My Black Tuesday shirt. I’m not sure this was the original intention when @mybroadband gave me this shirt but with the addition of a small red gag I think it serves a purpose.
Support the Right2Know campaign and oppose the Protection of [State] Information Bill.
http://mediahack.co.za/2011/12/a-black-tuesday-clothing-hack/
It’s pretty obvious now that if news publishers want to survive this rough period they’re going to have to be smart, clever and brave. In particular they’re going to look beyond their traditional markets to new ventures that draw on existing skills but tap into new income streams.
Two things that all news organisations have are writing skills and an archive of news and information. Why not combine these two and produce a series of ebooks on issues close to readers’ hearts?
The Guardian is doing exactly that with its Guardian Shorts series. The ebooks, on topics as diverse as Dr Who and the Murdoch phone hacking saga, cost between £1.99 and £3.99 and are available for the Kindle or through the iTunes store. Each book is an edited collection of Guardian coverage of a specific topic. The Phone Hacking ebook, for example, collects Guardian coverage of the issues that goes all the way back to 2005.
It’s a genius idea. The bulk of the writing is already done and, even with editing work, the books ought to be relatively easy to produce.
Clearly ebook sales aren’t going to make up entirely for ongoing newspaper losses but it is part of a strategy that builds on news organisation strengths and adds a new revenue stream with relatively little additional work. It also extends the organisational brand into new arenas which can’t be all bad.
Or, as John Paton says, these new avenues may not replace the lost dollars but perhaps its time for news organisations to start “stacking the dimes“.
http://mediahack.co.za/2011/11/ebooks-part-of-a-survival-strategy-for-news-organisations/
Today’s quote of the day comes via The New York Times and is from MediaNews chief John Paton who heads up the US’s second-largest news publisher. On the future of print Paton had this to say:
At some point, print is going to cost more money than it is worth. If you don’t have a viable business model to turn it off when that day comes, where does that leave you?
No messing around there.
http://mediahack.co.za/2011/11/when-printed-newspapers-become-too-expensive-to-survive/
It’s not a pretty picture if you’re a newspaper publisher. Daily newspaper sales dropped by more than 72,000 copies over the past three months when compared with the same period last year, according to the latest Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) numbers released today.
Of the four major newspaper groups only Caxton managed to return positive numbers for the quarter with The Citizen gaining 1,324 sales when compared with July-September 2010. Independent Newspapers dropped 18,991 sales in the same comparison, Media24 lost 46,452 and Avusa shed 8,379.
Among the few dailies that increased sales were Beeld (+3,496) and Isolezwe (+9,096).
What must be most perturbing for publishers, however, is that there is now a distinct sales trend, and it’s not in the right direction. Daily newspaper sales have been in decline for the best part of four years. The last increase in daily newspaper sales was in 2007 and it’s been all downhill since with more than 280,000 sales lost since the July-September 2007 peak.
A significant portion of those losses are attributable to the Daily Sun, which has lost more than 144,000 sales since the July-September 2008 quarter. Targeted as it is at the lower end of the market it’s easy to imagine that Daily Sun would be among the newspapers least affected by the rise of online news which requires access to technology. And yet it has lost a quarter of its sales over the past three years. Could this be the result of the rapid growth in mobile phone ownership in this market?
I also hear many in the newspaper industry talking about “bad trading conditions” and the global recession as reasons for the downturn in sales but I think if we’re honest this is more than a speed bump. This is a serious downhill with very little to slow them down at the bottom.
Newspapers are now well and truly a “twilight industry”, a term economists use to describe industries that are no longer developing, are stagnant or have been superceded by new and better technologies. Most newspaper publishers would do well now to follow the likes of MediaNew’s chief John Paton who is transforming the US’s second-largest newspaper group to move beyond print.
Addendum: Some of the country’s weekly newspapers performed a big better than the dailies, in particular the Mail And Guardian. For more on the weekly and magazine market see Bizcommunity.
http://mediahack.co.za/2011/11/daily-newspapers-a-twilight-industry/
I’m a fan of cooking shows. My long-suffering family has to put up with hours of Jamie, Gordon and Nigella as they turn out mouth-watering dishes that I promise to one day replicate.
On of my favourite TV chefs is Gordon Ramsay. I ’ve watched most of the shows: the one where he saves bad restaurants from certain ruin, the one where he swears up a storm as he puts teams of contestants through their paces, and the lighthearted ones where he teaches celebrities to cook in front of an audience.
Gordon’s most recent show, however, is perhaps the best of the lot. Each week in Gordon’s Best Restaurant he selects two top restaurants in each food genre and puts them head-to-head. What makes the show particularly appealing is that these are not the unspeakably bad restaurants of previous shows but popular and successful ones that would probably be just as well off without Gordon’s input.
Typically Gordon doesn’t hold back. These may be successful restaurants with excellent chefs but that doesn’t mean they escape a Ramsay-style tongue lashing. Every slip up, every mistake is pounced on by Gordon who then lets them all know how close to rubbish they are.
Which got me to thinking about media, in particular newspapers which are enduring a torrid time right now. Gordon’s insistence on excellence is something that we all could learn from.
Gordon’s messages throughout the show are clear: quality, attention to detail and giving diners what they want leads to success. Second rate doesn’t.
Consider these three points.
Quality is important in most businesses. But it’s even doubly important for newspapers where what we do is open to daily scrutiny by readers. Focusing on quality editorial is at the heart of what we as journalists do and any slacking on the quality front is immediately noticeable to the people that buy our product. We ought to be asking questions of ourselves every day: are the newspapers we produce of the highest quality? Are they filled with stories that readers absolutely have to and want to read?
In many cases the answer is probably no. As newspapers struggle to make ends meet there is a growing reliance on wire copy and junior reporters which means that most papers end up regurgitating the same news as everyone else.
