Will the Daily Telegraph learn from the Seiken mistake?
During Jason Seiken’s time at Telegraph Media Group there was no digital breakthrough while the print edition settled even deeper in the water. The lessons to be learned are stark, writes Raymond Snoddy.
Jason Seiken, former editor-in-chief and chief content officer of the Telegraph Media Group, burst onto the public stage in a spectacular manner at the Shift 2014 newspaper conference last April.
He introduced his first hiring on arrival at the Telegraph as Lewis Whyld, a former divorce lawyer who built drones.
On cue, a drone carrying a camera began flying over the heads of the audience in the British Library auditorium.
In a small metaphor of what was to follow the pictures didn’t quite work.
A man with modest newspaper credentials in suburban Boston who had nonetheless in his later career greatly increased the online video hits at US public broadcaster PBS, grandly announced the death of the “imperial” editor.
“A top-down, command-and-control style can’t grow today’s newspaper because no one person has the skills in print, audio, video, interactive, data, text mobile, social analytics, infographics…” the tall, thin American with a British passport explained.
Indeed, he seemed to have already practised what he preached because Tony Gallagher, the Telegraph‘s widely respected editor and the man who masterminded the MPs’ expenses scandal coverage, had already been sacked.
The guilty man had obviously been Seiken – except that it was much more likely that the dagger had actually been wielded by chief executive Murdoch MacLennan.
During the Seiken era there was little demonstrable improvement in the long-term fate of TMG”
Gallagher had earlier been offered the job of editor-in-chief but said he wanted to combine the job with the role of editor.
The offer was then withdrawn and MacLennan headed off to the US to begin the search for an overall content boss and miracle worker – a search that ended in the surprising person of Jason Seiken.
A profile of Seiken in InPublishing magazine at the time – Seiken had agreed to do an interview and then the offer was withdrawn – asked whether he was a clever snake oil salesman or a seer with a vision of how to create a financially sound future for journalism in the digital age.
We now know the answer. Seiken was first side-lined to an office on the managerial floor and then, without a drone in sight, quietly left at the end of last week.
It’s often impossible to know who is responsible for what in any large organisation, although the buck usually stops with the chief executive. Murdoch MacLennan, who hired Seiken, must now be having an occasional peep at his pension arrangements.
Ultimately, in family-controlled newspaper groups, the proprietor – in this case Aidan Barclay – is responsible.
By definition, though, proprietors cannot possibly be wrong on anything and others have to be sacked to underline this important principle.
What can clearly be said is during the “Seiken era” there was little demonstrable improvement in the long-term fate of the Telegraph Media Group. Profits did not fall away, largely because of relentless cost-cutting.
Just about everything else appears on the debit side. The loss of a talented, relentless editor to the Daily Mail and what seemed like an endless stream out of the exit of the Daily Telegraph’s top journalistic talent.
The numbers suggest that if anything was achieved it was very modest”
Sometimes, they were replaced by the young, inexperienced and cheap. It is far from clear how many were replaced at all.
Upsetting one of those talents, Peter Oborne, had very serious consequences for the credibility of the Daily Telegraph with his detailed claims that fear of upsetting HSBC, an important advertiser, had skewed coverage of tax scandals at the bank.
Seiken argued at Shift 2014 that because of profound disruption in the newspaper industry, the editor-in-chief now had to bridge “the once sacred divide between editorial and publishing.”
By then of course there was no powerful editor to stand out against the blurring of the lines between the editorial and commercial departments with the equal blurring of integrity and reputation that can result.
It is impossible to know where the Daily Telegraph would have stood now if Gallagher had been allowed to combine the role of editor and editor-in-chief and stayed while Seiken had remained untroubled in Washington.
The numbers suggest that if anything was achieved it was very modest.
In September 2013 the ABC online figures for daily unique browsers for the Daily Telegraph stood at 3.2 million.
By February 2015, the last audited figures, the number had risen to 4 million – steady, regular growth devoid of any positive spikes compared with much more rapid growth at the Daily Mail and the Guardian.
The print performance of the Daily Telegraph for the same period looks much more bleak – down from 550,023 to 479,937.
Old hands will remember the slight shudder when in ancient times the circulation of the Daily Telegraph fell, by a few copies, below one million for the first time.
So during the Seiken period when the greater emphasis was overwhelmingly on digital there was no digital breakthrough while the print edition settled even deeper in the water.
The lessons are stark and obvious. There is no magic person or potion to transform the future of newspapers except perhaps to believe in print and digital at the same time and try as many new small things as possible in a process of trial and error.
The list of things you don’t do – if you want to have a publishing future – include getting rid of your most experienced and talented journalists, decide the days of the editor are over and above all muddy the boundaries between commerce and journalism in a way that degrades the trust of your readers.
It would be good if the Telegraph Media Group learns the lesson of the past couple of years but that is unlikely. There may be less emphasis on drones and Google glasses in future but the search is probably on for a new, better version of Jason Seiken.
After all, the proprietors bought the Littlewoods retail group, closed down the physical stores and created a relatively successful online operation.
The danger is they may think the same thing can be done with the Daily Telegraph and that it is merely a matter of finding the right person with the appropriate magic wand.
If so that would be a terrible mistake and something that would lead to even greater instability.