Results matching “the second germ”

How is one news source, totally funded by subscriptions, to compete with another that receives government subsidies? Such is dilemma that arose when WAZ, Germany's second-largest newspaper group, dropped its subscription to the independently-run German press agency DPA in favor of government-subsidized Agence France-Presse.

As Isabelle de Pommereau points out in the Christian Science Monitor, the decision has consequences for both WAZ and DPA. Since the WAZ group started relying on AFP for all its wire coverage, "the papers' depth of German-based coverage has become undeniably more shallow." Pommereau adds that the loss of such a major client also puts financial pressure on DPA as it struggles against cutting coverage or raising the cost for its other clients.

Will people voluntarily pay to read news that they could easily read for free? Cynthia Typaldos, founder of Kachingle is convinced that they will. Kachingle proposes a novel solution to the news industry's revenue problems: encourage people to donate money to their favourite sites, whether these are major news outlets or small-time blogs. The Editors Weblog spoke to Typaldos to find out more about the scheme, which is due to launch in late July or early August.

How it works

Kachingle users, who the company are calling Kachinglers, need to sign up once to set up their subscription, which, via PayPal, will charge them $5 a month. When they go to a news site that is participating in the venture, it will display a Kachingle 'medallion', which the user can click on to indicate their support for that site. The reader can choose to highlight as many or as few news sites as it wishes, and Kachingle will track the number of times that they visit that site in a month. At the end of a month their $5 will be divided and distributed proportionally between the sites which they have flagged, according to the amount of times visited (with a 15% cut going to Kachingle and 5% to PayPal.) "The algorithm is meant to be a proxy for value received the consumer," Typaldos explained.

Why will people pay?

The main reason Typaldos thinks people will be prepared to offer this $5 is not because they have a strong desire to help save newspapers but because of the social advantages of using Kachingle. Contributors create a profile that shows which sites they are supporting, which they can post to their Facebook profiles or send on Twitter, Typaldos suggested. There will even be a Facebook application. "It becomes a very real view of the things I value, part of my online persona," she explained: something which she believes is "very important" to people as their online existence becomes more and more complex. Essentially, "there's a very powerful peer pressure recognition element to Kachingle" which is what she thinks will drive people to become involved, she feels that users will be "getting something back" in the form of social recognition. The more altruistic wish to help support news would come second to this, she believes.

Another reason Typaldos gave for why Kachingle will work is simply how easy it is: a crucial factor for such a venture. Registering involves providing just basic details, and thereafter, a Kachingler's job is straightforward, marking the sites, without having to consider how much they would like to contribute to it. "There just can't be any mental transaction costs," as Typaldos put it. And the system still allows people to move freely around different publications without encountering pay walls, which Typaldos is firmly against. "Pay walls are just the kiss of death for newspapers," she claims, "we just think it's the wrong economic approach." Those who are trying to implement them "are trying to take the old business model and stick it on the Internet," which she believes is a doomed approach.

To start with, anyone who registers as a Kachingler will make a $5 a month payment. It is fixed thus because Typaldos did not want the decision of how much to contribute to be a barrier for users. The company plans, however, to allow people to give larger amounts in the future, and to encourage them to do so by suggesting amounts based on how many sites they have chosen to support. Typaldos hopes that the typical amount given will rise to about $20 a month. Unsurprisingly, content providers would like people to contribute more money, she said.

The start-up has been in contact with many major news publishers, Typaldos clarified, and these have been by no means only US based: publishers in Germany, the UK, France, Italy, Brazil, Hungary and across Scandinavia, for example, have been in touch. "We are not country specific," she confirmed. For news organisations, the benefits are clear, and the medallion button is extremely easy to install: a simple Java script widget which "you can put on your site in three minutes."

Will it work?

So how much could Kachingle actually raise for newspapers? Could it make a difference? "I think that we will bring enough revenue to sites that are very high quality with original content," Typaldos asserted. She is not under any illusions that such an effort could save a major newspaper that has "debt, so many overheads, print, a huge staff," but she is confident that Kachingle could have a highly significant impact on smaller publications such as MinnPost, which has low overheads but respected journalists. "We will be very powerful for them," she added.

