Insight to Take Modern Approach in 2012

No one’s calling me an old fart just yet, at least not to my face (and please don’t take it personally, all you old farts), but as Bob Dylan first sang way back when, the times they are a-changin’.

My first attempt at real journalism began as a 17-year-old high school senior when an emergency appendectomy sidelined the sports editor of our local newspaper. A pinch-hitter (yep, I’m mixing metaphors) was needed to cover a football game, and I was asked to fill in.

The year was 1978. I used an electric typewriter to file my story that night, and magically – through a series of steps that I never had to understand because they’d soon be obsolete – it appeared in print the following day.

Only one word in the above paragraph is germane in today’s print publication world, and that word is “obsolete.” If you haven’t noticed, newspapers – the ones still in circulation – are a shell of what they were 15 years ago. The number of mainstream magazines in the United States has declined 28 percent from its peak in 2005.

The number of trade magazines being printed also has fallen drastically, thanks mostly to declining ad revenue fueled by a weak economy. But with challenges come opportunities, and while I’m sad to tell you that this will be the final print issue of Insight to arrive in your mailbox, I’m excited to share with you our plans going forward.

Beginning in January and bi-monthly thereafter, an electric version of Insight – very similar to what you’re reading today – will arrive in the inbox of every NC REALTOR®. So instead of four issues of the magazine in 2012, you’ll receive six, and they’ll include the feature stories and departmental columns you’ve told us you enjoy.

There’s more. In the other six months, you’ll receive a new e-publication, Insight Light, that’ll be designed to provide a quick and easy read on the latest news and trends in our business, the ever-achangin’ real estate industry. n