Another punch to the head for the printed press

Inflation is rocketing, perhaps out of control, we learnt today.

Newspapers have got their own very particular inflation issues. Rising energy and travel costs hit the papers the same as every other business.

On top of that, lately the cost of newsprint and paper is soaring, making the production costs somewhere between challenging and flat out uneconomic.

Unless these pressures ease, publishers may be forced to “raise cover prices, reduce page counts or accelerate the closure of more titles”.

The demise of print has been predicted for some time, and recent developments are plainly about as helpful as a hole in the head.

One possibility is that papers just print less often. The Evening Standard will cease printing next Tuesday, for example, and not restart till January 4.

That’s a longer break than it typically takes, but is merely a pragmatic response to there being fewer people in town.

Other newspapers could do the same, but tend not to for largely egotistical reasons.

One further issue is that younger hacks just aren’t that attached to the idea of working for printed papers. In many cases, they don’t read them, why should they want to work for them?

All of which will change the PR trade at least as much as the hack trade, it seems to me.

The hacks most attached to print might be crotchety, pains-in-the-neck. But we do like to check things before we publish them. You’ll miss us when we are gone.