The pandemic interfered with my professional development. Pre-COVID, I would attend a yearly conference of Anglican Editors, and I had missed that vital connection with other editors from across Canada. This year, however, there was a conference at Church House in Toronto, and I thought it would be a good opportunity to attend.
AEA meetings are professionally orientated and speakers give seminars and inform us about trends in the communication industry and new developments. Like Synod, we attend to business, such as filling various legislative roles and voting on changes to the Anglican Editors Association (AEA) rules and regulations. The staff at the Anglican Journal make themselves readily available, and we attend a banquet, where there is a Keynote Speaker.
This year, the keynote speaker was Michael Coren, whose recent book is “The Rebel Christ.” He talked about his experiences as a communicator; a former Roman Catholic priest; and his recent marriage. He is now an ordained priest in the Anglican Church of Canada and lives in Toronto.
While at the banquet, there was an opportunity to chat with others working at Church House in various capacities. It was during these conversations that a topic surfaced which surprised and intrigued me. More than one person introduced themselves as being from a generation that was born when the Internet made its debut. It was as though they wore this fact as a badge and accounted for differences that separated us, as I am older.
This was interesting to me because I considered myself from the generation that not only invented the personal computer but the Internet as well, and I had worked in Silicon Valley to boot.
Given the nature of these conversations, here are some recent facts that, like Coren’s book, put a new spin on the current state of affairs vis-à-vis “print versus online” communication.
According to the latest statistics, The HighWay, a supplement of the Anglican Journal for the Diocese of Kootenay, has increased its readership by 4% this year.
After dire news reports concerning readership, the majority of diocesan newspapers showed a levelling off of numbers concerning readers of print editions, including the Anglican Journal.
Newly published metrics were announced at the 2024 Anglican Editors Conference held in Toronto, May 16 – 19.
Henrieta Paukov, General Synod’s new director of communications, said, “I’ve been assured that the Anglican Journal will not stop its print edition, any time soon.”
“Plenty of notice would be given if that were the case,” she added.
Stuart Mann, editor of The Anglican, remarked that 35,000 print readers is a large number and cannot be ignored.
New trends no doubt …
