tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/the-global-mail-7980/articlesThe Global Mail – The Conversation2014-01-30T19:48:52Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/225262014-01-30T19:48:52Z2014-01-30T19:48:52ZIn Conversation with Erik Jensen: “We’re a niche product with mass market aspirations”<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/40159/original/fb4rf8hn-1391046171.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Saturday Paper will be the first new print paper in several decades, and editor Erik Jensen hopes to find a profitable niche in an industry that is quickly shedding circulation and staff.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Phil Gyford</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Businessman and publisher Morry Schwartz’s decision to appoint a 25-year-old, relatively unknown journalist to edit the first serious newspaper launched in Australia in more than four decades might be a “courageous decision” in the Yes Minister sense. </p>
<p>In an era that is witness to a difficult transition from print to digital media, Erik Jensen will edit Schwartz’s biggest gamble to date, The Saturday Paper, from March 1. </p>
<p>Jensen said the job was his until “I screw up”. He was bullish about the newspaper’s prospects despite the recent staff cuts, slashed budgets and advertising slumps experienced by most newspapers.</p>
<p>Things would be different at The Saturday Paper, he asserted. Journalistic quality would catalyse sales; stories would be better and longer; it would be a niche newspaper for a niche readership; sales of 60,000 would break even; and … reporters would get 80 cents a word. One downside was that the two-year search for a good conservative writer with empathy was a very difficult one (see full transcript).</p>
<p>Schwartz and the former chairman of Schwartz’s The Monthly, Robert Manne, would help out a stable that included David Marr, Hamish McDonald, Christos Tsiolkas and others.</p>
<p>Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-conversation-with-erik-jensen-full-transcript-22222">full interview transcript here</a>.</p>
<hr>
<h2>The business case</h2>
<p><strong>Bill Birnbauer:</strong> Is this a serious business proposition or is it an act of philanthropy to an ailing newspaper industry?</p>
<p><strong>Erik Jensen:</strong> It’s certainly there to aid an ailing newspaper industry but it’s not philanthropic. The best way to aid an industry that’s struggling is to find a better business case for that industry…it’s a paper based on numbers. It’s rigorously finding a way to make a niche for a certain type of print title.</p>
<p><strong>Bill Birnbauer:</strong> When you say based on numbers…</p>
<p><strong>Erik Jensen:</strong> We’ve played with various scenarios and numbers to see how this paper will work. The unit cost of this paper is less than the cover price. Unlike most newspapers that are losing money on a sale, we’re actually making money on a sale. </p>
<p><strong>Bill Birnbauer:</strong> What is the business model?</p>
<p><strong>Erik Jensen:</strong> The very basic business model is that you put together a good paper and people will buy it. I think everyone is trying that model but it’s then about saying “what is a good paper”. </p>
<p>A good paper, in our mind, is something that is edited down to the essential elements. Once you have that kind of synthesis, you don’t have the extraneous and costly journalism that goes into supporting one of the other papers that had once a large disparate audience and now has a small but still disparate audience, so now they have to do a whole number of different things and have large staffs to do many of those different things. </p>
<p><strong>Bill Birnbauer:</strong> What is the break-even point? How many copies will you need to sell?</p>
<p><strong>Erik Jensen:</strong> If we were selling 60,000 across three cities we’d be doing just fine and I think that’s entirely realistic.</p>
<p><strong>Bill Birnbauer:</strong> Based on what? Why is that realistic?</p>
<p><strong>Erik Jensen:</strong> Based on the fact that there are many more than 60,000 people who buy two papers at the weekend, and I see us easily being a complementary paper to another newspaper and so that audience already exists. </p>
<p>It’s also based on the audience that already exists for The Monthly, which I think we’ll take a large share of. And the sort of content we’re putting together that might drag in readers who have either left or who have never been served by newspapers. </p>
<h2>Where others have struggled</h2>
<p><strong>Bill Birnbauer:</strong> Why do you think print on this occasion will succeed when domestically numbers have been shredded and in the US print has shifted online and newspapers have closed? Why will print work?</p>
<p><strong>Erik Jensen:</strong> Firstly, there is the fact that both Morry and I love print newspapers and we’re keen to do something like this. Secondly, I think print newspapers have suffered significant structural attacks on their business model, but they’ve also responded imperfectly. </p>
