Results matching “newspaper around the co”

In a recent speech, Horst Pirker, the Chairman of the Board of Styria Medien (Austria) explained how the future of the newspaper is dependent on multimedia, multi-channel and multi-platform technologies (or MMM).  

In the MMM approach, multimedia means providing the reader with not just only text, but pictures, sound and video.  Multi-channel means using different channels for distribution such as cable, satellite, GRPS, WiFi etc...  And multi-platform means using all of the platforms available such as, paper, PC, mobile devices, public screens, etc...

On October 2, Nai Duniya was launched in New Delhi by Nai Duniya Media Ltd, the regions second largest newspaper group.  The newspaper will have an initial circulation of 180,000-200,000 copies.

According to Vinay Chhajlani, chief executive of Nai Duniya, "In Delhi, we want to be the clear number three player within the next three years and will strive to have a pan-India presence very soon."

Nai Duniya will focus on legal reportage, there will be a "full-page on legal news and education, among others and will give a definite edge to our content," stated Chhanjlani.  

The paper will be priced one rupee below market leaders Navbharat Times and Hindustan in an effort to gain more readers.

Nai Duniya Media Ltd. plans to launch a new weekly magazine across nine locations including Mumbai. They also plan on looking into developing partnerships with Hindi television news channel.

Sources: Afaqs

The Canadian newspaper, 24 hours, is unveiling its revamped look this week.

The thinking behind the newspapers redesign is to accommodate its readers busy lives, as a result the newspaper has launched a  quick read format of a front page with brief summaries of lead stories and highlights. The paper also has a navigation layout enabling the reader to easily pinpoint the stories they are interested in.

"Insights from our readers, prospective readers, advertisers and ad agencies set the course for the redesign," said Chris Brockbank, VP of marketing at Sun Media. "They want sharp and fast headline news and a consistent, quick navigation system to get to content they want."

Quebecor's Sun Media publishes 24 hours newspaper Monday to Friday. The publishers newspapers are read by approximately 6.5 million readers every week.

Source: Media Canada via IFRA Executive News

An aide of Irans's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is launching a newspaper, named the "Khorshid" or "Sun." It is due to hit the newsstands on Saturday.

The newspaper, which will be published by Mohammad Paryab, will cover everything from political issues to soap operas. Initial circulation is expected to be around 200,000. The timing of the launch is crucial, being eight months before the presidential elections, resulting in speculation that the newspaper will be used to push Ahmadinejad's re-election.

Paryab denied the talk. "No, the government has other platforms and as you can see there is only one page about political news in Khorshid, so it is not useful for that purpose," he told AFP.

"If we wanted to do that, we would have allocated 10 to 12 pages of the 24-page newspaper for political news," said Paryab, who used to be deputy government spokesman and secretary of the presidency information council.

The price is 1,000 rials, approximately a dollar. Khorshid is financed by the state-run social security organisation.

Under Ahmadinejad's Presidency, Iranian media has been hit by a raft of closures.

Source: EJC Media and AFP

Following a raft of job cuts at the long-standing regional newspaper, the Editor, Janet Coats, has announced that the Tampa Tribune will be undergoing a redesign and newsroom revamp and merge for Tribune, WFLA-Ch. 8 and TBO.com.

For the newsroom, the focus will be web-first and a new plan to work as one newsroom for the newspaper and its stable mates. Editor Coats said. "It's kind of a return to a lot of newsroom structures we tried in the '90s, but didn't put a lot of energy into. It's a different way of looking at the data we gather."

The new Tribune/WFLA/TBO.com newsroom has been separated into several subject areas: data, deadline, watchdog journalism, personal journalism and grassroots. When a story breaks, staffers from the deadline area work to gather material for the Web site first, while the other teams will develop plans for their own stories.

Coats' wants the focus to be on delivering information to consumers in whatever form they may need it.

Few details are available on the newspaper redesign, which is due to launch Monday. Essentially, however, the newspaper will be slimming down its weekday edition and expanding its Sunday newspaper, where Coats feels readers have more time to enjoy a newspaper.

Source: Poynter.org and Tampabay.com

Cambridge-based firm Liquivista announces that it will be developing electronic newspapers over the next three years, with £12 million backing the project. The web developer plans to build full-color interactive e-paper reader that will resemble an A4 piece of paper and will feature audio and video content, according to the Press Gazette.

US-based outside.in, which gathers content from local news outlets and bloggers, announces that launched a beta version in the UK. The firm may also open a UK office to complement the launch.

France's newspaper industry is in crises and President Nicholas Sarkozy is launching talks to look into alleviating the situation. There will be a two month industry consultation period led by a one of Sarkozy's former Elysee advisers.

However, unions are reportedly concerned Sarkozy could loosen ownership laws, allowing his television baron friends to buy into the national press. Sarkozy, is known as the "télé-président" due to his media fixation and his close relationship with key figures within the media.

The French press is one of the least profitable in Europe, the daily circulation of all French national papers is just 8 million, which is half that of the UK and one third of Germany. French newspapers' combined turnover fell from €1.145bn (£905 million) in 2000 to €848 million last year.