The idea is a good one in the sense that it manages to combine the notion that people should and can pay for news, without putting up paywalls that would block off sections of newspapers and seem incompatible with the idea that news readers should be able to jump around as they please online. It is also compatible with an advertising model. Typaldos described it as "not like tipping, not like micropayments, but we have taken the best elements of both." The fact that readers can choose what they think its worth paying for is likely to appeal to many, and the cost is sufficiently low to not be a deterrent. It does seem that quite a substantial marketing campaign will have to be carried out to spread the word and persuade people that it is worth making the effort to sign up: social pressure alone might not be enough. Once they do so, however, they will probably appreciate the service.

The future of printed media has become a major political issue in countries like the United States or France, even being debated in ad-hoc committees set up by the legislative or the executive powers. Discussions along the Potomac or the Seine rivers have been focusing on the impact of Internet and new technologies, or on the need for state subsidies.

Meanwhile, on the Vltava in Prague, a group of editors and reporters working for PPF Media, the recently created division of insurance and consumer banking group PPF, is already opening new ways of covering a whole country in what may be a newsroom of the future. With other journalists for the moment based in four provincial towns from the Czech Republic, they are launching the so-called "hyperlocal weekly" Nase adresa ("our address"), which combines print and online journalism with particular efforts to sustain high professional standards and get closer to the readers.

"It can only work with well prepared journalists who will be trained in the Futuroom, our central newsroom," explains Roman Gallo, 44, director for PPF's media strategies and conceiver of the project. "We are also opening newscafés in our local bureaus, which will facilitate the contact between Nase adresa's journalists and the public, to enrich the content of our newspaper and of its webpages," adds Matej Husek, 33, director of news operations.
 
The newspoints, combining local newsrooms and Internet cafés in often small, rural towns, may be the most visible originality of this new undertaking. A few weeks before Nase adresa's launch, for instance, PPF Media's already hired staff had the chance to taste two products, the first print prototype of the weekly, and a cake likely to be served in the cafés. "The project represents a special challenge in terms of logistics, of room for storage, as we will be managing dozens of bistrot-Starbucks-like coffee shops in local newsrooms," comments Tomas Chejn, 41, the manager of PPF Media's branded cafés, a food specialist hired for his long time experience in quality catering. Petr Vitasek, 38, the director and chief editor for the Moravia region, based in the eastern Czech city of Olomouc, thinks this effort is worth the investment, because these "well located newspoints will be critical in getting Nase adresa's journalists to work closer to their readers."
 

 
But the whole project is innovative at other, multiple levels. To start with, for the first time a newspaper's birth is tightly associated to the creation of a multi-media training center - with several international partners including Google, Atex and the World Association of Newspapers/ World Editors Forum. The Futuroom will be a newsroom in charge of assisting and training in-house editors, some having no previous reporting experience, as much as a real life teaching field for future journalists. These will include a group of students within another partnership with Brno's Masaryk University, in the second largest Czech town.

Nase adresa's approach could also become a school case due to the organization of the newsroom. "I like how the Futuroom is shaped. Journalists are not confined to one theme, like health or education, but to a way of reporting, and I enjoy changing topics," says Vendula Krizova, reporter in the "Human approach team" and young (25) like many of her new colleagues. Adds Radim Klekner, 50, who joined the "Institutional team" - after working for 10 different newsrooms - to do researches on European Union institutions in particular: "Vertical structures dominate in traditional newspapers, while in Nase adresa it is more horizontal. In my case, for instance, I will be covering many European issues based on the Czech reality."


Klekner had some doubts initially, however, because he has been covering foreign news in the past 15 years.  Why would he join a hyperlocal news project as an international editor, then? "There is a need for benchmarking with other European countries in all aspects of the Czech society, and with Nase adresa I will be able to give a EU presence in the remotest Czech villages", he believes. "Our role is to assess general issues like the lack of general practitioners in the country, compared to others, and connect them to specific cases brought up by the local newsrooms."
 

 
Local journalists with long intensive experience covering their community are also convinced they are working for an innovative project. Vitasek, in Olomouc, even tried a hyperlocal news concept on his own five years ago, called Olomoucky Tydenik. "It was a weekly published on Mondays and strong on local sports, like Nase adresa. We had to stop it after one year, but this time I have with me a 10-people team supported by PPF and by the Futuroom managers and trainers. Our office, in a central strategic area of Olomouc, will be a space for constant direct contact with readers and potential contributors."

