Newspapers in the age of blogs Manifesto Challenge: Developing a Capable Population / Encouraging Enterprise
Speakers Alan Rusbridger Editor , The Guardian
Chaired by: Paul Crake RSA Programme Director
Date: 16 March 2006
Venue: RSA, 8 John Adam Street, London WC2N 6EZ
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Paul Crake: Good evening, I’m Paul World so tonight I am not speaking about Crake, the RSA’s Programme Director, it’s my India or China or Eastern Europe or Russia pleasure to welcome you to the Great Room where print-on paper newspapers are still this evening. This evening’s speaker is thriving; this is about newspapers in the extremely distinguished in the field of developed world in Europe and in America. journalism, Alan Rusbridger has been editor of Very crudely, if I can get my little mouse The Guardian since 1995; he was educated at working, this blue line is very approximately Cambridge and worked for a number of what people think is happening to newspaper newspapers including locally the Cambridge circulation and revenue so it’s rather a crude Evening News, the London Daily News and The amalgam of the two and generally speaking, Observer and indeed The Guardian before and I’m speaking in very broad brush terms, becoming its editor. I think it’s true to say that it’s a picture of decline. Generally speaking, his editorship has seen some extraordinary newspaper circulations are struggling and changes at the newspaper, most recently revenue is beginning to walk out of changing format, both The Guardian and The newspapers. Over here, which is the red Observer to the Berliner format but also the line, which is internet traffic and again it’s a launch of Guardian Unlimited which is now crude amalgam of what we hope is going to one of the UK’s and possibly one of the happen, or think is going to happen, to World’s successful newspaper websites. He’s people reading newspapers on the internet, also a member of the Scott Trust which owns not just newspapers but all kinds of news The Guardian. Alan’s going to be talking this providers and of course we also hope that evening about some of the changes taking place there’ll be a stark rise in revenues at the in journalism and in the environment in which same time. The green bubble is roughly it operates. Will you please join me in where we are at the moment and the more welcoming Alan Rusbridger? discerning amongst you will have noticed Alan Rusbridger: Thank you for that. there’s a big gap between there and there - It’s rather intimidating to be recorded in so that is a big problem for all of us so my guess many different formats especially as I haven’t is that we’re somewhere like there at the got a text; I’m going to speak with some slides, moment and we are all working out how to so I shall try and be as guarded as I can in my get to there. Depending on our ownership remarks. The subject I’m going to speak about structures; who owns us; why they own us; is about the most fundamental subject that I pressure from shareholders etc, etc, will could be speaking about I think which is about depend on how newspapers play this coming the future of newspapers. Some people think period. If you’re in America and you’ve got it’s even more of a fundamental question than shareholders breathing down your neck that of whether newspapers have a future and saying we want ever increasing returns, wrapped up in all that is whether newspapers you’re probably going to do what a lot of deserve to have a future and, if they do have a newspapers in America are doing which is cut future, as what, so why does it matter that we your expenses, you sack a lot of journalists should be talking about this tonight. crudely and backroom staff. If you’re the Daily Mail and General Trust you try and sell I’m going to show you a number of your local newspapers, you say well actually slides, some of which I have drawn myself and let’s get out of this business altogether you’ll understand rapidly when you see my because we don’t want to be in this business drawings why I never went into the graphic of manage and decline and they’ve found, I art’s department of The Guardian but stuck think rather to their shock, that they couldn’t with words but I just find it easier to scribble get the price for them that they thought they than send it out to people that actually know were going to get. Knight-Ridder have just what they’re doing. If I start with this very put themselves up for sale so some people crude diagram which I think a version of this is are trying to get out of this business in every newspaper office in the Western altogether; some people like Richard
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Desmond don’t believe in the internet so surprised by books that you didn’t know they’re just going to pretend it doesn’t exist existed and it’s a very nice feeling, but and will see what happens to the Express titles simultaneously there is a site like although he’s taking a very comfortable salary “abooks.co.uk” which if you are looking for a out of the Express titles while they still exist particularly book, is much better than going but probably at some point the Express titles to a local bookshop. I think it says there that are just going to fall off the edge of a cliff as the when you search “abooks”, you’re searching last reader dies. That is very crudely the 13 and a half thousand booksellers position that we’re looking at tonight and you simultaneously and 80 million titles so it’s an can tease that out a tiny bit with some awesome tool if you just want to get that one research that’s just happened, that’s just been volume that you’ve been looking for all your released by the Pew Research Group that’s life. You’re much better off going to tracking all this in America. If you look at the “abooks” than you are you’re local 18 to 24 year olds and the 25 to 34 year olds, bookseller and I have to confess that when there’s not a great appetite to read I’m looking for a book now, my first port of newspapers there if you compare them with call is “abooks” and it’s not my local 65 year olds and 55 year