Every quarter the Audit Bureau of Circulation’s figures come out, and every quarter a certain kind of communications veteran clears their throat to mourn. Lamenting circulation has become a bit of a pastime for people of my generation. The recent Q2 2026 numbers give us mourners plenty to work with: total newspaper circulation fell 5.8% year on year and 1.6% on the quarter, ending a four-quarter run of growth. 

But let’s skip the usual eulogy. Granted, social media, broadcast and direct stakeholder engagement rightly carry the heft of strategic communications campaigns today. However, I believe that without print, they all work a little less well. Particularly on matters of real consequence, such as policy and urgent public debate. 

The recent ABC numbers also deserve a fairer reading. The Daily Dispatch grew 8.4% on the quarter and almost 4% on the year. The Herald rose 8%. The Cape Times, Cape Argus and The Citizen all ticked up, The Witness held steady after a strong Q1, and the Weekend Witness was the only weekend title to grow on both the quarter and the year. 

In local news, the George Herald is up 44% year on year and the Mosselbay Advertiser 58%. Die Papier, an Afrikaans weekly launched only in March, entered the audit at more than 12,000 copies, a remarkable achievement. 

This isn’t bad news, especially for communicators who want to utilise the special impact print offers: verified content, classic authority and associated credibility. 

When AI can increasingly fabricate a media statement for anyone on anything, a dated, physical, independently considered, selected and edited page is one of the few remaining proofs that something of value was concretely said, verfiable, original and actually worth the prestige of physicality. 

Also consider where print sits in the news chain. Talk radio and TV review the morning papers. Producers get stories from them. The most-shared post on many a CEO’s LinkedIn feed is a photograph of their opinion piece in a newspaper. Print is rarely a message’s final destination. And yes, social media does amplify, but it amplifies better with a masthead in the frame. 

Then, let’s consider who’s reading. Business Day‘s copies, for instance, does not cater to a mass audience. It is a precise one, landing on desks in boardrooms, airport business lounges, ministries and regulators’ offices. Measured by influence per copy, few channels come close. 

Of course none of this excuses publishers from the hard work of reinvention, and none of it means communicators should ever pour budget into print at the expense of everything else. But, from where I’m sitting, every communications campaign needs an anchor of trust, and very often the newspaper page, audited and impossible to delete, functions as that anchor. 

Print isn’t dead yet, and it is still strategically important. It offers quite a few unique things that will keep a readership, even though small: the snap and turn of the pages, the story you never meant to read that turned out to be important, the hour that belongs to you rather than to an algorithm. 

– Loftus Marais
Chief Operating Officer