Obviously there are exceptions but we shouldn’t be complacent. As we put our newspapers to bed each evening we should be asking ourselves: is what we’ve just produced good enough to have readers to spend money on it? Would we buy our paper if we saw it in our corner shop?
If not then we’re doing something wrong.
Closely allied to quality is attention to detail. That’s attention to every headline, every page layout, every caption, every photograph we use. It’s easy in the deadline madness to let something slip, to forget to crop a picture to make the most of it, to forget to check page cross references. But it’s these little things that mark the line between a passably good effort and an excellent one.
Obviously mistakes happen, and no-one is perfect, but it is important to put in 100 percent effort to produce the best possible product. After all, we expect readers to pay money for our product. So “good enough” is not nearly enough.
We also expect readers to trust us. We can’t afford to disappoint them with elementary mistakes. But more than that, if we make basic errors in editing, layout and production it naturally leads to questions about the quality of our journalism. And once that happens we risk losing the respect and trust of our readers.
A regular theme in Gordon’s shows, particularly the one where he tries to turn restaurants around, is that success is built on giving customers what they want. This is not something we in the newspaper industry are particularly good at.
Historically readers came to us for their news. We got to tell them what they needed to know and how much they needed to know. Now readers have options. They don’t have to buy a copy of our paper to find out what is happening in the world. They probably already know most of the day’s headlines before they buy a paper because they’ve heard it on TV or the radio or read it online. So what’s the point of telling them something they already know?
The readers of today are very different to those of a decade ago. They don’t want the same things they used to. They may want more local community news, or more analysis of major political events, more entertainment news, some may no longer want the paper in the morning but prefer a longer read in the evening. No two papers are alike but the need to understand what our readers want is common. If we don’t understand what they want then we’re doomed.
It’s tough in this climate to continue to produce quality papers that deliver what readers want but, to use a Ramsay-ism, fuck it people, we don’t have a choice.
http://mediahack.co.za/2011/11/three-things-newspapers-could-learn-from-gordon-ramsay/
News organisations are in a terrible place right now. Newspapers are dying and yet news on tablets, PCs and mobile are generating nowhere near the revenue hoped for. Even worse, it’s unlikely that these new digital platforms will ever deliver the types of revenues enjoyed during the heyday of newsprint. Readers just aren’t prepared to pay for news.
What’s to be done?
I’m not sure there is a right answer to this question. Certainly there is no single path to success and each option has its risks. The only thing that is clear is that doing nothing is not an option.
No matter what the risks involved in adopting a new strategy, the news industry is at the point where simply doing the same thing as last year is even riskier.
Newspaper circulations are dwindling, revenues are down, journalists are being retrenched. The easy way out is to blame the global economic recession. The hard way is to face reality. Things are not going to get better. Blaming external conditions does not serve journalism well. Newspaper owners need to look deep inside their businesses and decide what works, what doesn’t, and what’s worth fighting for.
Part of that future may well be a printed newspaper, one that is carefully positioned and with a clear and obvious value for readers. The other part will likely be an array of digital products, each with their own unique appeal, to extend the news brand (and service) into brave new territories.
I don’t think news organisations have much option but to embrace digital formats such as tablet PCs, mobile phones and the web. They may not make financial sense right now but not doing so risks assigning the organisation to obscurity.
The one-size-fits-all approach to news is broken beyond repair. Readers want news in the way that bests suits them. Some of those might want a newspaper but, increasingly I suspect, many of them don’t. There are only two options: offer news in a format readers want or wave goodbye to them. Either is valid but having both is not an option.
Of course the bean counters will complain that there is no financial security in this new digital world. And they’d be right. But there is even less security (in the long run) in monolithic newspapers. The future (and the revenue) lies in innovative mixes of new and old products that do what journalism has always done: serve readers.
Printed newspapers certainly have a future. But sometimes the story is better told, or better served, on a digital platform. At other times print is the better choice. It’s not a failing of either platform but an opportunity. With digital and print in harmony journalists have new and wonderful opportunities to tell stories in better, deeper and richer ways. That’s a good thing.
Journalism is about telling stories, not just about printing papers.
http://mediahack.co.za/2011/11/no-guarantees-for-newspapers-battling-change/
I’ve been a journalist for the best part of two decades. In that time not much has changed. And yet, so much has. The end product, a newspaper, is largely the same as it has always been, but the processes to produce it are not.
Over the years I’ve seen layers of skill stripped from the production of newspapers. Many of the jobs that were once critical to producing the daily news now no longer exist. Direct-to-plate printing completely removed the need for the artisans that used to prepare printing plates, digital imaging advances saw photographic scanners being retrenched, and desktop publishing turned layout and subbing into one job instead of two.
There’s no point in being nostalgic about these changes, but it’s worth considering that many of us in the media are living on borrowed time. How secure are our jobs?
The media is evolving quickly and over the next couple of years newsrooms will undergo massive changes, particularly as they become increasingly digital. As journalists we need to be adapting to these changes. Writers, subs and editors have (largely) been spared the upheaval so far, but how long before being a newspaper sub-editor is not good enough to keep us employed? The Guardian’s Roy Greenslade has for some time predicted the demise of subs and, as much as we don’t like the idea, we can’t bury our heads in the sand.
The trick in the coming years is for journalists to learn to be mutable, adaptable and ready to move with the changes coming their way.
Although Arnold King wasn’t speaking specifically about journalists, I think he summed the current situation rather well with his job seeker’s paradox:
The paradox is this. A job seeker is looking for something for a well-defined job. But the trend seems to be that if a job can be defined, it can be automated or outsourced.
http://mediahack.co.za/2011/09/as-media-evolves-journalists-need-to-embrace-change/