WHAT'S NEXT: INNOVATIONS IN NEWSPAPERS

Bloomberg Pursuits wants to be the “first global luxury magazine”

It will be a complimentary magazine targeting the 310.000 subscribers of the $20,000 a year Bloomberg Terminals.

The average household income of Bloomberg Pursuits readers is $452,000, and 90 percent are male.

The debut issue contains 46 editorial pages and 30 advertising pages.

The new magazine will start next month as a quarterly.

My take: small pagination for a wealthy magazine in a crowded market. A new brand for the Bloomberg magazine portfolio where only Businessweek rocks. Free for rich? No way.

(Pictures: an early prototype of the magazine’s cover and two real double-spread of the first issue)

A few pictures from Rory Cellan-Jones about the construction of the new BBC headquarters in the old Regent Street headquarters.

This will be one the world’s  largest multimedia newsroom (up to 6,000 people in total and up to 320 journalists in the newsroom).

I saw the plans last year during our meetings with the BBC journalism editors, and the real thing looks better.

This mega-newsroom will be fully operational in 2013.

The dramatic BBC newsroom will be visible both from the street and through a large glass window in a BBC Media Cafe open to the public.

In this picture you can see the INNOVATION “solar system” idea under construction

And here you can have a full view of the central desk

Read here more about the current work in Broadcasting House.

An interesting and revealing interview with the young and visionary CEO of Johnston Press:

“The fundamental aspect of the business is that every newspaper in the group has a healthy margin over 20 per cent and all up the business is very profitable. The challenge is, can you migrate that business into the digital realm quickly enough before profits decline.”

My take: Many leading newspaper companies are still very profitable, and investing in the digital future, because there is no other one and no other one strategy: investing the money of the past in the business of the future.

Nathan Myhrvold, former chief strategist and chief technology officer at Microsoft, founder of Intellectual Ventures, writes in Bloomberg View:

“Could newspaper journalism likewise entice readers to pay for online news? People like quality journalism, so I believe that, ultimately, they can be persuaded to pay for it. But as with cable, the price will have to start low; it can then inch upward as the public gradually accepts the new business model.

The question is whether paid-subscription news sites can make the transition fast enough to make up for their plummeting ad revenue. It takes time to persuade people to pay for something they expect to get free. Ultimately, the change will happen, but maybe not fast enough to save some of the great institutions of newspaper journalism.”

My take: Yes, many great institutions of newspaper journalism will not make it, but Journalism will survive. So, great is good, but fast is better.

Tags: Bloomberg View, Journalism, Nathan Myhrvold

I wrote for Fast Company this short story:

“In the late 1980′s I used to attend the Seybol Digital World Conferences and Expos.

Between some of the presentations I went to the expo and I saw the stand of NeXT, and I realized that Steve Jobs was alone, with no clients around. so I ask him about the new computer. He was wearing a formal suit and tie, no jeans, no sneakers, no turtleneck.

I don’t remember my response, but I will never forget him: he was a fabulous salesman, and a great teacher.”

(The picture must from around these years, and shows Steve Jobs not with me but Rick Lucas, managing partner of Lucas Design)

Great program, and a fantastic venue to meet:

How to Re-invent Newspapers and Magazines in the Digital Age.

November 13-14.

Oxford University.

Be there!

More information here

These are some fantastic pictures from the #spanishrevolution in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol.

From great photographers like Alberto di Lolli (EL MUNDO, Madrid, Spain):

Javier Barbanco (EL MUNDO):

Angel Navarrete (PUBLICO, Madrid, Spain)

Reyes Sedano (PUBLICO):

Or Fernando Sánchez (PUBLICO):

Great pictures from great photographers that are possible thanks to have unique Photo Editors like Angel Casaña, and Carlos García (EL MUNDO) or Jon Barandica (PUBLICO)

Chapeau!

UPDATE: My take on the #spanishrevolution at the Harvard University Nieman Watchdog: If no one covers it, is it a revolution?

Last week, we saw how some of the “worst offenders” explained the Osama bin Laden story with fictional graphics.

As soon as I started to post some tuitts in my Twitter account @GINER, I saw that many colleagues from many countries reacted in the same way, among them ny friend Alberto Cairo, the infographics editor of EPOCA magazine in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

With Alberto, we wrote “six basic rules” that must be observed to deliver real news with graphics.

Then I contacted Barry Sussman, an INNOVATION Senior Consultant that now serves as editor of the Harvard University Nieman Watchdog Project and he offered that website to post the “check-list” with a short article, and a first list with 58 colleagues from 22 countries immediately endorsed the statement.

Claude Erbsen in New York edited the “six rules” and Barry Sussman in Washington DC edited the full article.

A few minutes ago all this was posted at the Nieman Watchdog website with the same illustration that leads this post, as it fits the purpose and sense of this statement: the front page of the William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal “explaining” the news from Cuba.

And we included a few examples from some of the “worst offenders.”

Like this one from UOL in Brazil:

This from the Daily Mail in the UK:

This one from CBS News:

This one from ABC in Madrid:

This one from the Hindustan Times in India:

This one from NMA News in Taiwan:

Or this from JT France:

You can find an extensive selection with wise comments of Gert K Nielsen about some of the best and worst infographics in his blog VisualJournalism.

But, more important, we just wanted to stress five ideas:

• Facts ,not fiction, is what drives Journalism.
• Visual Journalism is not Show Business.
• Editors must lead this battle against fake information.
• Visual journalists must resist any pressure to deliver graphics “at any cost.”
• And infographics are not a substitute when we don’t have real information.

This what I learned from Alejandro Malofiej, Miguel Urabayen, Peter Sullivan, Mario Tascón, John Grimwade, Chiqui Esteban, Nigel Holmes or Javier Zarracina, and many of the best visual journalists of the world.

And we cannot accept less.

• If you agree with these convictions, please add your signature in the comments section of the Nieman Watchdog, spread the word between your newsrooms, and we will include your names in the next editions of this first wave of endorsements.

Watch this terrific spot

Now that our Euro politicians want to fly on Business Class, a fabulous TV commercial from our friends of Ekstra Bladet in Denmark.

Politicians enjoying good life and drink on Business and making fun of the voters.

But… here it’s a photo reporter of EB to tell the story.

WE FOUND YOU!

Brilliant, accurate and actual.

INNOVATION was working at this time in Denmark with Ekstra Bladet and this was one of the TV spots to alert crooks and fools that the newspaper will find them..

(Thanks to Pia Stork, EB Marketing Research Director)

Next Monday I will be in El Cairo (Egypt) to present the last Arabic edition of our INNOVATONS IN NEWSPAPERS World Report.

This is the third Arabic edition of a report produced by INNOVATION since 1999.

Since then, the reports have been translated and published in English, German, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Russian, Chinese, and Arabic.

The 2011 World Report now in progress will be presented in October in Vienna at the WAN-IFRA Newspaper World Congress.

You can buy the reports here.