olds so it’s an almost bookseller. If I’m honest, my action in doing exact correlation in age and appetite to read that is probably going to kill my local newspapers. The next generation that’s bookseller off unless he or she can find an coming up at the moment seems not to be economic model that is going to save them very interested in this business of words on so my act of shopping on “abooks” is killing paper and simultaneously if you look at the my local bookseller off even though I value growth in online revenue in the United States, and treasure my local bookseller. That’s the those are very considerable leaps in kind of metaphor for what’s happening, I percentages so they’re starting from very low think, in the print industry today and a lot of base but if you compare the decline in revenue it is down to this man. Now, he’s a guy that you see in print and the 30 to 50% leaps in called Craig Newmark; he’s a little bit revenue online, I think that just gives you a bit younger than me; he lives in San Francisco; more depth in trying to flesh out that original he’s an archetypal West Coast liberal; he diagram of mine which was so poor. reads the novels of John Irving and all the By way of just saying where I come coolest West Coast music you can imagine. from in this; I love newspapers, I have worked He is almost single-handedly destroying the in newspapers for nearly 30 years and I would American newspaper industry through this love newspapers to go on so all the people tool which is something called “Craig’s List”. who, if I can anticipate some of your questions; I’m sorry if I’m going too slow for some of you are going to say at the end that some of you, I may be going too fast for you can’t read a computer in the bath; I like some of you but I’ll try and sort of pitch it at that feeling of print on paper; it’s very portable the canter at what I imagine to be the median and all that is true. What I’m saying tonight is audience here and even those viewing not advocacy in wishing the end of outside. That’s a website that’s never going newspapers. I think it’s sometimes a bit like to win any prizes for design and it hasn’t got the world of second hand books because I love much news, in fact its got no news. The that feeling of going round second hand origin of this was that Craig, who worked for bookshops and the people in musty old IBM for many years, started a little site in cardigans who work in second hand bookshops which he tipped off his friends about what and that feeling of just looking down shelves in was cool and what was interesting and where search of books that you didn’t know existed, to eat and what he was up to in the Bay area that serendipity of it. It’s a very similar of San Francisco and his friends; this circle of experience to reading a newspaper, you’re friends who were looking at it, grew wider surprised by stuff that you didn’t know; you’re and wider and they eventually persuaded him
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and said look why can’t we have you know as Francisco and he’s pretty established in the well as this space where we can tell each other New York Times, employers have the option where to eat, can’t we buy and sell things so he of going for something that’s staggeringly created the space and whether you wanted to cheap and will probably be quite effective and get rid of an old sofa, or buy a new bike, or more and more effective over time or you find a girlfriend, or buy a takeaway meal, can go to the old media and choose whatever it was, you could go onto this site. something that is staggeringly expensive. So The reason it’s destroying the American you ask, how does this work? How does it newspaper industry is that it’s got a very work for Craig, that this miracle worker who unusual business model - it’s free to both sides. can do this all for free whereas the New York If you’re selling it’s free and if you’re buying it’s Times charges this huge premium? The best free. Now that’s a difficult business model to way of explaining this is to look at Craig’s beat if you think about it. It’s never really been headquarters which is this little building here tried before; people have tried something like in San Francisco. He employs 18 people and Loot, you’ve bought the magazine, something people, as you can imagine, have gone on like Exchange & Mart, you’ve bought the bended knees to try and buy Craig Newmark magazine and you’ve paid. This is free. When out. They’ve tried to IP own; they’ve tried to I say it’s free, it’s not entirely free and I’ll float him; they’ve offered him untold and explain the little thing here. He is now in 192 obscene billions of dollars in order to just cities; in three cities, just for job ads, he give up this ludicrous exercise and come to charges a tiny amount of money so in New his senses and his answer is, look this is a York, if you want to place a help wanted ad, sort of utopian exercise I’m doing; it’s a really Craig will charge you $25. His competitors on interesting thing on the internet. I just want the web will charge you $395 or $299. There to give these people space; I’m not interested is a vast difference between what Craig in money; I employ my 18 people. We think Newmark is charging even when he is charging he’s probably earning about 10 million a year and as I say most of it is free and in every which is quite a lot between 18 people and other city in America it’s free and even his he’s not going to sell. He’s just in this for the internet rivals. The people who are really pure exercise of creating a space that is free terrified of Craig Newmark are the New York to both sides. Just hold that model, that little Times. You can try an interesting experiment shack in your head, and I will now show you with the New York Times because they have the building that the New York Times is about actually a very good website if you want to to move into in New York. You see the place a classified ad; you can go onto their nature of the New York Times’ problem. website and you can make up the ad onscreen There is an absolutely megalithic old media and book it