Based on her 30 year experience in local journalism, Hana Vojtova, 52, the chief editor of the Teplice newspoint, in the north Bohemian city near the border with east Germany, also believes Nase adresa is a new improvement for community journalism: "We will get nearer to the people from the region, who are tired of politics and want to be informed on human interest stories," explains Vojtova, whose district is dramatically affected by problems like crime and unemployment. "We are going to cover better our readers's activities and their dreams!"
 

 
The project has attracted several other seasoned editors from all backgrounds, including Jiri Zavozda, 50, Nase adresa's head of the copy editing team. He just finished a seven year experience in major private television "Prima", as news editor-in-chief, after working more than a decade for national newspapers. "The TV experience was good because it teaches you how to write short, but I prefer print because it is less superficial," says Zavozda. There are other reasons why he joined the Futuroom. "I see my in-laws, who live in a little village in Moravia and who have only access to media not specifically targeted to them, national daily Mlada Fronta, newsweekly Tyden and the television. Only Nase adresa will inform them well on the Sunday afternoon firemen team's competitions, which are particularly popular in the Czech republic. We will get spectacular photos of fires being extinguished!"

Adds Peter Sabata, 48, the editor-in-chief responsible for the local newsroom: "I strongly believe in the hyperlocal level of information, with the combination of newspoints, and print, online journalism. The weekly will be a bridge from now to the near future, when everybody in the regions will be connected." Sabata just moved back to the Czech republic after eight years at the head of national Slovak paper Pravda's newsroom.

 
Other Nase adresa team members are particularly enthusiastic because of the new challenges specific to a project combining teaching and praxis, online and print journalism, so far never achieved at such a level. Ondrej Besperat, 31, who manages the photo-video team in a duo with veteran photojournalist Jan Silpoch, is well aware of the differences between shooting for a newspaper or for a website. Before joining the Futuroom, he was a photographer for national daily Hospodarske Noviny and then worked for Aktualne.cz, the successful, Internet-only Czech media outlet. "In printed media, you have to do one or two pictures a day, and you invest all your energy in the best one, while in Internet, you try more different perspectives as you know that several pictures are likely to be released for each story."

Besperat anticipates he is likely to spend two third of his time training reporters from the local newsrooms, at the beginning at least. "One of the main challenges will be to shoot sport with our standard high-end amateur cameras," he says. "The idea is not to have journalists who do everything all the time, but reporters who are multifunctional, able to provide good texts and images."

 
Nase adresa will also represent new challenges beyond the expertise usually expected from  journalists, especially for the local chief editors who will have to look after a coffee shop part of their time. "Ten years ago I had a short experience working for Coca Cola, but this will be new because I am not at all a food and beverage specialist," laughs Vitasek, in Moravia. Krizova, who is glad to cover very diverse topics, is also ready for another type of special assignment as a young reporter. She will be asked to take care of children visiting the Futuroom - turned into a "Junioroom" or "media camp" - to learn how to write an article or produce a video footage.


PPF Media's project will be preparing new generations of journalists and not just showing new forms of getting and providing the news.
 

BACKGROUND
The Czech Republic is a country of 10 million people living in 14 regions subdivided in 75 districts in total. Until 20 years ago, only the government and Communist Party related entities could publish newspapers. This was also the case for the regional dailies, and for more local publications at district or town levels. German group Verlagsgruppe Passau took over most of them in 1990 and after, under its Czech branch Vltava-Labe-Press which currently controls over 10 weeklies and over 70 dailies called Denik ("daily", followed by the name of the concerned locality). Nase adresa will have no direct competitors except in a few cases, because its editions will typically cover areas of 20-30,000 people while Denik and its affiliates are designed for larger groups, of over 100,000 inhabitants on average.

The German market at first appearance would seem the perfect place to start up a free daily newspaper, but the market remains untapped, report Newspaper Innovations. German publishers seem determinedly anti-free dailies, overlooking the chance they represent.

Metro and Schibsted wanted to go to Germany while Dagsbrun also (Iceland) made plans. These incumbents have met with difficulty in the home market. Springer reportedly has a 'war fund' of EUR300 million ready and could launch competitor Gratissimo 'within days', and WAZ - the second largest German publisher - also wants to fight a free daily launch.

FTD cites 'informed sources' who report that it would take at least six years for a German project to break even, and that it would cost at least EUR400 million. Newspaper Innovation ask how this figure is calculated as launching costs are between EUR10 and EUR20 million in Spain, France, UK and the Netherlands.