<p>I think some of the decision making in news organisations has worsened rather than improved the problems that beset print, and they unfortunately also have larger company issues that we don’t. And there’s also the costs of very big newsrooms. </p>
<p>We’re not a newspaper that could operate a newsroom the size anywhere near The Age’s, for instance, although we are a newspaper that’s absolutely dependent on major news organisations having large newsrooms, because as often as we would break news ourselves, we would be writing better, deeper accounts of stories that have broken elsewhere, when journalists elsewhere haven’t been given the resources to then tell that story in great depth.</p>
<p><strong>Bill Birnbauer:</strong> What are the decisions that newspapers have made that have worsened things?</p>
<p><strong>Erik Jensen:</strong> The first thing is not to have chased their classified advertising online, I don’t think it’s controversial to say that. But the other issue in how they’ve dealt with the internet becomes an editorial one, and that’s quite often trying to compete in print with what the internet does better at the expense of giving the reporters time to do the journalism that I would regard still as print journalism.</p>
<h2>The operation</h2>
<p><strong>Bill Birnbauer:</strong> And staff numbers?</p>
<p><strong>Erik Jensen:</strong> We have a very small team of 10 people who are in the office on staff and a group of about 20 people who are fixed contributors who will write every week or every other week. Beyond that, there is another 30 or so people who have attached themselves to the paper willing to write for us but who aren’t necessarily writing on a predictable cycle.</p>
<p><strong>Bill Birnbauer:</strong> What do you pay?</p>
<p><strong>Erik Jensen:</strong> 80 cents a word. If we do as well as I hope we’ll do we’ll look at shifting those rates or paying larger expenses. </p>
<p>I really want this paper to make journalism viable for people, particularly people who are finding themselves freelance journalists after having spent long careers in newsrooms.</p>
<p><strong>Bill Birnbauer:</strong> Is there anybody else apart from Morry Schwartz who has committed to the project?</p>
<p><strong>Erik Jensen:</strong> No, it’s wholly owned by Morry, as The Monthly is and as the Quarterly Essay is.</p>
<p><strong>Bill Birnbauer:</strong> And how much has he committed?</p>
<p><strong>Erik Jensen:</strong> As I said, the business case is predicated on the paper making money, but Morry is also committed to a fixed figure, not one we publicly discuss. But Morry is committed to keeping this newspaper running with the expectation of allowing it to work.</p>
<p><strong>Bill Birnbauer:</strong> When might you expect to be making a profit?</p>
<p><strong>Erik Jensen:</strong> I suppose it depends what you regard a profit to be. I think the first issue will be profitable, but it will take some time to pay back the launch capital.</p>
<h2>The content</h2>
<p><strong>Bill Birnbauer:</strong> Will it be a review of stories that have already broken, putting it in a deeper or more substantive way in a week? Or will you be doing some enterprise reporting – some original reporting?</p>
<p><strong>Erik Jensen:</strong> The answer is both. We obviously will break stories as often as we can, but every time we break a story it has to be worth at least 1,200 words. It’s one thing to break a 300 word story on page 4 of a newspaper, it’s another thing to break a story that’s worth that – that’s equivalent to a splash with two days worth of follow up for a daily newspaper. </p>
<p><em><a href="http://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/">The Saturday Paper</a> will launch March 1st.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/22526/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bill Birnbauer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Businessman and publisher Morry Schwartz’s decision to appoint a 25-year-old, relatively unknown journalist to edit the first serious newspaper launched in Australia in more than four decades might be…Bill Birnbauer, Senior Lecturer, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/225812014-01-30T06:04:14Z2014-01-30T06:04:14ZGraeme Wood’s Global Mail felled by financial reality<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/40163/original/j7dxzyc9-1391047051.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Philanthropist Graeme Wood has pulled funding from longform journalism venture The Global Mail, but is this really another nail in the Australian media's coffin?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There are no great surprises in the <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/business/wotifs-graeme-wood-pulls-plug-on-global-mail-20140130-31o3l.html">announcement</a> by Wotif founder and philanthropist Graeme Wood that he will no longer fund not-for-profit online journalism venture <a href="http://www.theglobalmail.org/">The Global Mail</a> (TGM).</p>
