Recently promoted TIME Executive Editor Nancy Gibbs sat down for an interview about the future of magazines on Katie Couric's web show, @katiecouric.
Gibbs predicted that print magazines will be around in 20 years, but also discussed the iPad's potential to rejuvenate the long-form journalism and storytelling that magazines do so well.
"I also hear from people who have played with the iPad that that's a very cool thing," Gibbs told Couric. "And if you have a story in whatever the new digital device is that we will probably all have next to our beds in a few years, if that allows you, when there's a story that you're interested in, to go as deep into it as you want, to read as much about it as you want, or to move on to the next story, when you have that much power of choice over it, I think that's going to be great for us."
Gibbs said that, in this regard, devices like the iPad are better-suited for magazine storytelling than the internet.
"The one problem with the internet for journalists who like doing long form is that any story that's going to involve 16 screens on the web page...that's asking a lot of people," she said. "But these devices that are designed to read books on, you certainly can imagine people being happy to read three- and four- and 5,000-word long form journalism stories on. So I think, actually, there promises to be a renaissance of the kind of serious investment journalism and storytelling that, you know, we all love to do."
Gibbs also said that she isn't worried about whether readers will pay for content going forward because, with fewer news organizations around, there will be a premium on information readers can trust.
"At a time when so many news organizations have been shutting down their bureaus and curtailing their news gathering, we're getting to a point where there are likely to be fewer and fewer sources of reliable, authoritative news," she said. "And, therefore, the value and the premium people may be willing to pay for those goes up. I would like to see every newspaper and every magazine have a network of bureaus all over the world, gathering news. Maybe we'll return to that day. But, at the moment, where you're seeing such a contraction, I think what that does is put a real premium on authority and quality and rigor, and organizations that are still investing in their sort of informational infrastructure."
WATCH:
The full interview will be posted Tuesday night at 7PM ET at www.cbsnews.com/katiecouricwebshow.