/ 24 May 2006

What a Day for a Daily

What a time South Africa’s newspapers have had.

That day, in February 1990 when Nelson Mandela emerged from Victor Verster prison in Paarl, heralded a new social and political order for the country. Newsrooms would change fundamentally in coming years with words such as “transformation” and “affirmative action” becoming common-speak. By the turn of the millennium the “emerging black middle class” would substantially influence editorial policy within all established newspapers.

The 80s had heralded far-reaching technological change for the print media. Typewriters were abandoned for flickering green Apex computer screens, fax machines perched close to news desks and some staff cars even had two-way radios so a news editor could track roving reporters. By the middle of the 1990s Apple Macintosh computers were on every second desk, the old compositors or “strippers” in “the works” had been made redundant and reporters were fighting over the news desk’s only cellphone. Then came the internet and email. Now all reporters owned cellphones and couldn’t believe they could send messages to Australia on the email with no serious consequences. Ageing news editors watched in awe as young upstart reporters trawled the World Wide Web for information and patiently taught them to send SMS’s while queuing at the coffee machine.

While newsrooms grappled with words like “Google” and “download” and did their best to report on a changing country they also had to deal with endless cost-cutting by managements desperate to maintain profits despite ailing circulation.

Newspaper bosses blamed distribution, content, the young age of journalists, poor training and lack of leadership for their falling readership. What they failed to see was simply that the printing press was making way for the Cyber Age dominated by 24-hour news accessible at internet Cafés, on laptops, cellphones, iPods, Blackberries and satellite television. Just when the establishment thought the threat (only a few saw the challenge) was entirely digital, South Africa’s first “tabloids” were launched. Sensation and sleaze proved to be as popular with local readers as it was in other parts of the world and within weeks the new Daily Sun newspaper was showing record circulation. Again the foundations of decades-old newspapers shook.

Gradually South Africa’s daily newspapers have recovered from the raining blows of the last 20 years emerging tougher and less complacent. Getting news out (through a variety of mediums) has become more important than getting it onto the front page. As Adrian Hadland, HSRC senior researcher and editor of Changing the Fourth Estate: Essays on SA Journalism (published by the HSRC, 2005), says, “I don’t think the established dailies necessarily see online as a threat but increasingly as an opportunity.

“An interesting recent local example is the launch of Johncom’s reporter.co.za (“written by the people, for the people”), but Independent newspapers and the Mail and Guardian both have strong online sites.”

Arrie Rossouw, first publisher of Naspers’ 24-hour online news service News 24, tells the remarkable story of the birth of online news in an essay included in Changing the Fourth Estate. Approached by Naspers MD Koos Bekker to expand Beeld’s online news service to incorporate the whole group Rossouw tells how he gave up his secure job as deputy editor of Beeld to move into uncharted waters.

“The challenge was simply too exciting to let it pass by. Inspired by what I had seen in the USA and my personal experience with eBeeld, (Beeld‘s first online news site launched by Rossouw in 1997) I was gripped with internet fever and its immediacy as a news medium.

“The journalist in me couldn’t resist the thought of creating the ultimate website that would publish breaking news around the clock running circles around the print and few other online competitors.” News 24 remains South Africa’s biggest news website.

Tania Hobbs, director of media analysts, MindShare South Africa, feels that, despite the success of News 24, not much has been done by other mainstream titles to compete with online news sites – apart from providing their editorial online.

“I think the main reason that newspapers are not driving this is because the internet is still not instantly accessible to a large portion of the population,” says Hobbs. She points out that only 5.1% of the total population have accessed the internet in the past four weeks. “This is an area for growth in the upper end of the market where newspaper penetration has shown significant decreases.”

As Rossouw writes, “The concept is perhaps best expressed by Pedro J Ramirez, CEO and publisher of El Mundo, one of Spain’s leading broadsheets: “Our mission is not to print news content. It is to distribute content in all platforms … To ignore the other media is to renounce delivering news to a much larger audience. We want to reach all our potential customers and we must follow their habits.”

As one of only a handful of journalists who has embraced the internet from the very start, Rossouw remains upbeat about its potential. “The more the Web expands onto new devices, the more the demand will grow for journalists with different expertise.”

Whether or not ink and paper survive the digital onslaught remains to be seen. However the arrival and momentous success of the South African tabloids is cause for hope (for ink and paper not necessarily the established press.)

Readers were supposed to be moving away from ink-stained fingertips when, out of the blue, sleaze and sensation had the “old-fashioned” newspaper back in vogue.

At the end of February the Audit Bureau of Circulations released newspaper circulation figures that were, in newspaper language, real marmalade droppers.

Between July and December 2005, the tabloid, the Daily Sun, showed a daily average circulation of 444,061 up by 79,705 from the same period the year before. The Star, always considered the Johannesburg newspaper remained steady at 166,597 while the Sowetan’s circulation settled on 131,714, marginally better than the previous year. What has everyone flummoxed is where have all these new readers been hiding?

Professor Guy Berger, head of Rhodes University’s school of Journalism and Media Studies, says there are many new buyers, and readers, as a result of the tabloids. “Contrary to much speculation, there is absolutely no evidence that they have crossed a threshold and will move on to somehow graduate to more quality fare.”

Hobbs doesn’t believe the established dailies are losing readers to the tabloids but rather that existing readers (at the upper end of the market) have instant access to the internet, receive news updates on their mobile phones and have constant access to news on television.

“With titles like the Daily Sun and Die Son showing such incredible growth, newspapers have once again become an option as an advertising medium to reach this middle class market. This market is not one that could easily be reached via newspapers – the advent of the successful tabloid has changed this considerably.”

It is widely accepted that it is the emerging black middle class fuelling the growth of the new tabloids and those established dailies with growing circulation. Berger points out that it has been a matter of media economics, rather than political correctness, for newspapers to win more readers from this bracket.

“The presence of black journalists in newsrooms, coupled with black editors, increasingly produces content that appeals to this sector.”

Hadland says newspapers have been enjoying the rise in adspend that has come about as this new group acquires homes, cars and begins to enjoy the trappings of wealth.

“Newspapers have already begun to cater for the stories the new middle class care about, specifically education, personal finance, travel and leisure.”

What all this means is that South Africa’s established press has had to look hard at what it’s readers want and where they want to access their news.

Other than in Gauteng, which is over supplied by newspapers, there is very little competition between newspapers in South Africa, says Hadland.

“You will find few markets in South Africa in which like-for-like titles are competing directly against each other. They either come out at different times of the day, in different languages, different areas or cater for different groups of readers.”

Berger agrees, saying papers are highlighting their long-standing niches as sources of local news, with highly distinctive and even predictable individuality. “Increasingly, our newspapers seem less and less to be competing on the same ground with the same type of stories, and instead are focusing on doing their own unique thing in order to hold a place in the market.”

When the printing press was invented in 1450 a new way of thinking was born. When the telephone appeared peace was forever shattered. Radio, television, personal computers, cellphones, the internet, tabloid news Рwith every step forward the future changes and what was once held dear disappears. In future paper rounds, corner sellers and collapsing bundles of Sunday papers in caf̩s will disappear.

Irwin Manoim, joint founder and editor of the Weekly Mail, best describes what to expect in his chapter on the future of newspapers in Changing the Fourth Estate.

“New technology creates and also destroys. Old obstacles are swept away and new avenues for innovation open up.” Newspapers, as we know them, he concludes, will die.

South Africa’s newspapers cannot rest on their laurels as they will continue to face challenging times.