baldysblog.co.uk

Following on from my earlier blog about whether or not Newspapers are dead, some further thoughts as to a way forward. To start with, it must be patently obvious that the existing ‘news/media owners’ have got it totally wrong, they have seen “The Web” as just a change to electronic paper, their business remains the same – WRONG !

The above can hardly be contentious because it is self-evident through their failure to manage a ‘smooth and seamless transition’ that leaves them with a profit and instead, them ‘battling’ to impose a solution on their “Readership” that seeks to extract cash by force rather than persuasion. The purpose of the following is to try and prise apart the key elements to a web experience that is similar though not the same to ‘reading a newspaper’ whilst taking advantage of what the web has to offer.

Contributors

The one thing that got me writing my own blog was taking part/posting comments to the Daily Telegraph discussion boards back in 2006/7 which led me to set up this blog in November 2007.

To me, the original articles I responded to, created the ‘stimulation’ for me to form my own views on the particular topic which may or, may not have coincided with those of the author but, the really big ‘buzz’ came from the other people who also wrote in. Yes, you could end up with the odd “cat fight” but, once you took the “obsessives” out, there were an awful lot of sensible people contributing, whether you agreed with their views or not and ‘they’ became the ‘must read’ bit rather than the starting point, the original article.

If you read across the ‘broadsheets’ it rapidly becomes evident that most “regular journalists” find it difficult to maintain any consistent ‘standard’ in terms of the quality of their input but to be fair, it must be hard to produce “X words” every week or, more frequently. In addition there are the current “running stories and themes” to react/respond to and for many journalists, there may well be little or no personal interest in those anyway.

So, if you were starting a ‘web magazine’, would you want ‘professional journalists’ to lead it out ? I suspect, probably not, they could ‘guest’ from time to time (unpaid), but otherwise, the backbone should be the type of people that write in to the current ‘broadsheet boards’.

What Kind of Management Structure ?

To start with, it must be a non-profit organisation that pays no salaries or at least, not initially. In due course and if it became popular, it would have to pay for IT support and use of bandwidth which whilst potentially expensive is highly necessary. A good example is the Independent which quite often seems to have bandwidth problems which is annoying for web users and a choke on web growth, people are impatient with ‘dangling’ web sites.

The contributors would consist of the better and more articulate people that currently send comments in to the broadsheets on a regular basis. I would envisage an “Editorial Board/Panel” who would vet all contributions and below them, sub committees on specialist topics within the range, politics, foreign affairs, sports, leisure activities and so on.

Just anyone and including from overseas, could submit an article on a current news story but, whether it gets published or not, is down to the Editorial Panel. This same panel could commission a series of articles on a ‘themed’ topic such as the EU which may be put together by one person or a group of people. The group could be both ‘pro’ and ‘anti’ so that the finished piece becomes a debating piece.

The whole organisation needs to be ‘virtual’ so, whether by Skype or Instant Messaging, the people involved will interact via the web, later perhaps more sophisticated technologies could be used but for now, the simple stuff will more than do.

Pictures, Cartoons, Video, Music…

All acceptable but, will not be paid for and will need a signed declaration from whoever submits them, that they own the material before we can publish it. In the case of budding cartoonists and photographers, it could be a way of raising their profile and selling framed prints of their best work might be a way of rewarding them directly…just an idea.

Finance

If it (the title), established itself in terms of popularity, it will sell advertising slots and with the money thus gained, initially going to fund Internet bandwidth and any essential salaries to keep the show on the road. Of course one would need to consider how, if it generated substantial surpluses beyond this, these were distributed to the contributors and on what basis they are shared out.

Oddly perhaps, establishing a ‘basic principle’ for such details as this, is as if not more important than starting the “web-zine” itself. Human nature being what it is, if it were not successful, nobody would care but if it were…every idiot would want a share regardless of the value of their contribution.

The Publishing Cycle

At least initially and particularly as people would be “dedicated volunteers to the cause” the publishing cycle should be weekly to start with so that it doesn’t demand too much commitment from individual people. As part of the planning stage there needs to be the creation of a whole series of “stock articles” to field under any given category to kick things off and for future use in case individual ‘contributors’ flake on any publication deadlines.

It is not a bad strategy to follow because if nothing else, it can ‘set the tone’ and standard for others to follow.

Political Bias

Essentially there should be none from the title itself although individual contributors would be free to express their preferences but, only within the context of well argued articles, passion will be fine, ranting unacceptable.

I suspect that the reality in the UK today, apart from parts of these Islands, is that ‘tribal politics’ is really dying on its feet and that the vast majority of the electorate are ambivalent about party loyalties. We are all a bit ‘Tory’ on some issues and a bit ‘Socialist’ on others and without being annal about it, we should try to balance out the political bias in each edition.

Well those are my starting thoughts which only go to demonstrate that there is a lot more work to do before it can become a reality.