The article even states that the actions of some players in the market could be for the attention of the Bundeskartellambt, the German anti-competition agency.

Source: Newspaper Innovation via IFRA Executive News Search
 

The Editors Weblog is running a series of exclusive interviews about the future of journalism with top editors at leading newspapers around the world. Here is the latest installment with Dan Bogler, Managing Editor of the Financial Times in the UK.

Click here to view all interviews in this series. Other titles include The New York Times, the Guardian, Fairfax Media, the Hindustan Times, etc. (full list at the bottom of the interview).


Questions: "News, journalism, newspapers: same past, different futures?"


- How long do you think you will define your company as a newspaper company or a print company?

We see ourselves as a news organization and we're becoming much more agnostic about our distribution channels. We're becoming much more interested in creating relevant information for our readers and much less interested in how it gets to the readers. Pearson, the parent company, clearly is an education company with a print publishing arm and an information division, which includes the FT. At the FT level, we consider ourselves to be a financial news business more than a newspaper. Our mission is to be the gold standard for global business news in print and online - and in any other formats.

- At this year's World Economic Forum in Davos, a panel of futurists claimed that print newspapers wouldn't exist by 2014. To what extent do you agree with this?

Largely but not completely. 10 years from now - 2014 may be slightly too short a time frame - we will still have printed newspapers, because people like reading  things in print. Newspapers, just like the book, are convenient to read in places you can't do with a computer; but my belief is that a lot of what will be printed will be analysis, comment, analysis and opinion. The actual news will be more or less online or in other more timely formats. In a way the FT will split in two, with FT.com for all the news that's breaking and some immediate reactions and  opinion. The more considered analysis will be almost an Economist-type publication. Maybe it wouldn't have to be broadsheet anymore, it could be tabloid or even magazine format. To put it very crudely, you'd have all the news online, and you'd have 12 pages of Martin Wolf the next day in print, and all the editorials, columnists, features and more.

- In journalism's multi-centennial history, do you view the emergence of digital journalism as part of the continuity, or as a complete breakaway with previous forms of journalism?

There's one thing that's old and one thing that's new. What's old and part of the continuum is that traditional companies are going online. Our journalists are now fully integrated and write online and in print. I'm sure that in 2 years time they'll all be carrying video cameras. We've gone from zero videos website to over 100 per month in the last 18 months. That's part of the continuum: it's us doing the same thing in different distribution channels.

What's new is the blogosphere, citizen journalists and the idea that anyone - people who are not qualified journalists, either experts in a narrow field or just interested citizens - can start a blog or website and distribute it. For the FT, you would think it's negative in the sense that there's more news and opinion and more competitors. In fact, that's not really true, it almost enhances the position of leading media brands for several reasons. One is we are trusted, people believe the news they read with us. Secondly, we select and edit, which becomes an increasingly crucial function as there is more information out there. The more 'over-informed' people are, the more likely people who want to know what's actually going on will turn to a few sources that tell them what s actually important. That's what professional newspapers do really well.

- Do you believe in the increasingly active role of the user in the news process, and is it a threat or an opportunity for professional journalists?

I do believe in their increasingly active role of users: very often readers are more informed than us. If you look at an old format like the letters page in the newspaper, the amount of expertise that our readers have, who are often professionals in the City, is just incredible. They know more about it in certain aspects than our journalists. That's why we get CEOs, academics, lawyers, heads of accountancy firms and more writing in to us to say what's actually happening. They can do this online with comments or take part in Q&As, or print their views in the pages of the FT and FT.com. That sort of content is very helpful. We also have a function for any user to comment on the website's stories.

Is it a threat? Sure, to some extent. But as long as it's happening on our site or in the pages of our newspaper, it's been bundled, monitored, checked for quality and therefore is important. We're not going to turn into a place where we just repeat hundreds of readers' letters and have no journalists of our own. It's more of an opportunity for our journalists to become more informed and build contacts among readers. And it's amazing that all these readers are willing to give this information for free.

- Do you consider the Golden Age of investigative journalism is already past, or just beginning?

I don't know. That's a really hard one. I might say it's already past.