there and then. I’d tried this and I organisation which employs something like was sitting there thinking what shall I invent so 10,000 employees and they’ve got this state I pretended that we we’re going to start The of the art, Renzo Piano building that they’re Guardian in America and I started a little small about to move into and there is Craig in his ad looking for journalists and told them to little shack and these people are absolutely apply to C P Scott in Manchester. You can terrified. That goes for the whole of the make it up on screen and you can either have a American print industry; they cannot see a very basic one there which has no border or way of dealing with this. you can put a fancy border on and the Why does this matter? We’ll get difference is about $300. That one there is, I onto the existential nature of journalism a bit think, $678, I can’t quite read it from here, and later but you just have to think for a moment this one is something like $958 so that is a vast about advertising and editorial and the way difference between Craig and the New York that they have lived side by side for about Times. Craig does no marketing, it’s all word 200 years and Francis Williams, the great of mouth but as Craig becomes established in historian of the British press, and his book cities and he is very, very established in San
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Dangerous Estates, in 1958 he said the daily what this is all about. This is in a sense the press would never have come into existence as absolute traditional newspaper, the one that a force in public and social life if it had not we just saw in that massive Renzo Piano been for the need of men of commerce to office block and it’s a kid of tablet of stone, it advertise. Only through a growth of is a paper of great authority and if you ever advertising did the press achieve independence. go to the New York Times editorial meeting, If you think about the history of the British it’s a bit like a religious ceremony; they meet press before people started advertising; the for 45 minutes in the evening and great way that the press was paid for; you paid for thought goes into what’s the lead story; the reporters and the thinkers to do their what’s the second story; what’s the third work. They were paid for basically by story; what’s the relative typography of these politicians and it was political parties that paid stories and it is very serious men and women for newspapers and along come advertisers saying this is our expert opinion and that of and start putting adverts in papers and at last the hundreds of journalists that we employ people say we’re free of these people and I can who have thought about this deeply, they recite with you all the reasons in which people know what they’re talking about, believe us is perceive that advertisers pollute or poison the message. If it’s on the front page of the newspapers but there’s a very good argument New York Times, it’s there because it’s for saying that advertisements gave newspapers important. It may be about things that you a form of independence. don’t think you’re interested in, you may not That’s one big threat to the press; this want to read it but this is our opinion and disaggregation of advertising from editorial; this is the model that’s existed again for people saying there’s no historical reason why hundreds of years and in each country that these should live together and for every Craig, you go to, the Germans haven’t quite caught there are hundreds of other internet up with photography yet but that is the entrepreneurs saying well actually I’ll have that Frankfurter Allgemeine which is the same, a bit, I’ll have this bit. If you saw the stories last very serious idea of what a newspaper should week about Right Move, which is a little be and Le Monde, actually which has re- property site, being quoted at the moment for designed since that slide but it’s the same about £320 million because they think they can basic idea of what a newspaper is and it is, as get all the property advertising. There are I say, the kind of tablet of stone in this very people who want all the holiday advertising and crude diagram which I apologise for. As I say so on and so forth so there are great bleeding this is a kind of journalism as revelation; we chunks being taken out of the traditional are the figures of authority; all these newspaper revenue at a time when sales are important people at the top speak to us, you going down so the copy income is also being can’t speak to them because you’re too little, hit, so there’s a kind of double whammy hitting you’re right down there and we are the the newspaper industry like a broadside. At conduit and we tell you what’s important. the same time, by the way most journalists It’s like this, believe us, and occasionally the have begun to get this, the penny is finally little people would write a letter and a little dropping, that this thing that people have being letter would come back and say that’s not talking about for some time is finally happening quite right or I disagree and we’d print a few and they don’t know what to do about it, but of these letters very graciously but most of the penny has finally dropped. them we’d drop in the bin and say no thank you. This was the paper I inherited in 1995 They’re not necessarily quite up with which had been printed since 1821 and it was the next bit which is about the changing nature a very interesting model for a newspaper. of editorial and this is a thing which is much more difficult to grasp and for journalists in a Then something happened which way, much more threatening and I think we’re some people called a conversation. Email only at the beginning of trying to understand was invented and rather than the sort of
