Month: November 2005

I’ve been looking further at sales data for the Trading Post from several newsagencies and each is showing a 16% to 29% fall in sales in September-October 2005 compared to 2004. What is interesting is that most of the sales hit has been taken on the first day of the seven day on sale period for the title. Every lost sale represents, potentially, a customer lost to newsagencies.

If I were Trading Post I would be working hard to reposition the title in newsagencies. I’d do it by focusing on content rather than a consumer competition of gimmick. Off the top of my head I’d suggest:

Provide newsagents with a slim floor space friendly display stand into which we can put the Trading Post. Let’s get the product away from the traditional newspaper stand and back in front of more eyeballs. Make sure the unit is bold and allows easy display of the front of the product.

Provide newsagents with promotional posters showing what’s in the publication.

Promote the Trading Post on TV as being available at newsagencies and promote content.

Reward newsagents who achieve sales growth.

I’d bet that after four weeks of a campaign along these lines sales of the Trading Post would be stronger.

Courtesy of the Online News Association is this report of Arthur Sulzberger’s keynote at the 6th Annual Online News Association Conference. Sulzberger is Chairman of New York Times Company and publisher of the New York Times. I found the entire text of his prepared speech here at the NYT website. It’s a must read. Here are some of the highlights:

Unquestionably, Real Journalism is more necessary than ever in 2005. It drives our understanding of this increasingly complex world and enables us to make the decisions necessary to keep democracy alive.

…

As chairman of The New York Times Company and publisher of its flagship newspaper, I am fully committed to making use of every available digital tool and innovation.

I am also fully committed to conveying the highest quality news and information to our readers, viewers, and listeners, maintaining our standards and our traditions, and staying true to our 154-year-old reputation for journalistic excellence.

We make this commitment because we firmly believe that every organization has a moral center that must be protected through thick and thin, as it provides the reason and rationale for its very existence.

…

This leads to my second major point: the inherent conflict between the demand for immediate information and our ability to provide it.

This brings us to “The Titanic Fallacy,” a phrase coined by Dr. Peter Smith, the new Assistant Director-General for Education at UNESCO. In a guest column in The Times, he said:

“What was the Titanic’s single greatest problem? An arrogant captain? The iceberg? No. Even if the Titanic had survived her maiden voyage, she was doomed. The iceberg, the captain and the disaster only confused the situation. The real problem facing the greatest cruise ship ever built was the airplane. The seeds of destruction for the ocean travel industry were sown a decade earlier in Kitty Hawk.”

His point is that the faulty design of the Titanic was an overreaction to a perceived competitive threat. The news media regularly makes the same intellectual error. Our relentless focus on ratings, readership and pageviews has become so intense that it is easy to forget that reporting and editing are serious tasks with profound social and political ramifications.

Too often, we respond to competitive pressures by making less of ourselves – by offering our readers the perception of vitality in exchange for hard reporting and thoughtful analysis.

I could go on. This is another excellent speech from Sulzberger.

I’d like to see Australian newspaper publishers and newsagents around a table and discussing his key points.

I’ve always believed that in lean times you invest in your business. In the case of a newspaper it’s the editorial department – where the reputation behind the brand is established. This is why I am surprised by the Fairfax plan to cut positions. Maybe I am naive but if it were up to me I’d be hiring to strengthen the print and online reporting. This is what will bring eyeballs and eyeballs attract advertisers.

Fairfax could use more reporters to get closer to the community and to report the stories that matter. Fairfax could also invest more in developing its people with a goal of improving its already strong print and online products. Training could enhance online newsgathering techniques; online writing and its citizen/professional reporting interface. Online is where the reporting action is and while Fairfax is leading the way, it could do more with better editorial resources.

Such an investment at the core of the business would produce a better result than hacking away at the asset.

Newspapers are local products. Melbourne people want to read stories from a Melbourne perspective. In a shrinking newsroom this is less likely as resources are stretched. There will be more AAP and other ‘outsourced’ stories. The distance between the community of the reader and the reporter grows and with that perspective changes.

It’s only a matter of time before we see viable citizen journalism sites start up in Australia and this move by Fairfax to cut editorial staff will encourage those playing in the space. If enough journalists leave they could have an online product running in days. It’s happened elsewhere.

Now is the time for expansion in the newsroom for companies like Fairfax. Bold expansion. I reckon that’s how a newspaper person would see things. Bean counters have a different view of course. They always do.

History will show that the successful newspapers are those which invested in editorial and used that investment to lead to a new newspaper/publishing model.