When I started in technology PR there were seven print magazines covering Local Area Networks. Seven.

And before you mock that was 1995, not 1892.

Today there are none specifically, and last night’s announcement that Computer Weekly and MicroScope will be online only after being purchased means that print media covering technology are a much-endangered species.

A decade ago, when print issues were wafer-thin as the shift online began and the dot.com blip bit, there were concerns that the specialist technology press was on its arse. What followed was a revival and a wholesale shift online, so the latest news is really just further affirmation of a gradual and inevitable process rather than the straw the broke the vertebrae.

The digitisation of technology media has generally been a good thing. There may be less journalism work around than in the heady days of the late 90s, but the industry was bloated then and editorial could be swampy. The audit trail created by digital media has at least made the press more accountable to a specialist market and, I’d argue, more valuable. No-one really knew whether people were influenced lock, stock and barrel by seven LAN mags anyway. 

So rather than drying eyes over the demise of more paper, PRs should acknowledge that the shift online has removed much of the uncertainty surrounding the value of what they do.

Though for the time being, those ‘who has got today’s Computing?’ agency-wide emails may still be a lingering remnant of a bygone age.