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weedy letter coming in, people could email cheeky of the readers to want to do that. rather instantaneously and in rather large There were still some things that only we numbers and this was a big challenge to knew because we were reporters and some journalists because they didn’t know quite how of these people would still only speak to us to respond and some journalists got a bit huffy but a lot of this information was there if you about this and said, look push off, I’m the figure had the time and the inclination to go and of authority here, I don’t think you get it. Our look for it. job is to tell you what’s what; we don’t want to Finally, I’m afraid this is the worst hear from you because frankly we’re the diagram of all because I still haven’t worked experts round here and some journalists didn’t out how to draw it, we reached something have that reaction and they looked at the email like that where the newspaper was in the address and if you were the medical middle of an incredibly fragmented world correspondent and it came from St Barts where these readers who were talking to Hospital, you thought that’s interesting; this each other formed, it’s too constricting even person might be a doctor, they might know to call it interest groups, but they allied what they’re talking about. It might be themselves around subjects and passions and interesting to have a conversation with them. groupings and geographical locations and If I involve them in my reporting, this might zones of politics and passions and they would make me a better reporter so there was a bit all talk to each other. By the time you came of a split in the journalistic industry as people in in the morning as an editor, if there were worked out how to deal with this type of email any mistakes in The Guardian about anything, and the other thing that happened was that dozens of people around the world had columnists in particular just got a vast quantity already spotted this and were challenging it of response to anything they were writing. and this was a different kind of audience. The Polly Toynbee would come to me on Sundays old audience looked at that page, if you think and say I’ve had 400 emails, all wanting to of the New York Times, and they were willing discuss my latest column and you keep saying to take on trust your view of a wide range of Alan that this is a conversation so what do you information that we were saying to you was want me to do; do you want me to have a important and these people are, to a much conversation because I could write 400 emails greater degree, self selecting. They’re saying, back or I could write my next column for the well actually there are only four things that paper, which would you like? So at that point, I’m really interested in; I can get that in great you say, well forget the conversation, why depth on the internet and actually there are don’t you write your next column for the things that I’m not very interested in, I don’t paper, which is why I say it’s not really a know why the New York Times keeps banging conversation. What happened next is that on about Darfur and all these places in Africa these people starting talking to each other and which I’m not interested in. I know I they didn’t ask our permission to do this at all shouldn’t be like this but I’m not interested in and this was again rather disconcerting that Africa and I’m going to tick a box that says no they should feel free to do this but they did. stories about Africa please because it just They started forming little groups of people depresses me; there’s nothing I can do about who began critiquing newspapers and the it, they seem to be all the same kind of other thing they began to do, these very crude stories, all about starvation and war so no lines go out here, they went behind our back stories about Africa please but I want all the to our sources because increasingly the news stories about melting, Greenland or the information that we were using was available environment or about Arsenal Football Club on the internet and if it was a big report you or whatever it is that interests them. This is could go and read the report yourself if that’s a very fragmented audience that tends to like what you wanted to do. You could compare stuff they know about and it’s quite what we’d written with the report itself and interesting talking to people who are like this again was rather challenging and a bit
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them. They’re not wrong these people sites are to some degree a two-way because actually the internet now does an conversation – that word again. awful lot of information on an awful lot of If you want movies, the BBC does subjects that’s better than newspapers. This is, movies; Yahoo does movies; Apple does I shouldn’t be saying this live to the World movies; Empire does movies and there are outside, I should be keeping this a secret but I another 25 sites out there that do movies, think a lot of people have begun to twig this. I that have got movie clips, your chance to can show this very easily and rather crudely by review movies. It’s infinitely richer than the just looking at a number of websites. I can’t experience of simply reading one critic in a think why I started with golf but anyway let’s newspaper though I’m not saying it should start with golf. If your big thing in life is golf, replace it, I’m just saying it’s a very rich 10 years ago if you wanted up to date golfing medium. You’ve got things like arts statistics and knowledge of who’d won what magazines who are turning themselves into match and who was up and was down, you had websites; you’re all familiar with Amazon and a golf magazine which came each month and Amazon will review books – that used to be apart from that you read the newspaper. the preserve of newspapers and then all There was not much other contemporaneous these Amazon readers decide they’re going information that you could go to. Today there to review books too and they can start are about 15 or 20 really good golf sites that ranking each other and giving star systems. are absolutely rich in information and probably most of them are a bit like Craig’s list, they’re Travel’s another interesting one – probably run with a tiny staff so they can make again 10 years ago you probably went for do on a little bit of advertising; there’s your travel tips to