Newspapers are ‘the most vulnerable'

Flux Trends was organised by ‘observer and trend analyst' Dion Chang who aims to provide a ‘slow thought' look at the future and decode it for individuals and corporate. Bizcommunity.com was proud to be the online media partner to this inaugural event.

Providing stats, Manoim says more people are reading (515 million newspapers are sold each day globally), but in Europe and the US, sales are down 5% and some of the world's great newspaper titles have lost readers. Young people are not reading newspapers.

In developing countries the newspaper industry is thriving (ie, India, Bangladesh, Turkey, Korea, China) but newspapers are not being as creative as their rivals in other industries, for example, online media.

Test case

It's clearly a battle of mammoth proportions between old and new media, Manoim points out: “Whatever happens to papers in the next couple of years will happen to magazines and rest of the broadcast media after that. Newspapers are a test case.”

“People may not be reading newspapers, but they are reading news online. Most of the original ideas in online publishing are coming from people outside of media publishing.” Manoim points out that the Internet is killing newspaper classifieds and that the majority of the most popular news sites online are not newspaper sites:

1. Yahoo
   
2. MSNBC
   
3. CNN
   
4. AOL News
   
5. Google
   
6. New York Times
   
7. BBC
   
8. Gannet
   
9. IBW radio portal
   
10. USA Today

He adds though that newspapers must embrace the opportunities that online presents: “‘Anti-journalism' forums provide an opportunity: blogging (the journalism of amateurs) and citizen journalism (the journalism of accident) are not a threat but an opportunity for newspapers.”

Newspapers, he says are able to bring a story to life from all angles. “Nowadays a journalist can go out with a camera and a mic, cellphone for flash updates, laptop for the website story from the scene, edit sound podcasts and video vlogs back at the office and then later file the analytical story for the newspaper and a wrap for the magazine edition later in the week.”

Reading trends

On principle, Manoim says, it seems as if people are reading papers less and less in the developed world and in developing country more and more. Well, not entirely, he says. Yes, in China private media is blossoming far more than state-controlled newspapers and in Africa there are more Sunday papers in some cities such as Dar es Salam than in Joburg. The reasons for this are increased literacy, less repression in some areas, privatisation of the media and better infrastructure.

In South Africa itself, newspaper readership is up 43%, but the mainstream papers are not doing so well. It's vernacular and community focused and tabloid media that are stealing the show. Manoim used Kwazulu-Natal's Zulu-language newspaper Isoleweze as an example, the Daily Sun, The Voice, Die Son, and so on. Reasons? It's all apparently due to household income increasing and electrification.

And tabloid newspapers are very good at befriending their readers, Manoim asserts, getting close to them, exposing corruption on their doorstep, addressing superstition, titillating with local sex scandals and giving you over-the-wall gossip about your neighbours. They're not concerned with the big picture or any analysis or thought leadership of any kind.

The next big thing in newspapers is the very successful Swedish-pioneered model of free newspapers: the Metro which now has 70 editions globally in 22 countries, a readership of 23 million and has galvanised established titles in the Fourth Estate to launch their own free sheets. Locally The Citizen is trying it with its free Citizen Metro – 45 000 copies on 100 buses in Johannesburg. The Sunday Times' The Times, is a more niche marketing version going to an existing subscriber base

So what will happen to print?

Manoim predicts a world of news consumed via cellphones, mini-computers and electronic ‘scroll' readers – which are in development already. Time will tell.