<p>According to <a href="http://mediaround.wordpress.com/2012/05/29/problems-continue-at-the-global-mail/">reports</a>, Wood initially pledged A$15 million to the project and expected nothing immediately in return apart from quality journalism, saying in 2011: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I think eventually there’ll be a financial business model for this sort of thing, but it ain’t there yet.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>While Wood got his quality journalism <a href="http://www.bandt.com.au/news/latest-news/online-start-up-the-global-mail-says-no-to-adverti">without a piece of advertising</a> to destroy reading pleasure, he has still chosen to cease funding the site from February 20. The site is now urgently seeking another backer.</p>
<p>The product was good, featuring some of the best work by some of Australia’s finest journalists. TGM won <a href="http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature/two-walkley-awards-for-haunting-photo-essay/754/">multiple awards</a>, not just under the leadership of foundation editor <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/media/too-hard-to-work-for-monica-attard-parts-ways-with-site/story-e6frg996-1226351403236">Monica Attard</a>, but also those who followed under Attard’s replacement Lauren Martin. It also attracted readers – not the click-baiters who read a headline, click and run – but those who stay on site for between five and ten minutes.</p>
<p>TGM’s 2013 readership peaked in May with over 315,000 visits and 258,000 unique browsers, while the monthly average for the year was 120,000 uniques. Its initial audience on launch in February 2012 was 97,000 unique browsers.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/graeme-wood-burns-48m-as-wotif-shares-smashed-20131218-2zjz1.html">In December</a>, Wood has suffered a personal financial kick (reported as high as $48 million) after Wotif’s share price plunged almost 32% off a profit downgrade. Wood, whose stake in Wotif stands at 20% after selling just under two million shares in October, told TGM staff simply that “his circumstances had changed” and has offered to help someone else take over the business if another financial backer appears. </p>
<p>According to a <a href="http://mumbrella.com.au/investors-sought-save-global-mail-203182">statement</a>, TGM is pursuing both philanthropic and commercial opportunities. But finding a commercial saviour seems unlikely without a track record in advertising. TGM had a good base, worthy of sale, but it hasn’t pulled in the readers in the same way as its younger and sexier daily counterpart <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/au">The Guardian Australia</a>, which Wood is <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/guardian-launches-australian-digital-edition/4500922">also funding</a>.</p>
<p>TGM’s demise was really foreshadowed the moment The Guardian’s digital experts started targeting the Australian market. It’s an increasingly crowded but potentially profitable market for Australia’s influential iPad reading public. And The Guardian, under the editorship of Katharine Viner, proved to be the publication of choice, attracting close to 1.2 million browsers per month in October last year to <a href="http://mumbrella.com.au/guardian-re-enters-top-10-australian-news-websites-190563">place it</a> inside Australia’s top ten news websites.</p>
<p>Unlike TGM’s previous incarnation, The Guardian is easy to navigate on all devices, and its digital bells and whistles don’t detract from the stories. TGM <a href="http://www.crikey.com.au/2012/02/13/review-of-the-global-mail/">attracted criticism</a> upon launch for its unique side-scrolling layout, leading to a <a href="http://www.theglobalmail.org/blog/hey-were-standing-up/411/">sweeping re-design</a> in October 2012.</p>
<p>When Wood decided to <a href="http://www.brw.com.au/p/entrepreneurs/graeme_wood_backed_guardian_australia_HYbOsOzmNn6xJuDDBTraMK">back The Guardian</a> he said there was room for both, and that he really supported “independent quality journalism” which he saw as “a foundation of a healthy and civil society”. But with The Guardian he was up-front: he wanted the Australian edition to make money. That’s something The Guardian, with its increasing readership, can potentially offer.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/40170/original/j5gcbymh-1391054679.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/40170/original/j5gcbymh-1391054679.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=285&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40170/original/j5gcbymh-1391054679.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=285&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40170/original/j5gcbymh-1391054679.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=285&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40170/original/j5gcbymh-1391054679.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40170/original/j5gcbymh-1391054679.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40170/original/j5gcbymh-1391054679.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Global Mail</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While the closure of TGM isn’t the positive start to the year the Australian media industry had hoped for, it shouldn’t be considered a knock-out punch.</p>
