Hot Gossip > Death of the Newspaper! (Well ... no actually)

When was the last time you read something big in a physical, hold-in-your-hand newspaper that you had not already heard rumour of through other means? If you subscribe to various online “RSS” feeds and are connected to online social media sites, the answer could very well be “ages ago!”.

Many top stories, nationally and internationally, have been reported in a very modern form long before the printed newspaper announces the story itself. Now that the world is becoming more and more connected, an incident occurs, a witness texts a friend, that friend mentions it in a blog, some readers of the blog write a “tweet” and before you know it, the story is around the world in no time. And who’s writing these reports? Seasoned, hard working journalists and reporters?

Not really! It’s Johnny and Julie Public.

So does this mean the end of journalists and the printed word?

Well, in my opinion, no, not at all. Instead of denying all knowledge of these methods and denouncing all credibility, the Press itself (our Christchurch newspaper) has its own RSS feed that releases tens of stories a day. It’s currently 2:15pm and already I have received 12 as-it-happens headlines since 6:00am this morning.

When I buy the newspaper in the morning, I will look through each article and most likely say “Oh yup. I knew that. Ah yep knew that too.” But that’s the thing, I will still buy the newspaper! There’s something to be said for having a hold-in-your-hand copy of any printed material, be it a newspaper, a manual, a newsletter or an informative report.

As a client who we regularly design newsletters for said to me this week, “You can’t put a PDF on a coffee table in the staffroom.”

And so with the printed word still in high demand, comes a responsibility to ensure these millions of printed articles that are produced every day are printed through processes that make use of the plethora of environmental printing options that are available to us today.

From the paper we use to the actual processes that were used to create that paper, there are a variety of requirements that we can stipulate in order to ensure we continue to minimise our carbon footprint in today’s fragile world.

To find out more about sustainable printing methods, contact us or visit the New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable Development to download a guide”

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