Let’s Get Digital

There’s a nice piece on Medium by a member of The Economist’s digital team that speaks to the 140 year-old publication’s active efforts to remain relevant to newer generations, which, in this case, amounts to a more aggressive digital strategy: social media, video, experiential marketing, interactive content, and so on.

What I liked about the article was that it asserted The Economist’s commitment to rigorous journalism and analysis:

Not all of us are endlessly posting selfies on Instagram. We have interests as broad as The Economist’s story slate, and often broader. It is true that young people seldom vote. Does that mean a 25-year-old from London is not interested in Brexit or exclusive interviews with Saudi royalty? On the contrary: political movements about female genital mutilation, women’s rights, workplace ethics, housing, and saving for retirement are often led by the young.

The media landscape is really changing, and it’s fascinating to see more traditional publishers embrace digital in different ways: The Washington Post has gone all-in on Facebook Instant Articles, The New York Times now has a Virtual Reality department, and the Financial Times produces dozens of videos every month. And of course, newer media outlets like CNN and Vice are all over Snapchat.

But I love that the Medium post did not use the word “snackable” or “short-form” as a way to describe how The Economist is trying to attract younger readers – they’re focusing on the medium, not the message. The newspaper places on emphasis on more interesting content delivery (video, podcasts, pictures, the Espresso app), rather than culling down the sovereign debt crisis to a TL;DR summary sentence.