No news is bad news
When I asked John Lloyd, founder of QI, to make a film about the newspaper industry, he said the only thing trickier would be a promo for North Korea’s Kim IL Jong. And at least he had a name for that: Kim’ll Fix It.
Fortunately John enjoys a challenge and also has a residual soft spot for newspapers, having spent much of his working life using them as source material for his comedy shows. As the originator of The News Quiz in 1997, the creator of Radio 2’s The News Huddlines (the longest-running sketch show in UK media ever) and the producer of Not The Nine O’Clock News and Spitting Image, for 15 years it was his job to read all the national newspapers almost every day. For him the idea of this country without the national press is ‘unthinkable’.
So, after a bit of persuading, he made the film ‘No news is bad news’ (below), which we showed at our recent Shift 2013 conference. Much has been written about Shift and what it was about (not least by Messrs Mills and Grimmer of this parish). Its most important objective was simple: encourage people to re-appraise their attitudes towards our industry.
No-one can deny that the reputation of newspapers is under attack. Putting the exploits of Hacked Off to one side for the moment, there is a perception that technology is killing the business. People don’t stop to think that if radio and television didn’t kill it, why should the arrival of more recent platforms? Why shouldn’t media find their place alongside one another?
What John Lloyd discovered when he met editors from eight of our national newspapers was that they are a serious, committed group, who won’t give up on anything they believe in without a fight. And they care passionately about the role they play in society. They are committed to working with the management and commercial sides of their businesses to grow their audiences and find new sources of revenue. In this respect they are behaving like any other brand, adapting and innovating as their environment changes around them – and at times leading some of that change.
Walk into any newsagent (interesting name that) and you will find an array of newspapers that have been with us since the dawn of the 20th century. Each of them produces multi-media content, available on any screen you choose.
That is why Lord Rothermere, chairman of DMGT, describes this as the time of greatest change since the Daily Mail was first published in 1896. And it is why the term newspapers no longer feels like an accurate word to describe all of the activities on the Daily Mail or any of its rivals.
Brands – and more specifically newsbrands – is the term now used to describe newspaper activities across a variety of platforms. This is not to be annoyingly jargonistic or on trend; it is just helpful shorthand.
The subject of brands can be confusing, but a brand at its simplest level is just a product or a service with a personality. They can represent ideas, socio-economic groupings or values. Newsbrands do all three – very powerfully. They are not solely wedded to paper any longer and that is why it can be a helpful term – not to replace newspapers but to describe their personalities across all their activities. And like people they cannot stand still. They have to grow and develop and update. They have to shift.
And as brands and organisations develop and innovate, from IBM to Google to newsbrands, it is worth asking yourself whether your judgements have updated with them. Or whether it is time for a re-appraisal?
@rufusolins
@newsworks_uk