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FOUnDED In 1917B.C. Forbes, Editor-in-Chief (1917-54)

Malcolm S. Forbes, Editor-in-Chief (1954-90)James W. Michaels, Editor (1961-99)William Baldwin, Editor (1999-2010)

FORBES

IN BRIEFEDITOR-In-CHIEFSteve Forbes

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MARCH 23, 2015 — voluME 195 NuMBER 4

Will It BeIn Print?

by lEWIs D’vORkIn

This is my second time around at FORBES. I left in 2000, four years after I began, to work for AOL and join the early ranks of digital journalists. With 26 million subscribers it was the place to be. Eight years later I founded a news startup that FORBES invested in and then bought. I came back as chief product of-ficer, largely to help reinvent Forbes.com. Imagine my surprise, only days into the job, when Tim Forbes asked me to redesign this magazine. I remember that moment every time I get the question “Will it be in print?”

It’s what all staff writers want to know. Most of our digital contributors do, too. Reporters hear the question when they’re interviewing business leaders or whomever. Many people try to make it a quid pro quo for talking to us. Job applicants, even digital natives, also ask. The rich and famous, includ-ing those on this year’s billionaires list, are no different. Nearly every-one who engages with FORBES wants to know if they’ll be in print.

Maybe it’s be-cause they know our magazine’s reader-ship is higher than ever. Maybe the Web is too ephemeral to offer the validation conveyed by the printed word. Maybe photos, so prevalent on social networks, are more powerful on paper.

These are challenging times for newspapers and maga-zines. The data tell me the news business has an advertiser problem more than a readership problem. That can change if marketers are offered innovative and appealing opportu-nities. Last issue we highlighted a BrandVoice story on the cover, breaking one of the industry’s “last taboos.” Since then we’ve received dozens of inquiries from ad agencies about similar native ad placements.

There may be something more basic to the universal need to be in print. When I respond to the question by asking, “Why does it matter?” here’s what I often hear: “So I can show it to my mother.” F

18 | FORBES MARCH 23, 2015

MILLIONS OF PRINT MAGAZINE READERSAS MEASURED BY MRI

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