a newspaper and the advertising from Tight-list there but you don’t younger generation now probably don’t. need much advertising to keep one of these There are sites like “i-escape” and the point sites going but if you’re a golf nut, this is a of all these travel sites is that you can write, fantastic thing to look at. The same is true of you can become a travel writer. There’s all football; the same is true of cricket and the those sort of Paul Theroux and Jonathan interesting things here, there’s “crick-info”, Rabons and people who used to do that in there’s “wisden”, is that a lot of old, old brands the past but now you can do it and actually are saying well actually we can be a website, who is to say that that is worse than the we don’t need to leave this to newspapers and thing that a newspaper often did which was so “wisden” that for years, for centuries, was to say, well we’ve got to send somebody to an annual book that came out once a year; India and they’ll go for a week and they come incredibly fat, is now there and it’s live and it’s back and they say, very interesting place got an incredible treasure trove of information India; it’s hot and they have hot food and and it covers all the matches in real time and if here are three nice hotels that I stayed in and again cricket is one of your things, it’s a great it’s really quite an interesting place, you site to look at. If theatres are your thing, there should do it. What seems to be happening is are numerous theatre sites; if you want to, if the younger generation say well actually I’m you’re deeply into rock, there’s places to go more interested in people like me who are for rock and one of two themes began to start on my kind of budget and aren’t in fact coming through these websites that actually a preview merchants working for fat lot of these sites allow you to be a critic. It’s newspapers; I’m more likely to trust people not just a passive thing, there I am, thank you of my generation. They all have these sites very much Mr New York Times, your paper, I now so Lonely Planet are very good; Print am most grateful, a touch of the forelock; this Guide is now re-inventing itself and if you is actually saying well actually I’ve got an want to go to Lonely Planet, you’ll find opinion about this too and I want a space to people who are travelling around India; if you talk about this too and so nearly all of these go to Rough Guide and click on India, a bit to the right and down a bit, there they all are
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and you get your editors pick so you don’t who is sitting in his room watching it off the even have to wade through all the dross down television. I think the first one began here, you can find the ones that are really good something like: I’ve got a filthy hangover this and just read the first free ones and there are morning; the television’s not working; my some four star ones and you can well these are girlfriend left me last night and I’m still getting people who are out there backpacking; they’re rid of the bottles of red wine that I used to like me, they’ve got my budget and I’m going to get over the hangover; there’s another one go to them. A newspaper has a choice; a this morning - that was the cricket, that was newspaper can say well this is outrageous India last week - good morning, you’ll all be behaviour, we’re the experts and we don’t delighted to know that my taxi turned up on stand for this kind of stuff at all or a newspaper time this morning and that I’m raring to go. can say well actually that’s quite interesting. This is not an intro that Mike Selvey would We’ve got hundreds of thousands of readers of write and it’s nothing about being an expert, The Guardian, they’re all highly intelligent it’s just sort of kicking the ball into touch and otherwise they wouldn’t be reading The saying, come on you’re all out there, we’re Guardian and quite a lot of those will have gone fans, we can have a different kind of to India, quite a few of them are Indian, so we conversation or we’ll leave it to Mike Selvey started a site called ‘Been There’ in which we to tell us what really happened at the end of said, come on, you’ve all been to India; where the day. You get these weird things going on are your favourite places; where are your at four o’clock in the morning where people favourite cities; where are your favourite are speculating there as to the Dalai Lama restaurants; where did you stay and this is the who’s living in India. I expect his Holiness is beginning of a complete inversion of the probably watching the cricket whether he newspaper model. It’s not us telling you, it’s us supports England so these bizarre saying to you, why don’t you take part in this, conversations are going on between the it will give you the space but let’s hear from writers and people. By the end of the you. We can return and discuss all the summer, this was a complete cult way of problems with this but it’s a really interesting following the game and hundreds of people model. Same thing with sport, we’ve got lots were emailing in their thoughts as you’ve got of distinguished sports writers, there’s David this crescendo and again, it was the inversion Lacey on the left, actually not a great of the newspaper model; it was not us telling sportsman himself but Mike Selvey is a prime you, it was us providing a space for you to looking man, used to trundle in medium pace come in and say what you thought and it’s for England. He’s been there, he knows what obviously highly popular and again, it’s like to play cricket, he can do his match newspapers have a choice – they can either report at the end of the day which is the say that’s not what a newspaper does, we’re expert voice, it’s listen to me, I am the expert, not going to do this or you can say well that I can tell you about this and there’s Lawrence seems to be what especially young people like Donegan at the end. These people could be doing so we’ll give them the space. the voice of sport but simultaneously we tried Technorati is the google of bloggers another experiment last summer at the cricket. and there are now something like 25 million I must admit Emily Bell, who’s the site editor, blogs, that’s 25 million people in the World didn’t tell me about this in advance so the first who have their own little publishing system I knew about it was when there was a story in where they can publish their thoughts, their the Daily Mail saying the headline, something desires, their crazy notions, their expert like The Guardian cricket writer goes mad. I opinions. This is growing. Last July when I thought oh God another Guardian writer goes looked at that page, there were 13 million mad. I read this with a sinking heart and, for a bloggers, so it’s growing incredibly fast. moment, I thought the Daily Mail is right, the There’s a huge explosion of people who want Guardian cricket writer has gone mad. This to be in on this and to have a form of self- was an over-by-over account by somebody
