Globe and Mail
I read The Globe and Mail paper faithfully every day. I actually hold the print version in my hand to read it. I like the tangible nature of it, the feel of the paper and the ability to scan and read the articles.
Granted, I read the physical paper, then go online to get more information about the articles I’ve ripped out. (The team jokes I am the only person they know who they can ‘hear’ reading the paper, as I’m always ripping out articles on our clients or for new ideas).
I was prompted to write here by the news first thing this morning that Ed Greenspon is no longer the Editor in Chief of The Globe and Mail. Greenspon has also held the positions of Managing Editor Report on Business, Ottawa Bureau Chief, and was Founding Editor of globeandmail.com. Publisher Philip Crawley noted: “Since 2002 he has spearheaded our editorial transformation, particularly in exploring new ways to tell stories.” There will be more to this story I’m sure, and we’ll share info about Ed’s next steps soon. Here’s a copy of the actual memo to staff provided by Maclean’s.
The Globe’s own story on this shakeup notes that while newspapers will continue to face immense change in the next decade, “the basic challenges are the same: finding out information that matters to people.”
Just as with our previous post on the power of American Idol, it seems the challenge for papers is also to monetize that information or access. With so many free avenues from which to get your news, why buy a newspaper? Why pay for an article online?
I was reading the recent Vanity Fair which featured an in-depth look at the publisher of the New York Times, by Mark Bowden, where he referenced the publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr’s belief that: ‘journalism sells.’ Bowden duly noted:
“But as a general principle, it simply isn’t true. Rather: Advertising sells, journalism costs. Good journalism costs more today than ever, while ads have plummeted, particularly in print media. This is killing the Times, and every other decent newspaper in America.”
Do you pay for your daily news and information? Do you have a preference from where you get it?
Again from Vanity Fair: Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism notes: “You actually have to choose which platform you work on first, which one comes first. If you really want to move to the Internet in a serious way, you need to change the culture of a news organization and decide that the Internet is the primary new thing. Platform agnostic means that all the online companies are going to zoom past you, because they’re going to exploit that technology while you’re sitting there thinking, Well, we don’t care which platform we put it on. You need to exploit the technology of each platform.”
Is your business exploiting technologies? Making the information experience richer for your readers, your audience, your clients? Consumers expect some content for free, and others they will pay for. The trick is to figure out which is which.
Tags: American Idol, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr, Ed Greenspon, Editor in Cheif, Founding Editor, globalandmail.com, Globe and Mail, journalism, Macleans, Managing Editor Report on Business, Mark Bowden, National Speakers Bureau, New York Times, News, NSB, Ottawa Bureau Chief, paper, Philip Crawley, publisher, Vanity Fair