<p>Property developer and publisher Morry Schwartz <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/business/media-and-marketing/morry-schwartzs-saturday-paper-to-debut-as-herald-and-age-say-goodbye-to-broadsheet-20140128-31kli.html">will launch</a> his new newspaper, entitled <a href="http://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/">The Saturday Paper</a>, in March. The Saturday Paper promises to publish longform journalism that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>…will be fiercely independent and offer the definitive news source for readers who want depth at the end of a cluttered weekly news cycle. </p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="http://thenewdaily.com.au/">The New Daily</a>, which launched in November 2013, is part-funded by a new player, the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-13/new-daily-launches/5087940">industry superfunds network</a>. And the UK Daily Mail’s Australian edition <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2514118/The-Daily-Mail-Australia-launch-online-2014.html">will launch</a> this year, with plans to recruit around 50 journalists.</p>
<p>Much has been learned from the TGM experiment, and the 21 capable and award-winning staff should soon be re-employed. They’re all old enough and wise enough to know that journalism’s fortunes have long been tied to economic business models (of the private or public kind). As Viner <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/09/the-rise-of-the-reader-katharine-viner-an-smith-lecture">argued</a> last year:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There is more a need than ever for the journalist as a truth-teller, sense-maker, explainer.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p><em>This piece was amended on January 31 to correctly note The Global Mail’s traffic levels in 2013.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/22581/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexandra Wake continues to work as a freelance broadcast journalist, when her academic work allows.</span></em></p>There are no great surprises in the announcement by Wotif founder and philanthropist Graeme Wood that he will no longer fund not-for-profit online journalism venture The Global Mail (TGM). According to…Alexandra Wake, Lecturer, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/202572013-11-14T19:46:14Z2013-11-14T19:46:14ZA New Daily, new models and new hope: journalism’s silver lining<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/35287/original/5cck3hf5-1384407097.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">New digital media entrant The New Daily injects a hopeful note into the media landscape. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">A screenshot of The New Daily.</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>November is a month of two tales for the Australian media industry: one of hope, the other of despair.</p>
<p>The arrival on Wednesday of the online news site The New Daily, and <a href="http://www.crikey.com.au/2013/11/07/saturdays-with-morry-schwartz-to-launch-new-newspaper/">reports</a> that The Monthly’s publisher Morry Schwartz is set to launch a new Saturday newspaper, are the industry’s good news stories. In a boost for democracy, the new startups add diversity to Australia’s highly concentrated ownership of news media, and provide experienced journalists with full-time jobs.</p>
<p>But first, the industry’s bad news. Last week’s annual general meetings and financial market disclosures revealed a grim advertising market for Australia’s two largest print media owners. Fairfax Media’s total group revenues fell 8.2% compared to the year before. Its larger rival, News Corp Australia, reported even sharper revenue falls of 22% for its Australian mastheads. Advertising shortfalls also struck a blow to free-to-air television. In October, Channel Ten <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2012/s3613583.htm">reported a A$285 million loss</a>. In 2012, these three proprietors between them <a href="http://lib.oup.com.au/he/media_journalism/samples/tanner_journalismresearch_sample.pdf">shed 3000 jobs</a>.</p>
<p>The latest <a href="http://mumbrella.com.au/abcs-newspapers-3-188553">print circulation figures</a> are also gloomy. The recently turned tabloid Monday-to-Friday editions of Fairfax’s The Age and Sydney Morning Herald fell 15% compared to the same quarter the year before. News Corp’s Sydney tabloid The Daily Telegraph also fell 15%. The broadsheets from both companies fared slightly better. The Australian slipped almost 8%; the broadsheet Saturday editions of The Age and Sydney Morning Herald dropped around 12%. On the upside, digital paywalls’ revenues increased, but not enough to offset print losses.</p>
<p>Now, the good news. Australian journalism is flourishing despite print newspapers’ decline. Not only are new start-ups appearing, they are showing that journalism does not need to be funded through a traditional market model. Non-market and mixed-market models, as well as cross-media collaborations, offer high hopes for quality journalism.</p>
