On Thursday, February 16, the Center for Media Research published Reading: A Vital Part of Human Experience as its Daily Brief. This is a report pulling interesting data from a presentation by Gavin O’Reilly in January 2006. Several interesting stats in the Brief, but the headline caught my eye, and it was pulled from this quote:
In a presentation to brokers and corporate bankers in London recently, the President of WAN, Gavin O’Reilly, demonstrated that print media continues to be successful in both readership and revenue terms and that “reading is still a vital ingredient in the human experience.”
While I believe in reading, and print media is still successful in readership and revenue terms (even while declining in most markets), seems like a false syllogism to suggest that print and reading are logically connected. I didn’t read Mr. O’Reilly’s presentation, but I read about it online.
Tiny point, probably, but I find these connect the dot moments telling in their biases.
(Strangely, if you follow my link to the Daily Brief above, the date shows up as today’s date… but I get the e-mail newsletter, and it arrived on February 16.)