It also costs more to print a national newspaper in France than in most of its European neighbours due to the Union Le Livre's importance in this sector, it insists on strict working hours and conditions for its members. It is also difficult to buy a newspaper in France because Labyrinthine state controls newspaper kiosks. The press already receive €1.5bn in direct and indirect state each year

Le Monde's editor, Eric Fottorino, has called for Sarkozy to make it easier for the public to buy a copy of a newspaper.

Sarkozy reportedly favours loosening French laws to allow media organisation to own a TV station, a major radio network and a major daily newspaper.

Source: Guardian.co.uk

Newspapers around the world are facing a challenging time, not only because of the current difficult economic climate and declining advertising revenues, but also because of the ever more rapid push to multi-platform publishing and the changes to the operation that this has involved. Is it time the whole operating model underwent a shake-up? Neil Benson, Editorial Director - Regionals, at Trinity Mirror believes that newspapers need to radically overhaul the entire structure and that, being from a "conservative industry", they have been "overly-cautious" for far too long.

Benson, and the three Editors of the Birmingham titles affected, have rewritten the rulebook on workflow and newsroom management at the Birmingham Post (Editor Marc Reeves - business orientated newspaper), Sunday Mercury (Editor David Brookes - tabloid) and Birmingham Mail (Editor Steve Dyson - a popular evening paper); and the new system is scheduled to go live in mid-October. Benson says that in previous recessions for the media industry, the standard way newspapers have responded is to cut the pagination of the paper and axe staff, but Trinity felt that this was simply "inadequate". Benson says, "The financial pressure is nothing new, but the additional factor is the internet and convergence and the effect that this is having on the industry, so we felt that rather than do the straightforward cost-cutting, we needed to do something much more imaginative." The Editors Weblog spoke to Benson to get all the details.

Rethinking workflow

Trinity Mirror has been using the same tried and tested newsroom workflow as most other newspapers, ie, (1) journalist writes the article, (2) submits it to the news desk, (3) designer fits the story into the page, (4) sub-editing desk scrutinizes, and (5) final revision and publication. This whole system has been completely turned on its head, with Benson stating, "We are truly a multi-media business now, so lets structure for that." The old five-step system has now been honed down to just three steps: create, place and complete. Benson says that not only did they have to look at the overall operating costs in the current difficult economic climate, but they also wanted to fully integrate multi-media working practises into the operation. With the advent of new publishing platforms, such as mobile and the Internet, newsrooms have had to adapt rapidly and have thus frequently "bolted-on" on new practises to the traditional model. Benson wanted to revamp the whole process so that multimedia is fully integrated into the operation.

The new workflow system is as follows:

1) Reporters - who will now be known as multimedia journalists*, - create the content.
2) Send to the "Multimedia" desk where a newly trained multi-skilled team will not only check the copy but also place it into heavily templated pages. This is the key step in the reinvention; here Trinity have merged the news editing and production function into one.
3) Page finishing, revising and tidying up.

Benson says he cannot remember such substantial changes being made to a newsroom in 35 years. Not only will this system help to cut costs and integrate multimedia publishing, but it will also cut down on the time between a reporter finding a story and it appearing in print or online. Furthermore, the three titles at Trinity Mirror Midlands will all be sharing a newsroom; so if a big story breaks the merged newsroom can push more resources towards the story and cover it more thoroughly than was ever possible before.

Integrated newsroom - open space and collaboration

One of the key areas where the changes can be seen is in the newsroom team itself; the individual Head of Content or Head of Sport for each title will be merged and will now work across all titles and channels. Furthermore, the whole team, including advertising and sales, will all be on one floor working together.

In the centre of the new newsroom (the whole team is moving to a new purpose-designed site in Birmingham in about a month's time) there will be a structure that Benson describes as being "like a broken doughnut" (ie, a round structure, open at two points for exit and entry) which is the multimedia desk: everything will be directed from this central hub. It will also contain the conference table where all of the news meeting will take place, making it open to the entire staff rather than in the Editors office behind a closed door as in the past. This structure also enables the multi-media desk staff to always be at their workstations even during the news meetings.

Furthermore, over the summer, a new publishing system was introduced called "Content Watch" (produced by a MediaSpectrum) which is completely web-based making it possible to file copy and sub copy from anywhere.

Training journalists: the "nuts and bolts" of integration

The training programme undertaken to make this radical change in structure possible has been comprehensive. Benson describes the training as "nuts and bolts" and philosophical, ie, enabling the team to "think" multi-media when they are working.  Staffers are all being equipped with laptops for filing on the move and Smartphones (Nokia 95 Smartphones for shooting video, streaming video, and take digital pictures), so there have been practical training sessions for the new kit, being led by the Head of Multimedia and the editorial training manager.

The team have brought in Paul Bradshaw from Birmingham City University, who has an online journalism blog, for the philosophical side; the sessions involve talks on multimedia and issues surrounding it for senior staffer, who will then "percolate this knowledge down". The staff have also been attending a series of multimedia awareness sessions led by Andrew Dickinson from the University of Central Lancashire, who also has a journalism blog.