<p>Look at the latest entrant, The New Daily. With significant start-up funding of A$6 million, together with online advertising, the digital news website has hired 11 skilled journalists — many from the news desks of established newspapers — but unlike most mainstream media sites The New Daily is not reliant on hardcopy advertising, masthead sales or paywalls to subsidise its journalism. This is not unprecedented in Australia, but it is significant.</p>
<p>Unlike the United States, there are still relatively few Australian online news sites that employ journalists to produce original journalism, which are not dependent on traditional media’s resources and revenues.</p>
<p>Crikey, New Matilda, the Australian edition of the Guardian, the Global Mail and The Conversation are among the small number of Australian digital news sites that employ journalists without a local hardcopy version to attract advertising revenue.</p>
<p>Each of these news sites provides hope for Australian journalism, offering quality reporting, and each is funded slightly differently with a mix of market and non-market mechanisms to pay its journalists.</p>
<p>While it is early days, and there should be no pretending that starting up a digital-only news site is easy, it can be done.</p>
<p>The Sydney-based Australian Guardian, which launched earlier this year — admittedly funded in part by its British parent — also attracts philanthropic support from Wotif founder Graeme Wood and through local advertising. Its Australian editor-in-chief Katharine Viner has flagged its newsroom will expand to Melbourne soon.</p>
<p>In 2012, Wood also donated A$15 million to start Australia’s first philanthropically funded news site, the Global Mail. Like the philanthropically funded US public interest website ProPublica, the Global Mail is a not-for-profit news and features website offering independent journalism. But in 2013 — proving that the startup path can be difficult — shed 20% of its journalists.</p>
<p>Crikey, another influential Australian online news site, relies on the traditional market model of advertising and subscription. New Matilda, which has had its share of tumult, closing and reopening due to financial woes, has managed to survive through crowd sourcing donations. </p>
<p>Since 2011, The Conversation has operated with mixed funding from academia, industry and government and public donations. It employs professional editors and collaborates with academics to provide Australians with expert opinion, analysis and reporting. More than a million readers visit the site each month.</p>
<p>My research into who will pay for expensive journalism such as investigative reporting in an era of declining newspaper revenues to support it, found investigative journalism was in fact thriving partly because online and print media were engaging in cross-media and institutional collaborations to produce it. We saw this when The Age’s Nick McKenzie returned to his former employer the ABC to broadcast on 7.30 his print story about corrupt custom officers at Sydney Airport. The two media organisations have collaborated on several stories since.</p>
<p>Three points are particularly innovative about the latest entrant, The New Daily: its <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-13/new-daily-launches/5087940">novel source of funding</a> (backed by three of Australia’s largest superannuation funds which have contributed A$2 million each), its ready-made audience and its commercial agreement with the ABC to share audio and video news content. My research found cross-media collaborations with established media deliver larger audiences and boost story impact.</p>
<p>The three industry super funds, United Super (CBus), Australian Super and Industry Super Holdings are understood to be using their administrative budget (rather than investment portfolios) to contract Motion Publishing to produce The New Daily. Motion Publishing’s directors include experienced media proprietors and editors: Eric Beecher, Paul Hamra and Bruce Guthrie. Guthrie, The New Daily’s managing editor, says the site will provide the latest news plus financial stories directed at improving Australians’ financial literacy. Guthrie has signed an agreement of editorial independence with the superannuation fund owners to guard against editorial interference. And, if all goes to plan, the next step for this new media entrant is investigative reporting.</p>
<p>If there is a lesson to be learned this month it is that print media’s grim future should not be conflated with the outlook for Australian journalism.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/20257/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrea Carson has previously worked as a journalist at Fairfax Media for The Age and as a radio producer for the ABC at 774.</span></em></p>November is a month of two tales for the Australian media industry: one of hope, the other of despair. The arrival on Wednesday of the online news site The New Daily, and reports that The Monthly’s publisher…Andrea Carson, Honorary Research Fellow, Centre for Advancing Journalism , The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.