Newspapers

‘Joke of the century’: South Africa responds to ANN7, The New Age sale

Gupta-owned Oakbay has announced the sale of its two media companies — ANN7 and The New Age — for R450-million. Purchasing the duo is…

Caxton launches online deals finder in bid to pump up online ad presence

NAB, the sales and advertising arm of Caxton CTP Publishers and Printers, today announced the launch of Dealfinder. Effectively an online version of the…

Google denies killing newspapers, which still have wider reach than the web

Google insists that it is not stealing business away from print media, even as it becomes a dominant source of news on the web….

New York Times rolls out paywall globally

On Monday The New York Times rolled out its paywall system which means readers will now begin paying for full access to the site….

Five ways traditional journalists use Facebook

Many journalists working for traditional media are reticent about joining the digital revolution, but there is little doubt that social media has helped build…

The digital revolution and the fight for journalism

One of the great joys of my annual trip to London as a judge of the CNN Multichoice African Journalist of the year awards,…

Learning from the Telegraph

On May 24 1844 Samuel Morse sent his message over a copper wire from Baltimore to Washington. The telegraph was the starting point of…

The future of online advertising lies in the collapse of print

I guess it seems a bit negative to define the growth of a medium in the collapse of another, but here’s why: For most…

Prediction: Newspapers face pricey future

In a recent Associated Press article European editors were interviewed about where they see the future of the newspaper. In the face of declining…

The future of the newspaper

From: “European papers optimistic on future — with web’s help” (Sent to me by M&G Online editor, Riaan Wolmarans.) …but European editors interviewed by…

Newspapers RIP? Not really.

Duncan Mcleod from the Financial Mail wrote this doom ‘n gloom piece on the end of newspapers. It’s actually one of the better pieces…

SA's online newspapers set to grow

Francois Nel from the For the Media blog pointed me towards his blog recently (pretty good, I must say). This post in particular caught…

Where are the great online magazines? Where?

Magazines have not enjoyed the same high profile, runaway success of their newspaper counterparts in the online world. Magazines aren’t big online. Websites of print magazines have had a rather low profile in more than 10 years of internet in this country. Compare this to the high-profile online news brands that rake in big numbers and you will see what I mean. It’s no secret that the news brands dominate the top half of the local online readership rankings, whereas very few magazines even make the top 50 sites….

Why can’t we all just get along?

The media world is undergoing profound change. We know the great catalyst for these changes has been the onward march of the digital age and the arrival of the internet.

This changing mediascape is often incorrectly portrayed as a battlefield, with two main skirmishes on the go. In the first “battle”, the soldiers have grown weary or just rather bored. This battle involves traditional media (newspapers, radio, TV) versus online media. The second “battle” is a much more interesting to look at. This skirmish involves mainstream media (which in this instance includes online publishers as they mostly practise traditional journalism) versus citizen media, which includes bloggers, vloggers and podcasters….

Online is no ‘threat’

It’s time to leave the dark ages. The traditional advertising and media industry needs to see the potential of online or get left behind….

The people have written

Now South Africa has its own citizen journalism website in Johnnic’s commendable reporter.co.za The relentless pace of technology is turning everyone into citizen reporters….

Print vs Online: Interview with Marketing Mix

Just did this interview with Marketing Mix on the (yawn) print vs online debate…

What is your opinion on the general attitude of the newspaper industry towards the merging of online and print?

How far is SA behind (in general) when it comes to combining online and print?

What ‘cool’ things do you have on the M&G site that no one else does, and how are the ‘cool’ things working out – are people using RSS feeds etc, for example?

What are the problems/challenges facing publishers that actually want to embrace online?

Should SA publishers be worried about online? Is it a threat?

What is hampering the real growth of online at the moment?

How long do you think we have until online starts eating into circulation/ad revenue the way it has in the US and UK?

What are the next steps in terms of technology and integrating print and online that publishers need to embrace and use?

How can an online presence be using for success brand-building both for the newspaper itself as well as advertising clients?

Has online revenue started to make a positive impact on the overall bottom line?

Are clients and ad agencies geared for an online presence? If no, what needs to be done (by all parties) to ensure online ad revenue success?

What are the differences between having a print publication and an online site – ie what do publishers/journalists need to learn and understand about online in order to meet consumer expectations?

What is your opinion on citizen journalism and its part?

What do you do about premium news (subscribing mostly?) as most people won’t pay for the privilege esp as they can normally find the stories elsewhere on the internet? But how viable is free content?

Is there a threat yet to classifieds (print and online) from sites such as craigslist, and how do you combat this?

Answers over the page…..

Newspapers will not die, ever

Listen up. Newspapers are NOT going to die or be “replaced” — not ever. Had an interesting pow wow with Ben Hammersely, “special prototypes…

Changing media's battlefield

Ok play is over. Need to do some business here. Conference is tomorrow where I’ll be chatting about online journalism vs traditional journalism. This…

Net advertising 'to overtake national newspapers'

Saw this in the Guardian Unlimited. I quote: “The internet will overtake national newspapers in the battle for advertising spending in the UK by…

Citizen journalism, let's keep our heads shall we?

Did this interview with Herman Manson of Media Toolbox a popular media newsletter. Here are the questions:

To what extent is the M&G planning to make use of citizen/participatory journalism?
What are people writing about on your blogging service and how does this influence the content of your website and the paper edition?
Do you think participatory journalism will grow beyond community newspapers (for which it does seem perfect) to national news organisations locally? Internationally the BBC recently announced a move to integrate more citizen generated content into its services.

My answers over the page

Blogs vs traditional media: the Iraq issue

During the first panel discussion of the We Media conference in London a delegate at the conference whose name I didn’t catch stood up and made a very interesting comment. He says he works for a newspaper and that it was his job to review Iraqi blogs for the paper he works for to source stories and comment. He said that ever since he started doing this, he began “losing trust in newspapers” …

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