Dead Tree Journalism – is the end nigh?

A tour around the UK Press

… and reflections on its’ prospects in the digital age

Broadsheets and Tabloids

The Financial Times

Style or Substance?

Who owns the UK Press?

News Corporation – owned by Rupert Murdoch – The Times, The Sun, plus News of the World and The Sunday Times

The Daily Telegraph is owned by property developer millionaires the Barclay brothers.

The Daily Mail is ownedby DMGT – a conglomeratewith a network of media holdings. Owned by Viscount Rothermere.

£931M

117th Richest in the World $6.2billion

£1.8billion

Who owns the UK Press?

The IndependentTony O’Reilly

Irish billionaire

The Daily ExpressRichard Desmond

£950m

Trinity Mirror -Pearson PLC

Who works for the UK Press?

Elite and Tabloids

Top end of the market - a high proportion of Oxbridge graduates

Rest of the market – everyone else

Many different opportunities depending on what level you arelooking at and which particular publications

…and a few more faces

Where does the news come from?

ContactsPress ReleasesPress ConferencesFOI/Investigative/’undercover’

News agenda – R4 Today programmeWho you know, not what you know

How well do newspapers sell?

358,844

215,504

842,912

617,483

Average daily circulated, January 2008

How does the newspaper industry made money?

Cover price only part of the revenueMost revenue comes from advertising

Death of the old bargain?

“ The old bargain of the newspaper – world news lumped in with horoscopes and ads from the pizza parlour has now ended. The future presented by the Internet Is the mass amateurization of publishing and a switch from “Why publish this?” to “Why not?”.

Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody, 2008.

Citizen Journalism?

Citizen journalism = the concept of members of the public "playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analysing and disseminating news and information.”

A Sea Change?

The Blogosphere

A source of pressure?

How things used to be…

The Media

s

The Internet makes communication two-way..

The Media

And then it makes it into a network..

The Media

So, in digital times

Consumers are also producers

The means of media production is:

• Global• Social• Cheap• Ubiquitous

Consumers turn into producers

What are the implications for the

‘old media’?Digital journalism is quickerDigital journalism is cheaperDigital journalism can be more expansiveDigital journalism is interactiveConsumers may also be producersThere is more choice Old media are losing not just sales but, crucially, advertising revenue

But does it really matter…?

There are millions of blogs…. but very few have a high readership

“ One of the good things about the Internet is that you can put up anything you like, but that also means that you can put up any kind of nonsense. There’s a kind of assumption that if somebody wrote it on the Internet, it’s true.”Noam Chomsky, Professor of Linguistics, MIT.

Is the end nigh for dead tree journalism?

• No one can be sure

• Traditional media are certainly likely to be squeezed

• They will lose advertising and other revenue

Maybe not?• Some of the old media have competitive

advantage and human capital e.g. FT, Times – and the ‘paywall’, ‘the commentariat’.

• They can diversify and adapt – have a digital presence – like The Guardian

• It may be that they come to occupy a niche – and we will all use a wider variety of media in the future

Further ResearchClay Shirky, (2008) Comes Everybody, Penguin

Andrew Marr, (2005) My Trade: A Short History of British Journalism, Macmillan. [It is not short in fact, but just dip in – later chapters most relevant]

The Pew Research Centre – find at http://pewresearch.org[ and see following two links to specific articles]

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/590/digg-reddit-delicious

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/444/cruising-for-news-the-state-of-digital-journalism

Clay Shirky on Ted:

http://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_how_cellphones_twitter_facebook_can_make_history.html