The Economist’s editor-in-chief John Micklethwaite has given an interview to Mediabistro (via Innovations In Newspapers) documenting his conversion, whilst awaiting the internet, from rabbit in the headlights to online navigator.
Micklethwaite: “We remain provocatively paranoid about the internet; you have to be thinking of ways in which you can deal with it. When I first came on I thought of the internet as this sort of hurricane coming right towards us, that had already hit newspapers and now would come to magazines, which were further ashore. But now it seems to be sort of glancing magazines, rather than hitting directly … The sort of thing that we’re doing at the moment seems to be helping us rather than hurting us, because it’s putting so much more information out there.” Audio does particularly well, he said – a weekly podcast and full-audio version of the magazine offering ways to consume the title whilst jogging.