The popular PBS children’s show Reading Rainbow was canceled recently due to a lack of funding. It ended a 26-year run with host LeVar Burton (you may know him as Star Trek’s Geordi LaForge or Roots’ Kunta Kinte) during which the show taught children that reading could be a lot of fun.

A recent AP/Ipsos poll found that in 2007, one in four Americans didn’t even crack a book.

Around the country, newspapers are going under as subscribership drops and advertising revenues dry up.

Is the evidence overwhelming? Is reading…dead? And perhaps a more important question for you, the business leader: Is it worth spending your advertising dollars on print media? In short, yes.

Reading isn’t dead—not even close. Information is as important as ever. Today, the ability to rapidly consume, digest, and act on information is perhaps the most important skill an executive can possess.

Reading Rainbow wasn’t canceled because reading isn’t important. It was canceled because the Dept. of Education wanted to focus their funding on the how of reading—spelling, phonetics, grammar—and not so much on the why. Americans’ reading habits have bounced all over the charts over the years. And while newspapers are going away, real-time information sources on the Internet are exploding.

How do trade publications fit into this mix? For most industries, trade journals are still the top source of industry-specific news. Increasingly, print is being supplemented with the web, which can serve as an online archive for printed journals, a way to expand and enhance printed content, and a convenient way to provide timely, brief news updates.

But in the end, it’s the content that matters, regardless of how it’s delivered to your brain. Trade Press Services can help you position yourself and your company as subject matter experts whatever the media type. Call or e-mail us today to learn more.