1. Content trends for newspapers and magazines Part 1
A publisher who doesn’t understand what content goes into his/her newspaper or magazine will
struggle to turn any profit and will likely remain no more than a hobby-blog. If you don’t know
what your content policy is, it’s time to get one together. Content is a big chunk of your brand.
Today the hardest hit role in media is the journalist. Very few publishers, especially newcomers,
can build or maintain a profitable business model that is led by top-quality journalism. That is
not to say that high quality content is lost or should be compromised in your publication, rather it
is no longer affordable for many publishers to rely solely on one or more in-house journalists.
The ‘rivers of gold’ (real estate, classifieds and job listings) were all once healthy cash-cows
that funded professional reporting in many of our well known mastheads. While some publishers
pocketed the seemingly boundless profits, quite a lot of well-regarded publications employed
the best journalists in the country to cover events that mattered to the readers.
Arguably the stereotyped ‘investigative journalist’ who grabs onto a story with both hands and
teeth and tears away until the ‘truth’ is revealed, is almost instinct. I met one recently in Kandy,
Sri Lanka, and was reminded of Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman’s quest to bring down
Nixon. As Jawardna told me – “In journalism, sometimes we are a mouse who must tread
quietly, sometimes a crocodile that attacks and sometimes a cunning fox!” What a privilege to
meet this guy. He does not even trust a good story with email, and so posts printouts and
photos of the important stories to his head office in Colombo, “because sometimes emails go
missing and sometimes the wrong people read.” I’m sure he causes headaches for the
younger teams in Colombo, but his reputation for journalism is unrivalled, evidenced by the
swag of business cards bearing his name that he showed me for various publications across the
country.
New media sees instead an influx of information ‘bytes’ that are generated by nimble media
professionals and civilians via Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and other platforms. A news story
might evolve every 5minutes online until it is cobbled into a 350 – 500 word article that is sent
that afternoon to web, print, mobile, radio and syndicators. Of course the factual reliability of
generating news like this becomes messy as masses of ‘reporters’ feverishly push a ‘news
story’ from their post to the next in order to hit KPI’s and get the content in front of their
‘demanding’ readers before the competition does.
But what are readers ‘demanding’? Do they really want quick updates every time they flick
back to the new site? Or are they starting to demand higher quality information? Programs like
ABC’s “Media Watch” and sites like Media Watch and Crickey repeatedly demonstrate the joke
that many publications have become by showing the rubbish or unfounded opinion that finds its
way to the top-tier front pages because it was either a nicely packaged press release or suited
the media’s owners or friends.
Press release pranks are particularly popular around April Fool’s day and claim many big-name
scalps, because authenticity is not as important today as speed. The crazy stuff is obviously a
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2. lot easier to filter, but the not-so-crazy content where a few facts might be omitted or added
because the ‘reporter’ has content targets to meet are very risky and have damaged media’s
reputation worldwide.
But maybe not all media consumers care too much for facts. Programs like ‘A Current Affair’
and newspapers like ‘The Telegraph’ are both very healthy, profitable outlets that push
regurgitated crap down the throats of blissfully ignorant audiences daily, and advertisers are
jostling to hand over their dollars. Time and time again certain media channels deliver stories
barely connected to fact, but obviously political and driven by the moguls who guide
contemporary social thinking. That’s why calculating publishers like our very own Rupert
Murdoch receive 100’s of Christmas cards every year, even from those who hate him – he is
influential. Maybe you want to be influential.
Then of course there are the readers who want some balance. With so many consumption
portals, that reader today represents around 85% of the market. They don’t want the Hollywood
style hyperbole with sound effects that we are seeing in so much new media, just the facts.
They are not interested in fake wrestling champions with makeup pretending to jump on each
other, but they do want to see a good fight with real blows when it comes to their media sticking
up for issues that matter to them personally.
This reader goes to her RSS or mobile device for the latest national or state news in the
morning, but wants to browse an engaging site over lunch and paw through a friendly floppy
newspaper or magazine on the train home from work that evening. He wants to know about
local upcoming events, specials at his local shopping haunts and a few vexed opinions between
a couple of irate contributors in the Letters to the Editor. Some local sports results, a good home
remedy for bed-bugs and a list of this season’s flowers and vegetables to plant on the
weekend.
This reader also wants to feel more engaged. Social media giants like Facebook and Twitter for
now are riding high because there is a world of connected people without quality content. Just
as the reality TV shows like Big Brother came and went, so too will users get bored of the same
stupid ‘I just drank a yukky coffee’ tweets and turn to more engaging, intelligent and diverse
media. Publishers who are already offering their readers a ‘Submit Article’ or ‘Submit Video
Report’ button on their sites and promoting this model in print will be well positioned to profit
from this trend.
Your publication (newspaper or magazine), whether online or print, must show a clearly defined
content strategy. Know your content type and how you will produce and disseminate that
content. You should at least have a Content Policy document.
A Content Policy document clearly outlines who you are, why you publish and what content you
will publish or punish. This can be as simple as a paragraph that describes your vision for the
business, with bullet-point list below of article types that will be accepted and why, followed by
those that will be rejected and why. Everyone on your team should know that, as should your
readers.
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3. Content is critical to brand, and with good branding comes solid, long term advertising
commitments. An advertiser might not even agree with your principals or general vision for the
publication, but if they understand your brand clearly and accept that a segment of the market
would be loyal to such a brand, you will often get their long-term advertising budget anyway.
The best exercise to determine what type of content you want to publish (“mummy, who am I?”)
is to let someone ask you: “Hey, what do you publish in that magazine/newspaper?” and then
answer them in 30 seconds or less.
In Part 2 of this article we look at ideas, techniques and resources that you can deploy to
significantly and affordably improve the quantity and quality of your newspaper or magazine
content.
EzyMedia is a publishing house for independent newspapers and magazines, providing
websites, page layout, graphic design and revenue tools for publishers around the world.
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