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Don't Be Afraid
Jay Lauf
Sunday, March 13, 2011
This is a bit extemporaneous – ironic as it’s been a while since I last posted – but I hope it portrays the fact that all of us who are in a world that includes some version of “traditional” or “old” media are wrestling with the way forward…whether we admit it or not.
If you spend any time at all with the people who are uninhibited by “traditional” muscle memory, you notice that even what WE think of as innovative solutions can seem too incremental to them.
We, at The Atlantic, have very consciously and deliberately approached the question of adapting to a new world from this standpoint: how would we attack/cannibalize ourselves if we were starting a new venture to compete with The Atlantic? It’s an uncomfortable, but liberating place to be. It means facing the possible dismantling of systems and approaches and revenue streams that have buttered the bread for years and may still butter part of that bread for a foreseeable future.
And that’s where the discomfort comes in – “the foreseeable future”. What we can’t see is both where the opportunity lies and where the Grim Reaper’s sickle awaits.
BUT, what I’d be most afraid of is a death by a thousand cuts; not any one of them noticeable until you realize you’re bleeding terminally. And that is what keeps me and The Atlantic on our toes - relentless in the pursuit of a view around the corner.
Because for every sanguine forecast about big media companies who have the resources to weather the storm or who can straddle the line between the past and future, there’ll be the reality already faced by Virgin Records, FYE, Blockbuster….Borders.
Don’t be afraid! We’re not.
Jay Lauf is publisher of The Atlantic.
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