In Washington, in April, I had a public conversation with Marty Baron, the tough, oldschool Editor of the Washington Post, recently celebrated in the film Spotlight. The question came from the floor—how much longer can print survive? Baron shrugged and said he didn’t know—five, 10, 15 years? He grew up with print, loved print: “But we spend 99 per cent of our time thinking about digital.” So, these days, do most editors.
Stephen Glover’s piece about the Guardian in last month’s issue (“Who Guards the Guardian?” April) appears oblivious to this debate. He is, in Marty Baron’s terms, a one per center: fondly harking back to the age of print and, on the evidence of this piece, bereft of ideas about the digital future.