Electronics Trade Press, the Bell Tolls for Thee

In the last few days before DAC, as I was worrying about booth setup and demo practice, an important press release flashed by. The opening paragraph really should have caught my eye immediately: “Arrow Electronics, Inc. (NYSE: ARW) announced today that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire the global internet media portfolio focused on technology and electronic design from UBM, including EE Times, EDN, ESM, Embedded, EBN, TechONline, and Datasheets.com.”

Perhaps this news doesn’t seem especially important to many readers, but to observers of the electronics trade press this is a big deal. The titles listed above are some of the best-known brands in the business. Arrow is an electronics distributor and services provider with a fine reputation, but it is not a traditional publisher. This industry transition has given me pause so I will make a few observations and then solicit your thoughts.

This is not the first time that we have addressed changes in the publications industry. In the very first few weeks of The Breker Trekker, I published “Blog Post, Shall I Compare Thee to a Magazine’s Lifespan?” and it drew some very nice readership numbers. Maybe the rather labored title (an indulgence repeated in this post) was part of the appeal, but it was good to know that some engineers are interested in the evolution of the industry providing them much of their technical information.

These changes are a microcosm of what’s happening in many areas of journalism and publishing, so we’re not really surprised. It’s a tough business these days, and retiring print editions to focus on online content is no guarantee of survival. In fact, it was such a decision by UBM that prompted my original post three years ago. Several big-city newspapers and mass-market magazines that had been around for a hundred years or more have disappeared; similar factors threaten our much smaller world.

Although dramatic changes are par for the course in publishing today, there is valid concern when previously independent journalistic voices become part of a commercial enterprise with a vested interest in its own products. Electronic Engineering Journal covered this aspect of the industry’s evolution last week in a well-written article. I can’t add anything except to say that Kevin Morris hit several nails on the head perfectly.

The cynics would argue that journalism is rarely as pure as we’d like to believe. Newspapers and magazines have had to juggle demands from their advertisers for as long as they’ve existed. Some sites that appear to be independent, including in the electronics trade press, are partly “pay for play” in that sponsors are given preferred treatment of various kinds in the choice and content of editorial articles. In any domain, readers should know the sources of their information.

Studies have shown that blogs, including those controlled by product companies, are an increasingly popular source of information. We’re proud of the quality of the content that we include in The Breker Trekker and we have received almost entirely positive feedback. While we try to be accurate in everything we say, we do not pretend to be unbiased. We will talk much more about own products than those of our competitors. That’s the nature of this particular medium.

I have no ax to grind here. I have some nostalgia for the “good old days” of electronics publishing, as I mentioned in my tribute to long-time EE Times EDA editor Richard Goering. But I am not a journalist and I never made my living in that world, so I am not personally threatened. As new communication channels appear, including social media, I try to be open and observe how others are embracing them. We at Breker adopt them ourselves when we believe we can better serve our audience.

As the cliché goes, the only thing constant is change. The electronics press outlets will continue to morph into new forms in response to both financial realities and reader preferences.  Even if Arrow phases out their acquired titles, several good sites offering independent electronics news remain. We will continue to watch this part of our industry and keep you posted on more big news as it happens. As always, we would love your comments.

Tom A.

The truth is out there … sometimes it’s in a blog.

Tags: Arrow, blog, Breker, ee journal, EE Times, electronics trade press, functional verification, Goering, journalism, portable stimulus, print, publishing, uvm

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