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?
The Daily Telegraph is owned by
property developer millionaires
the Barclay brothers.
£1.8billion
117th Richest in the World
$6.2billion
News Corporation –
owned by Rupert
Murdoch – The
Times, The Sun,
plus News of the
World and The
Sunday Times
£931M
The Daily Mail is owned
by DMGT – a conglomerate
with a network of media
holdings. Owned by Viscount
Rothermere.
Who owns the UK Press?
The Independent
Tony O’Reilly
Irish billionaire
The Daily Express
Richard 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 are
looking at and which particular publications
…and a few more faces
Where does the news come
from?
Contacts
Press Releases
Press Conferences
FOI/Investigative/’undercover’
News agenda – R4 Today programme
Who 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 revenue
Most 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 quicker
Digital journalism is cheaper
Digital journalism can be more
expansive
Digital journalism is interactive
Consumers may also be
producers
There 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 Research
Clay 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-thestate-of-digital-journalism
Clay Shirky on Ted:
http://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_how_cellphones_twitt
er_facebook_can_make_history.html