See you on the other side

Eras end, reading habits change, business models evolve. All are true, but writing this last editorial to appear in a print edition of Times Higher Education is nevertheless a poignant moment.

The first issue, published in October 1971, was unrecognisable from the final one – its yellow-hued pages look, to today’s eye, a mess of higgledy-piggledy stories.

But the journalists behind the bylines – including editor Brian MacArthur and writers such as Christopher Hitchens – were on to something.

A sector as vibrant and essential to the health of the nation needed serious coverage: sharp analysis that combined critical independence with unshakeable support for what universities do.

Fifty-three years later, that is still our goal – and it will remain so as we move on into a post-print future.

The shift to digital formats is, of course, an almost universal one, reflecting where audiences are to be found and, in turn, the subscription and advertising revenues that still, to some degree, support quality journalism.

I say “to some degree” because, in 2024, journalism tends to need a business model that goes beyond the traditional revenue streams that once made newspapers and magazines a licence to print money.

In THE’s case, that has meant reimagining how a business with expertise, data and audiences around the world can support a sector that shares many global attributes but also operates in distinct circumstances.

That dual mission: to inform higher education audiences in a rich variety of ways, and to connect them so they can deliver for people, places and the planet is a new mission statement, but in many ways not so new to a business that has always sought to do both through our journalism.

The transformation of the media landscape over the past couple of decades bears some comparison to the diverse pressures facing other sectors, including higher education.

This is not new, and I return to a series of articles by THE editors past and present published for our 50th anniversary in 2021, on the evolutions and revolutions that told the story of their tenures.

Sir Peter Scott (editor from 1976 to 1992) recalled an era in which expansion of the university sector was the overriding theme, but noted how this growth brought with it a reduction in autonomy and an increasingly overbearing interest from the state. “Higher education”, he wrote, “had become just too important to be allowed to be free.”

Ann Mroz (editor from 2008 to 2012) reflected on the changing conversation about widening participation in her time at the helm, and a growing sense from critics that “universities should be more honest and admit that the money could be better spent elsewhere in the education system”.

I, meanwhile, noted that during my time as editor (2012-present), the existential questions began to creep in: would the university survive in its thousand-year-old form as the world changes around it?

“It will,” I wrote, “but those warning about new models of delivery that will challenge the university should not be dismissed as purveyors of snake oil. At least, not all of them. Change is a given, and universities have been slow to respond in the past. The likely impact of AI on the future of work, in particular, should not be underestimated.”

Events of the three years since have done nothing to weaken that view, or to diminish my belief in the warning that followed.

“If there is a lesson from the past decade, it is that we should be careful what we wish for,” I wrote.

“Like those outsourced supply chains, or the idea that social media was a leap towards democratic enlightenment, disrupting and disaggregating the various elements of the university would come with all sorts of unintentional consequences. Their significance goes far beyond turning out tomorrow’s workforce, as important as that is.

“Confidence in their future rests on the foundations that underpin what universities are: communities of scholars with a common purpose and shared values, operating within a framework that protects what makes them precious and unique.”

To turn the lens back to THE, and to journalism as a profession, I feel much the same about what we do: that the values, expertise and commitment to being a partner and critical friend of the audiences we write for and about are precious and as valued and valuable as ever.

Which leaves me just one final job in this format: to thank you for reading, and for subscribing, and to encourage you to continue to do both. And to wish you a very happy Christmas, from everyone at THE.

john.gill@timeshighereducation.com