Newspapers in catch 22 over online content

A dire warning for newspapers turning to an online-only output to ease their financial worries has been made by an academic study.

But it’s another of the report’s findings which should make newspaper bosses even more wary.

The Media Guardian website today reported the findings of a study by researchers at City University in London, showing revenues actually fell faster than costs after the changes were implemented.

The study was based upon Finnish newspaper Taloussanomat, which went online-only in December 2007 after suffering severe losses on its print version.

Since the change, the newspaper’s costs have fallen by 50%, but revenue dropped by 75% and the move has pushed Taloussanomat even closer to the edge.

Neil Thurman, a senior lecturer in electronic publishing at City, was one of the authors of the study.

He said: “Only if your income is 31% or more lower than your costs, based on this case at least, would you be better off going online-only."

Various reasons are given as to why the move has not had any benefits.

The report suggests that a lack of a print version meant the website was not promoted elsewhere.

And the main reason given by the researchers was that the internet is an altogether different beast to a newspaper as it is normally skimmed over in a couple of minutes.

But, while these are both acceptable arguments – and it is true that the internet has proven to be notoriously difficult for newspapers to monetise – the authors seem to have skimmed over the major point themselves.

The report states clearly that the newspaper cut their newsroom staff and the quality of the content suffered.

Surely this was a bigger factor in explaining the falling readership and revenues.

After all, if in any other walk of life, the quality of a product reduced, most people would have second thoughts over whether to read/use/watch/eat/drink it again.

And while just Maxim and The Ecologist magazines in Britain have gone down the online-only route (so far), redundancies are being announced on an almost daily basis.

It is all well and good that newspaper bosses want to preserve the future of their publication.

And this post is not in denial about the great benefits which newspapers across the country have enjoyed through their websites.

But remind me again of that phrase about paying peanuts...

The Sun, Hillsborough, and the fight for justice for the 96 RIP.

Tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough Stadium disaster.

It was on a sunny afternoon on April 15, 1989, when 96 innocent Liverpool fans died after being crushed at the FA Cup semi final against Nottingham Forest. A further 766 were injured.

I was only five years old when it happened and had no concept of what has occurred on that fateful day.

But having read about the events since, I feel sadness as a football supporter and I am ashamed of a corner of the newspaper industry.

Undoubtedly, one of the worst aspects of the Hillsborough disaster was the treatment of the day’s events by the then-editor of Britain’s biggest-selling daily newspaper.

Just a few days had passed when The Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie approved the printing of a disgraceful and entirely inaccurate article.

Under a large headline, ‘THE TRUTH’, the newspaper blamed Liverpool fans for the disaster and made three claims in the sub-headings, namely that

Some fans picked the pockets of victims;
Some fans urinated on the brave cops;
Some fans beat up PC giving the kiss of life.

The real TRUTH, later confirmed by the report by Lord Justice Taylor, was that South Yorkshire Police were at fault for failing to keep control.

Noticing that a crush was developing outside the ground, due to the lack of turnstiles at the Leppings Lane end, the police opened a gate usually only used as an exit.

The supporters from outside the ground rushed through the gate and headed to a tunnel which would lead them to the central pens of the ground.

The central pens were already filled to capacity but the side pens remained underused.

When this was the case, the police normally blocked the end of the tunnel leading to the central pens and diverted the fans to the sides of the terrace.

But this did not happen and it has never been explained why.

As more supporters rushed through the tunnel to the central pens, those supporters who were already in the ground were crushed against the fencing at the front of the stand.

When the fencing collapsed, people streamed out on to the pitch, many of them gasping for air.

The match was abandoned as uninjured fans tore up advertising hoardings to use as makeshift stretcher boards.

But their actions were restricted by the police who created a cordon across the pitch to prevent the rival fans from getting to each other.

And the police also turned back all but one of the 44 waiting ambulances.
The Sun ran their story based upon a comment made by an MP which was backed up by the chief superintendent David Duckenfield’s version of events.

Even before it went to press, though, there were some concerns.

Peter Chippendale and Chris Horrie have described how “a collective shudder” ran through the newsroom that day in their history of the newspaper.

But MacKenzie dominated the operation and pressed ahead with it.

After Duckenfield’s description was later proven to be fabricated, MacKenzie then explained his editorial position to a House of Commons Select Committee in 1993.

But in November 2006, MacKenzie said he was “not sorry then and... not sorry now” and that he had only apologised because the newspaper’s owner Rupert Murdoch ordered him.

He refused to apologise again when appearing on Question Time in January 2007 and, although he is no longer editor of The Sun, he still appears on its pages regularly as a columnist.

I used to read The Sun quite a lot, especially when I was younger, not being aware of its Hillsborough coverage.

Its brash and quick-witted style appealed to me as an aspiring hack. I read it much less now, but – to my shame – it remains an occasional guilty pleasure if they’ve pulled off a big exclusive.

Of course, I think that the boycott on Merseyside is entirely understandable, considering how wrong it was about Hillsborough.

But the boycott remains localised and does not pose a significant threat to the newspaper’s existence.

It is perhaps for this reason that The Sun has done so little to support the fight for justice for the families on the 96 victims.

It really ought to be ashamed.