For those whose jobs even tangentially touch fashion, Women's Wear Daily (WWD) is an integral part of the workday, sandwiched between getting coffee and digging into your email. The publication, founded in 1910, made an announcement this afternoon that it's cutting its print edition from daily to weekly. While this might sound like a setback for WWD — which Condé Nast recently sold to Penske Media — it's actually being touted as a move toward innovation: The editors plan to ramp up its web presence.
In a statement this morning, WWD editors said: "To be clear, this doesn’t mean we’re discarding daily journalism. On the contrary, we’re doubling down with an enhanced and invigorated WWD.com where you’ll see deeper editorial content, more breaking news, and more stories around the clock. As part of this evolution, we’ll continue to expand our growing domestic editorial team as well as our international staff." While the print edition is scaling back, the website will now be able to break news and publish content without having to coordinate with the print schedule.
Not everyone is optimistic, though. An ex-staffer was cautious about whether the existing WWD is agile enough to make these digitally focused changes: "Staffers have been there for so long that changing their print-first mentality will be difficult. But, at this point it's change or die." But, a rep from WWD maintained that the overhaul won't be so drastic: "This is not a new way of reporting for us, as we often include extensive features and contribute to sister publications such as M, Beauty Inc., and WWD Collections. Balancing immediacy and advance planning will be key for our workflow."
In case you want to frame your last daily WWD, it'll be distributed on April 24. And, since we know some of you were wondering about this, don't worry about any renaming rumors. Said the WWD rep: "Although we are transitioning into a weekly print format, the name WWD will remain the same."
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