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expression and to talk about things and share that you’re giving to people to teach them things and so on and so forth. This is a really how to do it. interesting phenomenon and it would be stupid Myspace, Rupert Murdoch didn’t to say there’s no point in decrying this or believe in the internet for a long time. Last criticising, it’s just happening and in many ways year he suddenly decided that he did believe it’s entirely positive. It’s fantastic that the it and he’s gone out and spent something like means of communication is not in the hands of a billion dollars and this is one of the sites a few people who are rich enough to own that he spent and any of you in this room printing presses, anybody can get there. Last that have got teenage daughters and teenage week I was in San Francisco and Seattle talking sons will know that they spend hours and to a lot of these you know 25 to 28 year olds hours creating their own space and sharing and seeing what they’re doing and everything music and getting in touch with each other so they’re doing now is about linking these people that you can form groups of teenagers with up and aggregating their content and similar groups of interest. There’s something personalising their content and forming called Tribe which is in the San Francisco Bay communities of content. You’ve got things like area but now you can find similar tribes in all Flickr, started by two people, now been these cities down here. bought by Yahoo which is all about sharing pictures and they have millions and millions of There’s Last.fm which does the same pictures there and you can select them by with audio; that’s basically a way of creating subject, by date, they rank them and millions of your own radio station. You say I’m people now put their pictures up and share interested in this kind of music, that kind of them with their family and friends through a music and I like it at this time of day or that site like that. Then you have all these so called time of day and it will create a little radio social media, which is a way putting people in station just for you that will play your kind of touch with each other in all kinds of ways. music when you want it. There’s something There’s Pluck, which is one of them; there’s called Topex which is finding ways of something called Blogburst, that’s how promoting content to the front page. Here is Blogburst works. I won’t try and read that for something called Digg; this is quite you but this is one way of getting all these interesting. I had dinner with these guys in blogs together and aggregating what’s going on San Francisco; these guys are either going to and finding the most interesting content. To be multi-billionaires in about five years time these people, Google was really interesting; it or they’ll just go on being geeks and there’s had its day, some of you are only just no way of knowing which and this is an discovering Google and now Google is in incredibly simple device; there’s a little danger of being passé because in their view button there that says “digg”. It’s a slightly Google is a purely mechanical way and it was seventies word but if you digg a story, you very, very smart in its day in finding all these just press the “digg” and if you don’t digg it, algorithms that promoted content and found it you don’t “digg” it and at the moment it’s just and came back with astonishing speed but technology stories but it’s testing of these young kids are saying well that’s fine but technology; a way by which hundreds of it’s a bit crude and it’s not a very good way of thousands of human beings send stories to finding the most interesting content. It’s a bit this site and then they rank them so it’s not impersonal and there are more interesting like Google, it’s human beings saying I like ways of people getting together and letting this and then you get a front page which each other know about interesting content. theoretically represents the most interesting There’s something called Shadows and that’s stories going. Again, we can all think of how Shadows works; it’s a social book-marking critiques of that but if you look at Digg and service for discovering, sharing and managing there’s a feature called Digg Spy there which information on the web. That’s another tool means you can watch Digg in real-time. You see hundreds of people per minute coming in
