Bizcommunity: I don't know if there's more news space but it seems to me there're more stories up front (in the first section of the paper) since you took over.
Ray Hartley: I think we want to busy it up but also copy taste very well for what we're using and what we're making page leads. And we have slightly more space - not much more. We've had some pretty good advertising so the front section has been running at a slightly higher number of pages.
Biz: When I interviewed Mondli [Makhanya, the previous editor] in March, he said the squeeze on news space (due to more advertising in the first section because of a redesign) was one of his greatest frustrations.
Hartley: Yes, absolutely. I think part of [how it looks now] is busying it up - more stories per page. And more potential entry points means less pages you would turn over without stopping, which means a sense that you're reading more. So that would be part of what I'm trying to achieve.
Biz: I see page three, which is one of the most important pages in the paper, is not just celebrity news anymore. You've had some good hard news and human-interest stories there. Is that deliberate?
Hartley: Ja, I think stories have to fight for space. We're not going to put a celebrity story on page three on principle if it's a weak one and there's a good human-interest story that's going to lose out. The [recent] Lolly Jackson story was quite a serious story about the crime underworld connections and so on - we ran that on page three.
Biz: I was getting rather weary of seeing celebrity stories on page three every week, I have to say.
Hartley: Ja, if it's gratuitous, it shows very quickly.
Biz: So what's been the biggest challenge since you took over?
Hartley: I think just to settle everyone down. My biggest challenge is there's been a lot of introspection (before I came) and thinking about the paper and mistakes that were made and I want people to lift their gaze from their navels to the horizon because it's a fiercely competitive media world. We have to start thinking about our product. Are we putting out the best that we can and are we doing the best that we can? So that's the most immediate challenge: motivate people, get them focused on their work and not on internal structures and who reports to who and that sort of issue.
Biz: Ja, Mondli said morale took a dive (after the paper made some high-profile factual errors on big stories in 2008) and then last year was about rebuilding.
Hartley: I've been very lucky in that Mondli went through a very good process of self-examination and I think that process is almost complete. I'm almost saying: "Let's move to the next phase." I've got the luxury of starting to focus on content and getting the right content. But it was a necessary thing that was done: to actually look at our structures, accuracy, the values and the aims of this organisation.
Biz: Remember Anton Harber's report [in 2008 on news processes at the Sunday Times]? Is that something that's on your radar screen?
Hartley: I have a copy and I'm taking it very seriously. I think that you have to listen to those criticisms. I think the problem with the Sunday Times is that it's quite a large organisation and so the temptation to build a huge management layer is something that has to be resisted because that diverts resources from reporting and getting the level of reporter that you need to crack a Sunday exclusive.
Biz: Having worked at the Sunday Times myself - and it came up in Harber's report - I think one of the key problems is too many managers and too few reporters.
Hartley: It's not just managers. I think it's senior staff that end up drifting into roles that are vague and there's a lot of resources that could be used on cracking hard news. So one of my priorities is to build the Joburg newsroom into the engine that pulls the train along otherwise we've got a very nice set of carriages with no locomotive. And then there's the investigations unit that we're re-establishing.
Biz: You've got some very experienced people in the investigations unit [such as Stephan Hofstatter and Simpiwe Piliso] but I often wonder if some of these people might be better placed in the newsroom. Separate investigations units often cause unhappiness in newsrooms because they tend to be quite secretive, work for months on stories that nobody knows about while the newsroom guys continue to feed the daily or weekly beast. Also the big stories usually come from all the little stories.
Hartley: Ja, I think it's tricky. You've got to watch out that it doesn't become something apart from everything else. The line of reporting is through the national news desk along with the newsroom so there's no special line of reporting to the editor or anything like that. That sort of takes care of the ensuring that the balance is right between the newsroom and investigations. But the reality is that if we're going to crack complicated stories that are going to take time and need to be absolutely 100% nailed down, you do need this dedicated specialist skill that can do that without robbing you of the ability to do the rest of the news.
Biz: Pretty much everyone was down again in the latest ABC (circulation) figures. [The Sunday Times' total circulation for the first quarter of 2010 was 461 433, compared with 504 163 in the first quarter of 2009.] It's tough out there for newspapers at the moment.
Hartley: I think it is tough out there. I think the last legs of the recession are still having their effect but I think things will turn around now. There are signs that people are spending more on retail, which is the thing that we [newspapers] are closely linked with. I think it's often mistakenly thought that cover price is a huge factor but much more important is the frequency with which people encounter the product. Before the recession you might have gone to the mall three times a week. In a recession you go once a week. So the buying opportunity is not there.
