Surely the News of The World scandal has further damaged the media’s reputation (at least when telemarketers want to record your call for quality monitoring, they ask first).

The scandal has shown the best and worst of the press. The bad: the bottom-feeding tactics at the British tabloid. The good: the reportage of rival papers such as the Guardian and our own Fairfax titles, taking on the world’s mightiest media mogul without flinching.

Journalistic fraud sunk the News of the World, but worthiness isn’t saving the Guardian, which is in a ruinous financial state. It lost £33m last year, following a £34m loss the year before. It is kept alive through the backing of a trust, but even that has limits. In a world where a lack of integrity can shut down a tabloid, a badge of quality doesn’t offer immunity.

In the UK and here, print media is at a low ebb. A slump in spending is hurt-ing newspaper and magazine advertising, as money is spread across unproven territory such as social networking.

The trials and tribulations of UK print publishing come in a month when the Australian printing industry has been awash with company wrecks and corporate restructuring (p18)

The craft of printing goes hand in hand with print journalism – and both are going through much soul-searching. The print media has long been a bastion of quality journalism; if ink-on-paper channels evaporate, will we also see the well of respectable reporting run dry?

Putting to one side the shoddy editorial practices at a scandal sheet, the real problems for publishers stem from the fragmentation of media. 

This was a talking point in my discussion with Richard Herring, chief executive of out-of-home market leader APN Outdoor. Even that segment can get trampled in this stampeding caval-cade of new media channels (but, as the interview on p31 points out, it is holding up better than other forms of print).

So it is with relief that I say this month also shows the best that technology can offer our industry. On p44, we examine how printers are grabbing the e-commerce opportunity of web-to-print, while our business feature (p40) reports how IT-driven workflow technology allows printers to streamline jobs in an offset-digital hybrid world.

Steven Kiernan is editor of ProPrint

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