Sam Friedman, the former editor of National Underwriter Property & Casualty, writes about the end of the print publication after 127 years.
Friedman writes, “But while going digital was perhaps inevitable in the Internet Age, given plummeting ad sales as well as rising paper and postage costs, I’m upset that NU’s demise in print was handled so cavalierly, and offer up this blog as a more deserving obituary.
“I nearly missed the announcement that the print edition was being put to bed once and for all, camouflaged by a banal headline on one of NU’s e-newsletters about an unrelated web event. A later online version cheerfully declared: ‘The best of NU, Claims magazines is now at PropertyCasualty360.com,’ with an awkward subhead burying the lead: ‘Meet the 2023 Agency of the Year Award winners, and say farewell to our magazines.’ While the final December 2023 edition featured a more overt acknowledgment in the editor’s column, headlined: ‘All Good Things Must Come To An End,’ nothing on the cover heralded the last paper version as a collector’s item, and no other mention was made within the issue about the publication’s storied history or what’s being lost.
“For those of us who have lived and breathed insurance for decades, the death of the industry’s most influential print publication demands more attention and respect. I wish the current editors would’ve made a bigger deal of this, and perhaps reached out to their predecessors for quotes or columns about what NU meant to them and the industry at large.”
Read more here.
