Death of Old Media Predicted

As a media junkie, I am concerned about the future of print media. And while I do think traditional media's future may be a death by a thousand cuts, I do think that predicting its near-term death may be like premature reporting in 1897 that Mark Twain had died -- to which he famously responded, "The report of my death was an exaggeration."

The latest example is Marc Andreessen at the Allen & Co. Sun Valley Conference. According to the New York Times, "Sun Valley: The Old-Media Death-Watch Continues" by Andrew Ross Sorkin. According to Sorkin, Andreessen said, "If you have old media, you should sell."

People said the same thing about radio, but it's still around.

I do think traditional media has a dim future unless it finds a way -- a format, approach, business model, delivery mechanism, something -- to evolve. But I don't think print will totally disappear.

When I did a search, I found predictions of the death of old media going back a decade. Hasn't happened yet. What has happened is that the impact and influence of print may have diminished -- certainly advertisers seem to think so -- but that's not the same thing.

Andy Borowitz's "Next Month's Business News" -- One of the best features in Portfolio Magazine

The best way to describe Conde Nast's Portfolio magazine is to describe it as Vanity Fair meets Fortune.

In other words, it covers the glitz and glam areas of business: billionaire hedge fund managers (but not necessarily on the hedge fund business itself), fashion (a recent two-page spread looked at the value of the Chanel brand); Culture Inc. (a feature subtitled "Where art meets commerce") and publishing and media.

If you think publishing and media are the same because you didn't realize publishing meant book publishing, you're not in the magazine's target demographic.

And if you think media means something other than the big time traditional Allen & Co. Sun Valley Conference players, then you're not in its target demo. (If you're unfamiliar with the annual Allen & Co. Sun Valley Conference, check out its Wikipedia entry and pick up some other business magazine.)

However, there's one small section that I turn to each month -- it's Andy Borowitz's always funny "Next Month's Business News." This month's predictions of next month's business news includes several great items, including:

• "The Economy sux:(. In a sign of consumers' increasingly gloomy mood, the use of frowny-face emoticons in text messages will surge."

I also liked the one about the Verizon analyst call that "will be dropped for no apparent reason."

Only a few of his columns are available online, but check out a sample here.