There's so much more information out there and it's so much harder for companies to hide information. Take the Northern Rock story, which was broken by BBC journalists, and there was a bank run as a result. It's harder to hide information. The idea that journalists have to do long-term, deep, undercover investigations where they reveal something months later - I don't think it works like that anymore. Journalists still have scoops and still break important stories, but it tends to be in a much shorter time frame. It tends to be a single development that they're breaking rather than a long series of connections.

But frankly, newspapers and media organizations are under pressure. It's hard for us to send a journalist or a group of journalists off three months investigating something - and if nothing works that's a shame but nevermind. We don't have resources to let people go off and do that for such a long time. I think The Golden Age of journalists working undercover, developing sources and breaking big scandals is less likely; but revealing news that people don't want out there, on a short term basis, uncovering a scandal and having it come to light, that's more likely. As soon as a tiny thing breaks now, it gets distributed so quickly that it's hard to see a journalist working undercover for a long time and gradually piecing something together without having it go public much earlier in the process.


Stay tuned for more interviews in our series. Among the other titles that have been asked to participate in these interviews are:

- The New York Times - Jonathan Landman (US)
- Financial Times - Dan Bogler (UK)
- Guardian (UK)
- Washington Post - Jim Brady (US)
- Globe & Mail - Ed Greenspon (Canada)
- The Times (UK)
- The Economist (UK)
- Gazeta Wyborcza - Jaroslaw Kurski (Poland)
- Le Monde (France)
- Die Welt (Germany)
- The Hindustan Times - Pankaj Paul (India)
- Asahi Shimbun (Japan)
- JoongAng Ilbo (South Korea)
- The Age / Fairfax - Mike van Niekerk (Australia)
- The Nation - Pana Janviroj (Thailand)
- Punch (Nigeria)
- El Tiempo (Colombia)
- Clarin (Argentina)
- Gulf News - Abdul Hamid Ahmad (UAE)

The World Editors Forum, Reuters and Zogby International on Feb. 20 began collecting data for the second annual Newsroom Barometer, a global survey of chief editors about their attitudes and strategies in the multimedia age.

The Newsroom Barometer aims to provide a better understanding of the changes in newsrooms through the eyes of editors-in-chief and senior news executives.

Senior editors wishing to participate in the on-line survey, which tracks attitudes about the future of media and editorial strategies, should send their requests by e-mail to Bertrand Pecquerie, Director of the World Editors Forum, at bpecquerie@wan.asso.fr (including name, title, newspaper name and country).

The Barometer is being conducted in eight languages to expand its reach beyond the four languages that were provided last year (English, Spanish, German, French, Portuguese, Russian, Arabic and Japanese).

The 2008 poll results will be published in the next Trends in Newsroom report and presented by John Zogby, President of Zogby International and Monique Villa, Head of News at Reuters, at the 15th World Editors Forum conference to be held in Göteborg, Sweden, from 1 to 4 June next.

The first Newsroom Barometer, released last year, found the vast majority of newspaper editors world-wide are optimistic about the future of their newspapers. Full results can be found here.

As the Figaro readies the launch of its own in-house video studio (still fully under construction when visited), Bertrand Gié, head of new media for the paper, agreed to give us a few words about the role of video within the quality daily.

A few weeks ago, El Pais underwent a redesign to emphasize its renewed global reach and connect with a younger readership. In this email Q&A, editor-in-chief Javier Moreno explains everything about the paper's relaunch.

A report by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) indicates that the UK is the dominant market for Internet advertising, with more than one-third of total online spending in Europe last year. 

As newspaper editors try to achieve more with a thinned out staff and lesser resources, two major European newspapers have launched a new ‘multi-newspaper newsroom’ model. The editors-in-chief of the Dutch NRC Handelsblad and German Die Welt will come discuss it at the 14th World Editors Forum, to be held from June 3 through 6 in Cape Town, South Africa.

Axel Springer’s project for a Bild-type title in France has been confirmed, to be launched in the second half of 2007. Yet the French Bild won’t – can’t – follow the same success formula of its German tabloid counterpart, because of France’s different news culture.

On Jan. 4 2007, Carlo Caracciolo acquired around 30% of Libération, the French daily newspaper. He is now the second shareholder behind Edouard de Rothschild (38%) after investing 5 million euros in the newspaper.

This December, the Internet virtual community Second Life will have its very own tabloid.  The site created in 2003 is an online world where people can make characters called avatars that live, play, and buy things within Second Life’s Internet borders. Now, Axel Springer, the publisher of Germany's top-selling Bild newspaper, plans on creating a weekly gossip tabloid about avatars for site users.

