A presentation to NZ Doctor in May 2010. Outlines the theses in my forthcoming book News 2.0: Can journalism survive the Internet, with reference to magazine and publishing industry.

1. Publishing, magazines
and journalism
Is there a future and
are we part of it?
Martin Hirst, May 2010
for NZ Doctor

2. Magazines
• US news stand sales
down by more than
10% in 2009
• 18 per cent drop in US
magazine advertising in
2008
• Seven per cent decline
in Australian magazine
sales in first quarter of
2010
• Readers aging
1. Cosmopolitan - 1,616,908 (down 7.8 percent)
2. People - 1,319,350 (down 12.77 percent)
3. Woman's World - 1,175,550 (down 8.31 percent)
4. First - 1,066,167 (down 9.29 percent)
5. Us Weekly - 843,479 (down 2.98 percent)
6. In Touch Weekly - 745,123 (down 17.67 percent)
7. O, the Oprah Magazine - 693,054 (down 5.58
percent)
8. Family Circle - 673,286 (down 22.55 percent)
9. In Style - 625,589 (down 20.13 percent)
10. Star - 601,115 (down 14.29 percent)

3. e.Books and publishing models
• 1 million iPads now in
circulation
• Amazon expects to sell 2 to 3
million Kindles in 2010
• Over 500,000 titles now in stock
• Amazon and Penguin fighting
over e.book rights and pricing
models
• Book prices cut in Amazon
pricing war
• News, magazines & blogs also
available via e.readers

4. News goes mobile
• Mobile news via readers,
iGoogle and phone apps
• No longer tied to physical
product
• No longer tied to time
sensitive constraints

5. Turning the corner?
• Downturn in ad
sales and
revenue might
be over?
• Newspapers and
publishing are
not dead yet
• Publishing links
to social media
The publishing group that owns the
Financial Times, has reported a 7% increase in
revenues in the first quarter, helped by
"volatile" but growing ad revenue at its
newspaper operation.
Pearson, which owns Penguin books and a
share of the Economist and is a major
education publisher, said that revenues were
up 12% on a constant currency basis to
£1.08bn.

6. Innovation to keep magazines alive
• Embedding video
• e.readers
• Smartphone apps
that work with the
print edition
• User-generated
content
• Mobile strategies
A new international media report
concludes that magazines have coped
with recent revenue and circulation
losses by coming up with new ways to
re-invent their products and businesses
to compete in the digital age.
The report by FIPP and Innovation Media
in the first annual FIPP Innovations in
Magazine Report found the industry to
be in remarkably robust condition,
breaking new ground to hold on to
current readers and acquire new ones.
MediaBiz.net March 2010

7. News as conversation
• Journalists no longer control
the distribution of the
content they produce.
• This is a very scary thought
for many journalists, but the
reality is that once
something is published
(usually on Web sites), it
belongs to the audience of
readers and becomes part
of a conversation about the
news.

9. Thesis 1:
news is a universal human need
• news has been around for
thousands of years
• news and information is
fundamental to the human
condition
• pursuit of profits has led the
MSM down market
• the trust model for mainstream
media is failing

10. Thesis 2:
digital technologies are changing
how we consume news
• globally, television is still the
dominant news and entertainment
media, but for how much longer?
• news is going mobile and it's being
condensed
• interactivity – audience
participation is important
• the 140 character text message
and “tweet” could be the future of
news

11. Thesis 3:
the singularity of convergence
has changed news forever
 professionalism has become a
trap for journalists - they are tied
into a corporate culture that is
losing its shine
 D-I-Y & UGC news via social
networking is on the rise
 we are no longer reliant only on
MSM for news
 user-generated news-like
content

12. Thesis 4:
the crisis in the news business is not
the same as the crisis in journalism
• they are related, but different
• a crisis of trust and credibility
and a crisis of profitability
• we are now in a critical
juncture and the global
financial crisis has become a
further threat to the political
economy of the news business

13. Thesis 5:
new business models are
not yet proven
• advertising – most likely in market
economy
• user pays – subscription model &
micropayments
• public service broadcasting – not
politically supported
• online only publishing – unknown
quantity
• public trust model – expensive to
establish
• philanthropy – peanuts really

14. Thesis 6:
there are positives in social
networking and Web 2.0
• some parts of the world are more
connected than they’ve every
been
• the collective nature of trust and
verification is a key element of
peer-to-peer sharing of
information and can apply to news
• we need to position journalism as
the collective wisdom of the public
interest and speaking truth to
power

15. Thesis 7:
Can journalism survive the Internet?
• what happens to “journalism"
when the economics of the
news business are no longer
working?
• if news is a universal trait of
human society (thesis 1) then
a method needs to be
developed of continuing to
provide reliable and common
news-like information from
trusted public sources

16. What does it mean for us?
• Interactivity – blogs, comments, social media √
• Embedded multimedia ?
• Knowing how your audience consumes and
wants to receive information ?

17. Strategies
• Know what your audience wants
• Determine which topics should be covered
online and which should be covered in print
• Consider where and how readers consume
your content, such as on a computer, smart
phone or e-reader
• Use links and keywords so that articles are
indexed by search engines
• Can you make use of user-generated content
• Make the most of advertising synergies