Journalism Revisited, Revised

journalism revisited, revised
It’s time to look beyondthe numbers and see how the industry is changing
Monday • November 3, 2008 / TODAY
P N Balji

BEYOND the viewership and readership numbers, the people who get a high on punching on deadline should start looking at another set of statistics. These are hard to put a finger on, even harder to track.
These are the anecdotal evidence you get when talking and listening to both the young and the old. Conversations that when put together, analysed and plotted on the window of your mind will give a good clue of where the "old" media is headed.
Put the views of these people into a coherent fashion and a story of the changing tastes and habits of the reader/viewer emerges.
Not that they are not interested in what’s happening around them. Many are quite in tune with the economic crunch, Barack Obama and John McCain’s tussle to be the most powerful man in the world, the Bukit Batok murder, Malaysia’s political manoeuvrings, Manchester United’s latest showing.
You name it, they know it.
But, here’s the rub. A majority are getting their information from various sources, not just from one main, monolithic fountain any more.
Three kinds of media sources — print, radio and television — says the Nielsen company in its latest survey on readership and viewership.
And here’s the clanger: Only 9 per cent of the people interviewed by the market research company rely on one media source.
The anecdotal evidence fleshes out the statistics with some kind of a dramatic flourish.
Didn’t read, boring, analyses not deep enough ... The list can be endless. At the other end of the spectrum there are views like good human interest story, nice interview, well-written commentary.
Singapore’s mainstream media is beginning to see the the first whiff of what the International Herald Tribune describes as media’s "rotten few days" for American newspapers.
The media rot hit a new low last Tuesday when the venerable the Christian Science Monitor said it will abandon print and move into the online world after 100 years of a flourishing existence. It thus became the first national newspaper to give up on print.
Its editor, Mr John Yemma, tried to put a spin on it. "We have the luxury — the opportunity — of making a leap that most newspapers will have to make in the next five years,’’ he said.
In the last few days, a dying United States newspaper industry has been reporting lay-offs in big numbers: Time Inc killing 600 jobs, The Newark Star Ledger downsizing by 40 per cent and the TV Guide going to a new owner for a below bargain price of US$1.
Is the Singapore media money train headed the same way?
Maybe in the next three to five years, says a Singapore newspaper editor. I am a bit more optimistic: Five to 10 years.
Both scenarios will give us breathing space to prepare for the dark tunnel ahead of us. Three points to consider as mainstream media ponders how to avoid the inevitable.
Chuck out the age-old mindsets about what is a good report and how that report should be written and presented. Readers are slowly beginning to get tired of a style that has hardly changed over the years. Younger readers and expatriates are more interested in the perspective of a story rather than the story itself. In short, the why of the news.
Readers want to read a damn good story. It doesn’t matter if it is a local, foreign, entertainment or sports story. So why publish such stories in the different sections of the paper. More and more, readers are looking for a borderless kind of a paper. Guess where IHT published the review of the movie, Dark Knight? On the front page!
Re-examine newsroom hierarchies which are now filled with editors, deputy editors, section editors, copy editors ...
Ah, talking of copy editors. They are there to spruce up reporters’ written work, but isn’t that the job of the sub-editors? Editorial management will have to start looking seriously at flatter structures.
And finally, discover a new business model. Unfortunately, there are no successful models to copy from. I have been doing some research on Internet newspapers and I have yet to find a model that is working. The hits are there, but the burn rate is high.
So, the next best thing to do is to throw as many darts as possible, hoping that at least one might hit the target. Start small niche print products, go online, provide news on the go with new technology ... And if survival is the only option left, hook up with like-minded partners and consolidate.
Two years into Today’s existence, six years ago, the management team made a presentation to Temasek Holdings, the shareholder of MediaCorp which operates this paper, on Today’s viability.
It posed this question: Is there a light at the end of the tunnel? I remember saying: Yes, there is. I see a flickering light. And I am quite sure it is not that of an oncoming train.
As my contract with MediaCorp has just ended and with an insider’s view of the challenges facing my colleagues on both sides of the competition fence, if I were asked the same question about mainstream media in general, I do have some hesitation in answering it.
But my journalist’s instincts and experience, having worked with so many so many smart people in the last 38 years, tell me there is reason to be optimistic.
Newspapers that embrace change and keep adapting to changing consumer habits will end this gruelling race with a smile on their faces.


P N Balji was formerly theEditorial Director at MediaCorp.