Benson is very clear on the importance of this training programme, "We are asking people to do something very new, and unless you invest in the training it is not going to work."

Managing the team through unfamiliar waters

Another key consideration for Trinity Mirror in this reinvigoration of its newsroom has been its staff. The process resulted in 65 voluntary redundancies at the newspapers and this understandably caused concern for staffers at the group's Birmingham titles. Furthermore, with the whole workflow system being turned on its head, staffers were required to apply for roles within the new structure. This, reports Benson, was a difficult decision and one "not taken lightly". However, the changes in structure are so radical that they felt it was necessary to take this step to underline the enormous change the Birmingham titles were undertaking, and for the staff to truly consider if they wanted to be involved in it. Benson reports, "We had our eyes open, we expected a big reaction."

Bearing this in mind, management moved ahead quickly and launched a consultation period where staffers had one-to-one sessions to discuss concerns and ask questions. Rapidly after, the job application process started.  

The UK's National Union of Journalists took a role in the process, telling management that they would fight any forced redundancies; thankfully, the voluntary process proved successful and a strike was averted. Benson reports that communication was open with the union throughout the process.

With hindsight?

Trinity Mirror Midlands is nearing the finishing line in this whole process, but with the benefit of hindsight, would they have done anything differently? Benson says that he does not feel that there is a "fundamental" in the process that they got wrong. He does believe that the communication process with staff is vital and needs to be as open and detailed as possible. For Trinity, communication has been, "pretty good, but more would have been better."

Furthermore, with the office move planned well in advance and with Trinity's desire to undertake the changes before the office move so teething problems could be ironed out, lack of time was an issue. Benson says, "Ideally, a bit more time, but then again I have been involved in projects in the past where you can give yourself too much time. Being journalists, we all like a deadline."

* The multimedia journalists role now involves shooting video, taking picture, and so forth, as well as being equipped to file from anywhere with the new web-based publishing platform.

According to Sly Bailey, Trinity Mirror's CEO, publishers need to put digital media 'at the centre' of their businesses to survive the current economic downturn.

Digital media must be integrated into the business model Bailey told delegates at the Association of Online Publisher's (AOP) Digital Publishing Summit, stating that it is now a "must-have."

Bailey revealed that by 2011, digital revenues will represent a "substantial part" of Trinity Mirror's business. She went on to say "Businesses can no longer simply rely on a rising tide of digital growth. Building digital audiences is the right thing to do. Attracting millions of unique users to your digital brands is great. But if businesses can't convert those users into revenue and then into sustainable profits they will simply run out of cash. This is no time for vanity publishing. Our business models have to be sound and our investment plans have to be able to withstand short-term economic shock. I'm firmly of the belief that there will be casualties in the coming months."

Bailey also expects 2009 to be the crunch year for the industry, with falls in print circulations and traditional advertising revenues.

Bailey also said, "These [traditional] processes are an impediment to success in a multimedia world. To build a successful multimedia business and a digital business of scale we have to be prepared to rethink the entire publishing process."

Source: Journalism.co.uk

For the first time, European readership of free dailies has gone down. At the end of 2007 it was 27,300,000 - now it's 27,000,000.

The decline is not significant, but is it a sign of a new trend?

World circulation is still up by 2%, largely because of launches in South America and Asia.

Source: Newspaper Innovation

At the Free Paper Conference in Madrid, managing director, Lawson Munchaster reported that City AM, the free business newspaper, is launching in Manchester and Edinburgh in Spring 2009. The total circulation outside London will be approximately 50,000.

The circulation in London will be increased to 150,000 over the next few years.

The newspaper, which was launched three years ago, has reached beakeven and saw its readership increase to 233,000 in Q2 2008, moving up from 100,000 at launch and 170,00 in 2007.

City AM targets affluent, city-worker readers in the London market. Initially the newspaper ad difficulties as it was only handed out in the city outside tube stations, so readers could not read it on their commute. City AM adopted a new distribution model to resolve this issue whereby readers in specific areas in London could pick up a copy before they entered the subway. This move resulted in average reading time going up form 11 minutes to 18 minutes.

The new distribution method is "self selective" according to Munchaster: "people who are not interested in business simply don't pick up the paper."

City AM saw advertising go up with 38% from January to August 2008, although the UK advertising market in total saw a drop of more than 10%. The newspaper has seen growth in "local businesses," but many "local" businesses are in the London city square mile.

Source: Newspaper Innovation

The Wall Street Journal Online has signed a deal with Yahoo! which will enable Yahoo! users in the UK and Ireland to access its coverage of the US presidential election race.

WSJ.com's political blogs, 'Political Perceptions' and 'Washington Wire' will be available on a Yahoo! microsite specially created.

Tristan Leaver, director of business and audience development at the Wall Street Journal digital network for EMEA, said it is, "a very effective way for WSJ.com to raise brand awareness and expose our unparalleled content to a new UK audience."

In an interview with the EditorsWeblog in September, Deputy Editor of the Wall Street Journal, Alan Murray, said the brand had ambitious plans to expand internationally. This deal with Yahoo! looks like a significant step in pushing the Wall Street Journal brand and content to a European audience.

Source: Brand Republic

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