The unlikely peace between paper and pixel

In the debate over print versus online media, it’s no longer a question of who is better than the other, but of how they coexist to serve their ever-demanding readers.

MANILA, Philippines - It’s a wonder that we can still recognize each other’s faces. Whether we’re walking, sitting, or even dining, it’s always done hunched over one gadget or another, constantly swiping down to refresh our apps for the latest… anything, really.

The contemporary youth’s media consumption is unlike any other generation’s — never in the history of mankind has readily available news been constant, quick, and (almost always) accurate. Consumers today have also become producers; thanks to the advent of social media, people don’t just hear the news, they can spread and become the news too. What is perhaps online media’s biggest selling point is that as long as one has the device to read them, they are usually available at no cost. This now raises the question: Is print really dead?

At one point, people were wondering if it really is. Since the Global Financial Crisis in 2007-2008, the world saw a decline in print publication. Magazines and newspapers such as Cosmo Girl (1998-2008) and PC Magazine (1982-2009) began to fold, following declines in readership amid looming debt and overhead expenses. Other publications like Spin and Teen People have gone full-on online in an attempt to survive the online siege. Spin publishes an iPad-only version. While Teen People shifted focus to Teenpeople.com when its print version folded in 2006, their website eventually became a section under its parent magazine People’s website when it failed to generate enough site traffic.

For a while, it seemed like the death knell of print media had finally come. It was not merely an economic concern, but one that also suggested the cultural decline of today’s society, a cheapening of standards in a time of designer coffee chains and reality television. But media pundits, both online and print, see things a little differently. To them, it is no longer a question of whether print is dead or online is finally king. It’s the argument that pits these two media against each other that has become irrelevant.

“In the beginning, it really did seem that online media was taking over the domain of print,” explains Isha Vallés, who now serves as executive editor of Preview Magazine. “But over the years, the former has evolved so rapidly and has taken on new form and function. You can count on online media for up-to-the-minute reportage, interactive and quick doses of entertainment. Print has become something to really dig into and pore over, which makes it a challenge to produce really great work — not to say that the same challenge does not exist in online media.”

Vallés is more than familiar with the tug of war between print and online media — before taking on the position at Preview, she was the managing editor of Stylebible.ph, Preview’s online platform. Under her leadership, Stylebible.ph gradually became one of the country’s leading sources of local fashion news. Stylebible.ph was and continues to be able to cover the news that Preview’s timetable cannot: covering events, discussing micro-trends, and posting interactive media such as fashion films.

Preview, like many other print publications today, was highly aware of online media’s might. It then became important to have an online presence in order to stay relevant in print. “Esquire posts a monthly playlist of new music, for example. Interview Magazine streams a mood video of one of their interviewees,” says Paolo Lorenzana, editor of online publications B/Blog for Bench, Nous for Homme et Femme, and The Start for Rockwell Primaries.

Even a title likeVogue Magazine, which has long solidified its presence as a sartorial bible, attempts to reach to a wider and younger audience by creating a Tumblr account where it posts behind-the-scenes videos and unpublished photos. To complement Lena Dunham’s first cover for said magazine in February 2014, they published a video in which writer Hamish Bowles choreographs a dance for her using famous Vogue cover poses in the past decades.

Well beyond trashing the debate between print and online, it seems that these media have become complementary to each other in many ways. “(Having an online presence is) the next step in solidifying a publication’s significance,” says Lorenzana. “By existing online, magazines also end up creating a dialogue with readers, where they can quickly find out about content that works and what doesn’t.”

This is the constant challenge for online editors like Lorenzana, who have to contend with the wealth of outlets made available for online platforms. In the publications under his helm, Lorenzana has had to produce stories that maximize the utility of their virtual real estate. “You don’t just think 2D,” he says. “You think about other ways to express your content: through a fashion, a playlist, through a series of Instagram posts? The freedom can get exhausting.”

The need to exist on both outlets also exists among online-based media. Bench’s B/Blog, for one, is complemented by Benchmark Magazine, a print outfit that is sold in Bench stores quarterly. Indie music website Pitchfork.com launched its own quarterly print edition in 2013 after publishing online for 17 years. Rookie.com, the brainchild of 18-year-old Tavi Gevinson, published its second annual yearbook last year.

“Media that began online, on the other hand, can refine and legitimize themselves by producing a print version,” says Lorenzana. “The mark of true ascendance and brand evolution for any web-born publication is to test their mettle in print.”

And what is perhaps the strongest bit of evidence to prove that the debate between the two has long died down, each one’s greatest weakness can only be supplemented by the existence of the other. “The biggest limitation (of online media) is it conforms to this world of tiny attention spans,” says Lorenzana. “Thoroughness is compromised for the quick, accessible read… I’m also bothered by the fact that everything we produce is so expendable, given the rapid production of content.”

Vallés agrees with this, adding that print will find it very hard to beat online media’s ability to turn over content quickly. “It can offer an alternative/multimedia experience to readers, and that’s just naming a few things,” she says.

For now, however, readers continue to enjoy receiving their news in both forms, and for different reasons. “I think that there is something about holding a tome in your hands, and reading words and viewing images on paper that’s so different and so special,” Vallés says. “I also find it more relaxing and in some ways easier to absorb and appreciate material when I see it in print versus the online format.”

That isn’t to say that there won’t come a time again that we will start asking each other if print media still has a place in our societies. Given the steady growth and rebirth of technology, it’s not too hard to imagine that a singular form of media can address the limitations of print and online publications.

The way Lorenzana sees it, while the two can exist quite peacefully at the moment, one of them is on its way out. “I believe we’re at the last gasping breaths of old print, where just anything could end up on the page,” he says. “Print is about to die and go to heaven is what I think. We’re seeing a lot more publications that are well thought out, that really find their best expression in the print medium, and that aren’t a waste of paper.”

For now, we continue to hunch over our phones while apportioning some of our monthly allowance for our favorite glossies. But perhaps what is most fascinating to wonder about now is the trajectory of our media consumption: many of us were born in a time when print was slowly declining but are growing up in a world where it remains relevant. What of the younger ones, the toddlers who were born with iPads in their hands? Are they to be the ones to swing the axe that finally kills print, or will they come up with a new form of media that neither print or online media can ever beat? Who knows?