It's no secret that free papers have been expanding exponentially across the European newspaper market for several years, already comprising close to 20% of total newspaper distribution in a number of countries and over 50% in Spain and 75% in Iceland while causing an uproar in Germany. Most recently, the success of freesheets has caused a war in London and a practice that began in America with the freely distributed Examiner is about to arrive in Denmark.

These were the words from Eugen Russ, Managing Director of the Austrian company Vorarlberger Medienhaus, at the Annual Digital Media Round Table that took place in Moscow this morning. On Monday the 13th World Editors Forum and the 59th World Newspaper Congress will start in Moscow.

With his provocative words Russ referred to the fact that the website of its newspaper Vorarlberger Nachrichten reaches more people than Google in the region around Vorarlberg.

The German newspaper group WAZ (Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung) prepares for a potential launch of a free paper in Germany and plans its own free paper, reports Persoenlich. It is the second publisher that does so: back in September publisher Axel Springer has announced plans to launch a free paper called Gratissimo in case Schibsted or another publisher launches a free sheet in Germany (see former posting).

 The Editors' Weblog has compiled a provisional list of the newspapers that have printed some or all of the cartoons since 30 September 2005, date of publication of 12 cartoons of the prophet Mohammed in Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten. Even provisional, this list is the most exhaustive on the internet, thanks to members of the World Editors Forum and to bloggers close to the EW.

The main conclusions are:

- to our knowledge, more than 130 national or local newspapers (excluding the student newspapers and online publications) published some or all of the 12 cartoons (sometimes just a pohtography) in approximately 50 countries . It also means that around 1,7% of the dailies around the world - 8,300 paid-for dailies according to World Press Trends 2005 - made the difficult decision to publish the cartoons.

- Europe was the continent where the most newspapers published the cartoons: at least 70 papers. It is not surprising that the Netherlands was the country most involved in the controversy (after Denmark)... a few months after the assassination of the film maker Theo Van Gogh by an Islamist activist. Same thing in France after the veil debate and the November 2005 riots.

- Within Europe, the first publications to reprint the cartoons in January-February 2006 were in general right-wing publications, for example ABC in Spain, Die Welt in Germany and Corriere della Sera in Italy. Then more leftist publications followed suit, for example Libération and Le Monde in France.

- Surprisingly, Arab and Muslim newspapers were also involved in the controversy from the very beginning, with the first reprint on 17 October 2005 (see below)! More than 12 Arab and/or Muslim newspapers published the cartoons. The decision to publish provoked terrible consequences for the editors-in-chief of these publications. Same consequences for some directors of television in Sudan and Algeria. 

- How to define the position adopted by American, British, Canadian and Australian newspapers? Media responsability, political correctness or self-censorship? The most surprising is not the position defined in many editorials (from The New York Times to The Guardian), but this strange impression of unanimity and consensus: only three regional newspapers on more than 1,400 newspapers in the States and zero newspaper, but a student daily in the UK for taking the risk...

- And what in the rest of the world? Nothing. Almost the desert for the publication of the cartoons in the Americas (apart Brazil), Africa (apart South Africa) and above all Asia (apart New Zealand). As if this controversy was only between Europe and the Arab world and if blasphemy was still relevant in regions as Asia and the Americas: not only about Mohammed, but about all religious issues.

My conclusion: the geography of the publication of the Danish cartoons tells us a lot about our democracies: what is allowed, what is forbidden... and what is taboo. In fact, it's more geopolitics than geography!

The German daily newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung changed its structure. Starting last Saturday, the paper appears now Monday to Saturday in the same structure. The first section (politics) ends with two pages "Panorama". These two pages are made by a new department with 6 journalists. The new department will focus on topics such as lifestyle and societal developments.

German publisher Axel Springer dropped its plan (see previous posting) to acquire broadcaster ProSiebenSat.1 for 4.2 billion euros. Springer, publisher of Europe's best selling newspaper, the tabloid Bild, announced today that it reached a mutual agreement with the investor group lead by Saban Capital Group to terminate the deal, writes Forbes. The German cartel office had rejected the deal on January 23th (see previous posting), saying the takeover would give Springer a "dominating influence" on Germany's public opinion.