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and digging stories so that’s an interesting starting their own experiment in blogging; model and then just to be really terrifying you’ve got Think Tank saying, well actually there are all these websites that are now we can be a comment site, we don’t need to aggregating advertising. So if you own a car leave this to the newspapers. Jane’s used to magazine as The Guardian does, you’ve got be an intelligence journal about defence these websites that now go round scraping the software; there it is, it’s a website. There’s ads out of all the websites they can find and one about Europe; there’s one about Central saying we’ll pull that all back here and you Europe so however fragmented you want to don’t need to go and look at Auto Trader slice up the World, you can find a website because you can find it all here. Some truly that will do this in much greater detail than a astonishing things are beginning to happen on a newspaper so again you sit in a newspaper as completely different basis from newspapers an editor and you think, do we roll with this; and some are quite threatening. There’s do we ignore it; do we stand on our dignity another interesting example, this is an Austin, and say I’m sorry we’ re the experts, we’ve Texas paper that’s doing a very edgy, young got all these very distinguished columnists, version of its newspaper. we’re not going to engage with you or do You then get to the area of comment you say well let’s engage with you; let’s give because newspapers are divided into two; you the space and the thing that tipped it for there’s news and there’s comment and then me was the Huffington Post. Arianna there’s all that sort of feature stuff which is Huffington, those of you with longer under big threat and at The Guardian again we memories will remember her as Arianna thought well what do we do about this Stassinopoulos memorably described by my explosion of comment that’s coming because colleague, Mike White, as the most upwardly that used to be our field. If you wanted to mobile Greek since Icarus. She went on and know what to think, you read The Guardian or married someone called Huffington, who was the Telegraph or the Daily Mail or whatever a rich Republican who had aspirations of was your poison and now there are all these being President. He didn’t make it as websites for fragmented audiences who want President so she left him and decided that stuff that they’re interested in by people who she was a Democrat after all and moved to are like them about their own subject. Some New York and said I’ve heard about all this of these are individual websites. Has anyone in blogging, I’m going to start a blogging site and this audience ever looked at a website called my how they laughed. Silly little Arianna; “Overheard in the UK”? Has anyone ever what a fluff-head; this is just another vanity heard of it? No, and I’ve yet to come across vehicle for Arianna; this will be dead in six anybody who’s ever heard of it. Look at the months. She launched it last May and they’re number of visits it got that day; 457,000 visits not laughing now; that’s the sort of charter; in one day. I haven’t gone back and checked the growth of this site. The Guardian, I’m what Overheard in the UK was writing about happy to say, is still beating the Huffington that day; it may have been some scurrilous Post but then The Guardian has a really piece of gossip about premier division excellent website. Huffington Post is beginning footballers, I don’t know but some of these to gain on the Wall Street Journal. There’s a people are getting a very large number of hits. paper, the Philadelphia Enquirer, you know Some of it is entirely a minority interest with until recently people would have said that’s unhappy people sitting alone in their bedrooms was a considerable paper, it’s been around and nobody paying any attention and some of since 1829 – the Huffington Post has these people are getting huge audiences by this overtaken that in the space of 10 months. process of aggregation and linking and people There’s the New Republic, been around since saying there’s something really interesting 1914, and there’s the Huffington Post and it’s going in here and they all rush over there. left it for dead. This is if you want up-to-the- You’ve got papers like the Times who are minute comment; if you want to tap into the vein of what liberal America is thinking, so
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you don’t want to wait for your next copy of audience of the New York Times is getting old the New Republic to arrive, you just want to and the younger people are saying well see what people are talking about today, that’s actually I don’t want the New York Times, I what you want. There’s the Nation, been can’t be bothered with all that stuff. That is around since 1865 – in 10 months the why we have launched a site this week called Huffington Post has absolutely left it for dead. “Comment is Free” and this is our space Mother Jones, the most outstanding liberal where we will get hundreds of people who magazine in America, nowhere in sight; the want to come in, so down the left there’s a New Yorker, nowhere in sight. They’re not space where the most up to date stuff comes laughing at Arianna Huffington now, they’re in down here. In the middle, sorry I’ll take saying actually that’s really interesting. Arianna you to this, PowerPoint is a very bad way of Huffington pays nobody. If you come onto her showing a whole screen, but I’ll scroll down site and blog, you do it for no money and the for you in the middle, that’s the comment reason is, some of it is a bit repetitive because from the paper and in the middle is the kind it’s a cloying snapshot of liberal America but of editor’s picks so if you just want to look at occasionally there are little bits of grist in the the best pieces in the editor’s opinion, mill and unexpected voices pop up so on the they’re there and then everyone else is day that the Chairman of the Fed stood down, coming in here. If you want to go by there was J K Galbraith, suddenly popped out contributors, you can pick out any 150 words, that’s interesting and who would contributors – they’ve all got their own have thought that and so on and so forth; each homepage so we’ve given each of them a day these unexpected voices turn up. Now blog, that’s the subject matter; there’s the comparing it with the New York Times, that’s editor’s blog, we’ve got a picture blog and so the New York Times traffic and Arianna would on and so forth. Again, most of these people be down there somewhere but that’s the New are not being paid; some of them are, it’s not York Times, the bit that’s open. The comment quite as simple running a newspaper as pages they decided to put behind a firewall and running a start-up website. You can’t charge people $49 to come in and they’ve got suddenly say to