obvious that many people are attracted to the free and user friendly nature of the internet as opposed to actually going out and purchasing a publication. Especially since the blogging phenomenon started, many publications have felt the pinch of this particular internet medium because people can get up-to-date and most of the time, reliable, information at the click of a button. This has prompted many newspapers and magazines to have their own websites in order to compete with bloggers. The question therein lies; how much free information does one put on a website in order to attract a fan base that will then purchase the publication. Generally people will not purchase something if they can get a free alternative and this has deterred a lot of advertising for these publications which is their main bread and butter. In fact, the pages of advertising in the magazine, American Vogue, has decreased by 100 pages within the last few months. With the decrease of print journalism there has been an increase in online publications such as, Style.com but the problem is that you do not need as many staff to run an online publication as you do for print. This will mean that journalism jobs will become a lot more competitive in the coming years than before, which is why I am hoping that my blog takes off. A part of me, though, will always love the tactile experience of flipping through the pages of a magazine. This simply cannot be duplicated digitally.