WHAT'S NEXT: INNOVATIONS IN NEWSPAPERS

My comment on this lousy new story in this week’s The Economist:

Gentlemen,

Sorry but this is too much space for very little new information and few original ideas.

The crisis of many traditional mono-media (print publications and radio outlets: text or audio) and bi-media operations (television: audio+video) is that they offer very little unique and relevant content.

I read and I pay for The Economist because 90% of the time (sorry, not in this case) it adds value to the news.

It’s different, and it’s worth my money.

But 90% of what many newspapers, magazines, radio and television news operations produce is just recycled news garbage.

They are repackaging-news operations.

So, the Internet is better, faster and cheaper.

Regarding the “financial crisis” of many of the best U.S. newspaper companies (Tribune, NYT, etc.), let’s not forget that they are paying the consequences of very bad management, terrible M&As, and an irresponsible leadership that didn’t re-invest the huge profits of the recent past in their own core business.

Only the best will survive, yes, but at the same time only if they are able to re-invent themselves as “online-centric news organizations.”

That’s the real challenge.

Not the one from outside, but from inside.

What we need is more Innovation and change: more demos and less memos, more doing and less talking, more prototyping and less conceptualizing.

As always: too much analysis = paralysis.

The Daily Telegraph has to change its name to “The Daily Blitz”.

Last Thursday, in BBC’s Question Time, Benedict Brogan the assistant editor of the Daily Telegraph and the paper’s chief political correspondent, said that a team of more than 20 editors and reporters had been working many weeks in advance checking and tracking the MPs expenses.

And it was not easy, as these papers came with no “index” and the Telegraph had to double check piece-by-piece, figure-by-figure …

The MPs are scared to death knowing now that if this “daily blitz” continues, new General Elections are next.

The Watergate scandal ended the political life of a U.S. president.

The Expensesgate will end the political life of hundreds of U.K. politicians.

This “political mess” is becoming so huge that today Gordon Brown had to write an article …

Not in The Sunday Telegraph.

Not in The Sunday Times.

Not in the Sunday Daily Mail.

But in Rupert Murdoch’s trashy News of The World.

Why?

Because the crisis is not only in the top of the market, but in the low and middle classes, too.

The angered majority that can and will knockout the current Government and Parliament.

Wait and see.

Stephen Glover about the MP revelations:

“This is the best thing the Telegraph has done for ages.

Newspapers still count.“

But what about the local and regional press?

What about how they were covering their local MPs?

The Daily Telegraph’s latest casualty.

“More to come”

Gordon Brown has given Labour MPs until Monday night to make sure that their expenses for the past five years are lodged with the parliamentary authorities and are ready for publication.

And now the Daily Mail launches a “fighting fund” to finance private prosecutions against politicians it says may have broken the law.

Jail is next.

New revelations in print today, but announced last night online.

And a new resignation a few minutes ago.

The Daily Telegraph knocks out the Minister of Justice.

“More to come”

Yes, The Washington Post is right:

“The Daily Telegraph newspaper has caused both major parties embarrassment with daily revelations about how lawmakers have claimed for expenses such as cleaning swimming pools and moats, installing a chandelier and buying manure for the garden. The disclosures have infuriated voters at a time when Britain is in deep recession and many are losing their jobs.”

Every evening, the online edition of the Telegraph announces more revelations for tomorrow: “More to come”

It’s like a slow motion daily torture.

And if you subscribe to the Telegraph “alerts” you will be the first to know about the next discovery.

Yesterday, my local press agent in St. Davids was calling to the Telegraph distribution center asking for extra copies.

Today, I went around 11 am to buy the paper and I got the last copy.

So, the saga continues.

And the paper is sold out daily.

The Telegraph is giving us a superb lesson in order to cope with any newspaper crisis:

Exclusive news and stories always sell.

And The Daily Telegraph has plenty of them.

Readers love them.

Not the crooks.

So again and again:

Publish the news and raise hell!

This is today’s Daily Telegraph front page.

Simple.

Loud.

Direct.

Just one big, three-line headline.

And an exclusive story.

When you have great, great content, you don’t need too much design.

Too much design? Weak content.

Too many story teasers? Not one that is strong enough.

That’s the problem.

This is the only solution:

Good content first.

Original content.

Unique content.

And not blah, blah, blah front pages.

Today’s Daily Telegraph leader is clear:

MPs’ first job must be to remove Speaker Martin.

Michael Martin could become the first Speaker to be thrown out of office in 300 years.

Well, Speaker Martin is just another political clown.

Yes, a national disgrace.

Watch this video from SkyNews.

Former Speaker Betty Boothroyd “believes Speaker Martin has been a failure of leadership”.

Today’s Daily Mail comment:

“How much longer can this discredited buffoon cling on to his high office?”

Gabriel Hershman’s opinion:

“This man has done more to lower the standard of parliament in people’s eyes than any other speaker

“Order, order, order!” is what he shouts all the time, but his cover up of the MPs expenses is unacceptable.

He has to go, and the Telegraph is right to the point.

A survey by the Web site politicshome.com showed 85 percent of MPs now believe he should step down.

As the Financial Times says today:

“Mr Martin made a mistake in fighting the publication of expense receipts, opposing moves to reform and underestimating public anger.”

Oh boy, what a week for the Telegraph and the British media.

As always:

Print the news and raise hell!

The Daily Telegraph is having a blast with the investigation of MP expenses.

In print (selling more copies than ever), online (promoting print in a very smart way), in video (with the fantastic video booth), on SMS, on radio, on blogs, on facebook, and thanks to the competitors who are spending their editions giving credit to the Telegraph.

INNOVATION’s Michael Agar is right about the TV booth set up to give MPs a chance to share their side of the expenses story, unedited.

Every MP has been sent an email telling them about the booth and inviting them to attend.

Scared to death, only four of the 646 contacted by The Daily Telegraph have accepted the challenge.

As Simon Jenkins wrote yesterday in The Guardian:

“As for the antics of the press, victim of Speaker Martin’s wrath, I cannot see what the Telegraph has done wrong. It presumably paid for material that had been stolen and which it has published. It thus offends the rule against profiting from crime. But a more glaring public interest defence cannot be imagined. Publication was the only way to reveal a systematic fraud on the public accounts, whose perpetrators had already shown they were determined to use the courts to suppress it.

Those who chant the obituary of the “mainstream media” might care to cite any electronic organisation able to put together such an investigation. Like the Guardian’s recent disclosure of corporate tax avoidance, this work requires staff and resources. When the BBC tried to reveal the truth about the Iraq war dossiers, its cowering chairman and director general were driven by a mere Downing Street press officer into resignation.

Crude, unfair, bolshie, whatever, the old-fashioned newspaper is still ­desperately needed to keep democracy on its toes. God forbid that it should ever cease.”

Brilliant!

The Wharton Web site  reports:

“There is a long list of professions that failed to see the financial crisis brewing. Wall Street bankers and deal-makers top it, but banking regulators are on it as well, along with the Federal Reserve. Politicians and journalists have shared the blame, as have mortgage lenders and even real estate agents.

But what about economists? Of all the experts, weren’t they the best equipped to see around the corners and warn of impending disaster?”

Read here the full analysis.

If the economists’ education needs a dramatic revamp, what about us, the cheerleader-journalists that didn’t see our own crisis?

Cartoon by Michael Ramirez