Letter to the Editor: "Get the Facts on Readers", Emailed to The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Kip Currier, September 1, 2018

[Kip Currier: I'm copying below a Letter to the Editor--titled "Get the Facts on Readers"--that I emailed today (September 1, 2018) to The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. For additional background, see this story.]

Get the Facts on Readers

Dear Editor,

The Post-Gazette is running a multi-platform ad campaign that weaponizes variations of the line “I will never go digital” to make fun of older readers, depicted as fuddy-duddy Luddites. In one particularly offensive TV spot, a digitally-savvy granddaughter openly mocks her grandmother who prefers print.

Research refutes the ageist “messages” in the P-G’s divisive marketing campaign. Many adult U.S. readers—of all ages—are hybrid readers who want the choice of information in both print and digital formats.

As evidence, take a look at some of the key findings from a Jan. 3-10, 2018 national survey of 2,002 U.S. adults, reported by the well-respected, non-partisan Pew Research Center:

Despite some growth in certain digital formats, it remains the case that relatively few Americans consume digital books (which include audiobooks and e-books) to the exclusion of print. Some 39% of Americans say they read only print books, while 29% read in these digital formats and also read print books.

And the coup de grace to the P-G’s graceless stereotyping:

Some demographic groups are more likely than others to be digital-only book readers, but in general this behavior is relatively rare across a wide range of demographics. For example, 10% of 18- to 29-year-olds only read books in digital formats, compared with 5% of those ages 50-64 and 4% of those 65 and older.

The P-G’s preening effort to digitally divide users borders on farce, given that P-G writers and staff repeatedly concede the deplorable state of the newspaper’s digital search and archival features.

The P-G’s tagline is “One of America’s Great Newspapers”. Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, that tagline is not supported by facts. So, here’s a “message” for P-G ownership:

Hire some of the Pittsburgh region’s highly educated information professionals to help the P-G become a bona fide leader in print and digital content, search, and delivery. Give the Pittsburgh region a truly great newspaper that inclusively serves and respects all of its readers and residents.

James “Kip” Currier 

Mt. Lebanon

The Plot Twist: E-Book Sales Slip and Print Is Far From Dead; New York Times, 9/22/15

Alexandra Alter, New York Times; The Plot Twist: E-Book Sales Slip and Print Is Far From Dead:

"Five years ago, the book world was seized by collective panic over the uncertain future of print.

As readers migrated to new digital devices, e-book sales soared, up 1,260 percent between 2008 and 2010, alarming booksellers that watched consumers use their stores to find titles they would later buy online. Print sales dwindled, bookstores struggled to stay open, and publishers and authors feared that cheaper e-books would cannibalize their business...

“E-books were this rocket ship going straight up,” said Len Vlahos, a former executive director of the Book Industry Study Group, a nonprofit research group that tracks the publishing industry. “Just about everybody you talked to thought we were going the way of digital music.”

But the digital apocalypse never arrived, or at least not on schedule. While analysts once predicted that e-books would overtake print by 2015, digital sales have instead slowed sharply.

Now, there are signs that some e-book adopters are returning to print, or becoming hybrid readers, who juggle devices and paper. E-book sales fell by 10 percent in the first five months of this year, according to the Association of American Publishers, which collects data from nearly 1,200 publishers. Digital books accounted last year for around 20 percent of the market, roughly the same as they did a few years ago.

E-books’ declining popularity may signal that publishing, while not immune to technological upheaval, will weather the tidal wave of digital technology better than other forms of media, like music and television."