In order to expand his newspaper group, the British invester David Montgomery, with his Mecom Group and investment firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson, bought the German newspaper Hamburger Morgenpost, reports Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Montgomery bought the Hamburg-based tabloid from its publisher Ernst Balach and editor Josef Depenbrock. The deal still needs approval of cartel office, the value of the deal was not released. 

The importance of the internet for journalists in Switzerland is still growing. According to a study among German-Swiss journalists, around 92% use the internet on a daily basis, compared to 80% in 2002. Journalists, who use the internet, think that the most important functions of the internet for their work are e-mail (98%), search engines (97%), websites of companies and administration (around 78%), news portals (71%) and newsletters (51%). 14,6% say that weblogs are important or very important for their work.

Last month in Moscow, the Russian Guild of Press Publishers held the First Russian Publishers Conference.  During the Press Freedom Seminar, President of the World Editors Forum and Saturday Editor of The Times (London), George Brock, gave a talk discussing the freedom of the press in Russia, whose text is posted below. 

The French daily Le Figaro will appear completely redesigned as of Monday. "It's not a revolution, it's an evolution", said Francis Morel, general director at Le Figaro, reports Le Monde. The goal is to increase readership, especially among women and younger readers (average age of reader is said to be 55-57 years) and to encourage occasional readers to become regular ones. After research with readers and several dummies, the new design will start on Monday, October 3.

The changes include: The paper will be 3,4 cm narrower. The new logo is "European blue". The paper will consist of 3 sections. The first sections will cover international news, Europe and France. The second section, which will be printed on salmon paper will be dedicated to the economy and the third part will cover subjects as culture, fashion, free time, lifestyle and wellness. Much space will be dedicated to photographs and infographics. And also the website will be redesigned. The relaunch is said to have cost 5 million Euro. The papers cover price of 1 Euro will stay the same. Imédias has a photo of the a front page in the new design. See here.

Le Figaro, the oldest newspaper of the country, was founded as a weekly in 1826 and has appeared as a daily since 1866. It has a circulation of about 326,700, currently more than competitor Le Monde, reports Der Standard.

Sources: Le Monde (in French), Imédias (photo), see also article on imédias (in French), Der Standard (in German)

The Polish newspaper market will soon see the launch of a new "million-selling" daily tabloid, reports The Warsaw Business Journal. Agora SA, publisher of the quality newspaperGazeta Wyborcza, with a circulation of about 433,000 Poland's second biggest newspaper, will release a new down-market tabloid "that is set to create a media spectacle to rival the forthcoming political elections." Preparations for its launch are said to be advanced. The new paper will compete with Fakt (circulation about 536,000), a tabloid of the German publisher Axel Springer that became the biggest newspaper in Poland only two weeks after its launch in October 2003. The new newspaper is also expected to further weaken the position of Polish tabloid Super Express, published by Media Express, that already lost readers to Fakt. A speaker of CR Media Consulting stated in The Warsaw Business Journal: "Agora is probably planning to widen press readership to young people and women. The new paper may, of course, attract some of Fakt readers - tabloid buyers are not a loyal group, they always opt for more scandalous headlines and pictures."

Source: The Warsaw Business Journal (registration required)

The launch of free papers in Germany seems very close now, contrary to the wishes of publisher Axel Springer. Norwegian publisher Schibsted will launch its free paper with 15 regional editions in 22 cities across Germany, reports Focus Money citing an internal strategic document. According to this document the launch will take place in two phases: In the first phase about 1,3 million copies will be distributed in Berlin, the Ruhr Basin, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Cologne, Bonn, Frankfurt, Wiesbaden, Munich and Düsseldorf. In a second phase Schibsted plans to expand to Dresden, Leipzig, Mannheim, Ludwigshafen, Hannover, Nuremberg, Bremen, Münster and Karlsruhe reaching a total distribution of 2 million copies.

Meanwhile German publisher Springer announced that it will launch a free paper called Gratissimo. However, Gratissimo will be launched only in the case of the launch of a free paper by Schibsted or any other publisher. "Every day without a free paper is a good day", said a speaker of Springer in Die Welt. In the case of its launch Gratissimo, "the free paper for Germany", will appear in a tabloid format and consist of 24 pages. (See also former posting on free papers in Germany.)

Sources (all in German): Focus Money, Die Welt, Reuters