Biz: The number of subscriptions was also down. In the first quarter of 2009, there were 138 033 subscriptions, with 118 121 of those going to "individual" subscribers (as opposed to "business" and "travel & commercial" subscriptions). In the first quarter of this year, total subscriptions were at 122 105, with individual subscriptions at 88 505. I would imagine the recession plays a part but Avusa has been on a big drive to increase Sunday Times subscriptions over the past four or five years with the launch of The Times (that goes free to Sunday Times subscribers) a key part of this. Is the fall in subscriptions concerning to you?
Hartley: We lost a lot of subscribers due to unpaid debit orders and requests to cancel due to financial stress. Many of those people have reverted to buying the paper on an ad-hoc basis. I think if we continue to offer good value, they will return to subscribing as the financial climate improves.
Biz: Do you have any specific aims in terms of ABCs and AMPS [readership]?
Hartley: Obviously, we'd like to improve the sales and to retain what we have but not a specific target.
Biz: And advertising? The paper was hit hard last year by the fall in careers advertising. It's taking a long time to come back.
Hartley: I think again recruitment is related to the recession. Again, I think it will pick up.
Biz: You said recently that there's going to be more integration with online at the Sunday Times but how is that working in terms of nuts and bolts as the Avusa online operations are being consolidated into one unit?
Hartley: Ja, the main drivers for us are the Sunday Times going online on a Sunday... that's a very old-school model but it actually really works. There's a lot of interest on Sundays. And then the daily newsroom and online operation has to power it up for the five days of the week with live, active news and multimedia. So that's the news engine and then the Sunday Times needs to augment that news with some special content that we can produce. Exactly how we get our heads around that, we still need to sort out but our feature sections, columnists, stuff that's unique - I think needs to be more aggressively put out there online.
Biz: I would imagine you were much more hands-on at The Times with online.
Hartley: Ja, I think it naturally rests with the daily because that's where you have you daily news machine operating.
Biz: Do you miss that? You're one of a handful of South African editors who is really interested in and on top of online.
Hartley: Ja, absolutely. I miss the excitement of it. The breaking-by-the-minute nature of it is fantastic. But we've got Reuben Goldberg now [as Times Live news editor] and he's an absolute star. He's very good with keeping the site fresh and getting on top of the breaking stories. I'm still blogging and still doing podcasts.
Biz: So are we going to be seeing an editor's column from you on the Sunday Times leader page?
Hartley: No. We've already got a fantastic column that Mondli writes and I wouldn't want to touch that because I think it's great for the Sunday Times and it's got a following. [Makhanya is now editor-in-chief of Avusa's newspapers.]
Biz: But you've a very good political commentator.
Hartley: Maybe when I've got a bit more time, I'll think about it.
Biz: Media24 is investing in your rivals City Press and Rapport - as is Independent Newspapers with the Sunday Independent. You must be taking this seriously.
Hartley: I think we have to take it seriously. It's a competitive market place. I think it's great for media in the country that we have all these titles and a competitive Sunday market place. I think it makes everybody better and sharper and ultimately the beneficiaries are the readers. So, yes, this is part of what I mean when I say "Let's lift our gaze from our navels". Because we have competition that we must take seriously. We can't be arrogant and dismiss people as I think was done in the more distant past when the Sunday Times was more overwhelming in the Sunday market.
Biz: It's kind of fun, isn't it? It's back to the days when the Sunday Times and Rapport were incredibly competitive.
Hartley: Ja, it is fun. On a Saturday night you want to see what the other paper's got. Part of the excitement is that competition.
Biz: So what kind of editor do you want to be?
Hartley: I think the Sunday Times has got to be part of the great South African experience. It's got to be a newspaper that's trusted, that's seen as a friend, that has a personality that you can identify with - and a friend will tell you things you don't want to hear as well. That's the broad perspective. Within that, I think South Africans are ready for good content and are consuming good content online and elsewhere. And newspapers need to provide that insightful, higher-level reporting to readers. Insightful, well-written copy is what it's all about.
Biz: How would you like your staff to view you? You're the captain of a very big ship. You must have thought about it.
Hartley: I think I'm not from the hen-and-chicken school of management, which is get everybody under your wings. I'm from the school that says: "Let's have a professional relationship where roles are clearly defined, expectations are clearly set and we proceed from there." I would like people to settle into their roles, knowing exactly what we'd like to achieve. I don't think you can outline too many times what the paper's about and what it's trying to achieve - even if it's repetitious because that removes a lot of the mist and confusion and people can get on with reporting
For more:
