Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
With 200,000 readers shared between two English and seven Arabic newspapers, does Bahrain really need a third English daily?
No and Yes. No because advertising revenues in the kingdom have fallen 12 per cent to $103.34 million in 2005-2006 even as the GCC as a whole saw a 17 per cent jump to hit $4.5 billion. And yes because the newspaper industry continues to be the leading medium for advertising, taking up a little more than 60 per cent of advertising. Almost $61 million went to the print media.
But it takes more than advertising, enterprise, a stable economy and deep pockets, to launch a newspaper. To start with, what kind of a newspaper will it be? The Gulf is all about business and yet the GCC does not have a single dedicated business daily — not yet. A business daily makes business sense but if it’s going to be just a Bahrain-focused one, spike the idea. It has to be one that will cover the region. No two ways about it.
But wait, there’s more to starting a newspaper.
First, the newspaper organisation must pay attention to evolving reader needs. Today’s readers want newspapers to provide information that will help them better fulfill their many roles, from parent to employee, from spouse to concerned citizen. It must make the right investment decisions, particularly in people. It’s not state-of the-art offices or high-tech-presses that make a newspaper. It’s people. Get the right people and half the battle is won. It must also balance short-term profit needs with long-term objectives.
The quality of the newspaper is not in the weight or colour. It’s in the content and it is people who make the content. And content is what will make or break a newspaper. And don’t forget, local content is critical. A local competency is what makes leading newspapers the brands they are, and this is where the bulk of resources should be devoted.
In any newspaper, especially one that is being launched, the point person around whom this effort pivots is the editor. He must bring to the post a range of skills and talents, only one of which is the ability to write. An editor is the point of contact within the news organisation for newsroom editorial staff and journalists (and in particular outstation correspondents), for marketing and promotions staff, and for press and circulation staff.
He must be familiar with breadth of news coverage, an authoritative familiarity with everything from snap news breaks to an intriguing speech by the finance minister of a small, but pivotal nation. He should possess an excellent understanding and appreciation of the varied components that come together to make a news organisation — content planning and creation, production planning, production controlling, objective editing and composing and supply chain management.
A newspaper, particularly if privately owned and not driven by some short-term financial model, can and does make money. And it’s precisely because all news gathering is ultimately local that, in small rural markets and major metro markets alike, newspapers remain the primary generators of news.
Remember, it’s only newspapers that are economically organised to gather vast amounts of information. Television doesn’t do it. None of the Internet operations do it. Microsoft tried and failed to do it with online city guide venture Sidewalk. But newspapers have an immense database and they are experts at manipulating it, massaging it and getting it distilled down to usable size.
There will be casualties as a new newspaper copes with change. But even when the paper finally loses its primacy, its key asset — the network of reporters — should ensure that they will remain the gatekeepers to news.
Patrick Michael
