Innovative methods to keep newspapers going strong

18 Jun 2007

Consumers seek information in new ways and the newspaper industry can't stay behind. Converged newsrooms, free newspapers and multimedia were some of the keywords used in a business session about the future of news at the 60th World Newspaper Congress in Cape Town recently.

Cape Town - Given that Africa has only recently discovered the merits of business strategies like converged newsrooms Trevor Ncube, Chief Executive of the South African Mail & Guardian, was pleased to chair this session. But converged or integrated newsrooms like the Mail & Guardian and Sunday Times newspapers are currently trying to install is not the only way to secure the future of the company.

Mark Dodson, CEO of GMG Regional Media in the United Kingdom, explained to the delegates that free daily newspapers can successfully boost a company's circulation statistics. GMG nowadays publishes eighteen newspapers, including a free one, in and around Manchester.

His figures show that the paid-for daily circulation dropped from 140.000 to 90.000 when the free daily was born. However, the latter now has a circulation of 85.000; changing the total amount of readers from 140.000 to 175.000 and climbing. Dodson argues that one of the reasons for the steady climb in newspaper circulation is their focus on local news.

'Room' out, 'hub' in

Local news at GMG is captured with a variety of multimedia technologies. Using the innovative idea of a ‘news hub', instead of a newsroom, the content is shared with the Internet, a television news channel and all 18 newspapers. This integrated newsroom has successfully grown in the last four years but Dodson warns that these changes ‘are not for every journalist'.

He continues, saying that: ‘We didn't force anyone to change their routine. But most of them, especially younger journalists, are very keen to work with new technologies. Now, more people are trained in multimedia journalism, but those who don't want to can still do their own thing'.

Ed Greenspon, Editor-in-Chief at the Globe & Mail in Canada, works in an integrated newsroom but has incorporated innovative journalism to differentiate from competitors. Bold presentation, high impact imagery and a sense of humour are the main ingredients of this recipe. Greenspon illustrated the bold presentation and high impact imagery aspects by showing a front page with gigantic Chinese symbols on it to introduce the reader to a special about China.

Also, to demonstrate the paper's sense of humour, the Globe & Mail front page carried the title It is Bush (probably) because the US election outcome was unsure at the time of publishing. The pun came the next day, when the headline read: It is Bush (definitely).

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