Polly Toynbee or Simon something like 400,000 people, it’s a misleading Jenkins, sorry we’re not going to pay you figure because many of those are people who anymore; these people are being paid and get access because they take subscription to occasionally when we commission a piece, we the paper so the people who are actually pay a modest sum but most people are just coming in and saying I will pay for the New York coming into this space because this is a Times columnists is probably about 250,000 wonderful platform for argument and and they’re paying $49, so it’s not an engagement and so on and so forth. Now inconsiderable sum – it’s making them around again, we’re the only newspaper to do this so $10 million a year but if you can just cast your far because I think most newspapers are mind back to the wonderful Renzo Piano sitting there feeling very threatened by this building that is waiting for them, it’s not going and saying well we don’t want to invite them to pay the gas bill on that. An interesting thing in because this is to undersell our unique is happening to the audience here because selling point which is that we’re the experts there’s not only a massive gap between the around here so we don’t want to get free bit of the New York Times and the involved with this. It’s very threatening if expensive bit of the New York Times; there’s you’re a paid commentator, and some of also a huge age gap. The younger readers just them are very highly paid, and all these say well I’m not interested in Thomas people come in and do it for free and it’s a Friedman and Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich level playing field, it’s a completely new and Paul Krugman, I’ll get my opinions from the market in which your opinions sit next door internet and sorry that last sentence got to their opinions and it’s very measurable so chopped in half, but this is Hitwise, who you can see actually, here’s this free person measure what people are doing and so the who has got 450 clicks in an hour and there
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are you and nobody is clicking on your article; because he would probably pod cast all the it’s very measurable. It’s very exposing to the dirty bits for the News of the World and old traditional model of a newspaper but again defy you to regulate it so it’s a very confusing you have a choice; you can either say, we don’t territory that we’re getting into. believe in this, we’re going to keep it at bay, or Where’s the revenue? This is my you can say we have to play in this. favourite quote from the book about Google: Just a couple of other things that again I “They had no revenue model till 2001” so don’t think newspapers would have done until they were building this site and it’s now very recently. There’s Ricky Gervais, walks worth, depending on the day of the week, through the front door in the Autumn and says anything between 40 and 80 billion dollars I wouldn’t mind doing a radio show, how about but they had no idea where the revenue was I do it with The Guardian. I said to the Scott going to come from. Trust the other day, if 10 years ago I had come Just to wrap up because there’s the to the Scott Trust and said hey, I’ve got a great big question that we start with: Where does idea, why don’t we go into the comedy audio this leave a newspaper? I’ve given you some business, I don’t think I’d have got the job. hints about what we’re doing. The Gervais does this, we podcast it and 2.9 million interesting thing about all this aggregation on pod casts later, during which time Gervais was the West Coast at the moment is the penny I top of the iTunes list in the World for pod think has dropped with these teenagers and casts for the entire time that he was doing it these 27 years olds that actually what for us. He stopped and he went straight into newspapers do is interesting. Most of the the Guinness Book of Records as the most content they’re aggregating comes from pod cast person in history. Should a newspapers because we still do know things, newspaper do that? Our readers seem to we still do work quickly and more or less think so; they seem to be saying, we’ve got no accurately and we provide context and so on problem with The Guardian being a radio and so forth. A lot of this content that is station doing audio but I don’t think it would being aggregated is newspaper content and have occurred to many journalists inside the that’s why it seems to me rather mad to be building that this is something that The sacking journalists at this particular time Guardian should be doing and then because we need them to produce this simultaneously from the other extreme, you’ve content although we may have to sack some. got John Snow saying, why does Channel 4 Then there’s the bigger question about News have to be a TV station, Channel 4 where does a newspaper sit in society News could be a radio station. This because if they can’t afford to report; if the convergence of people we’ve been speaking economic basis has been taken away, the about for years is happening. You’ve got The advertising has been taken away, if great Guardian dipping its toe in the water into being bleeding chunks of what they do editorially a radio station and you’ve got Channel 4 News and in terms of advertising are being taken trying to be a radio station and all this is very away from newspapers; if people are puzzling. I had lunch with Christopher Mayer, following their own fragmented world and Chairman of the PCC, who said who’s going to saying I just want to know about stuff that I regulate all this stuff because he doesn’t want know about; I only want to talk to people OFCOM coming in to start regulating who are like me; I only want to talk to people newspapers. I said, do you feel qualified to who think like me and are interested like me; regulate Ricky Gervais and a panic spread on I don’t want to be challenged on a broad his face, I said are you going to regulate him for range of fronts like a newspaper does; I don’t accuracy, taste, decency and he said maybe this believe in the authority of the newspaper should be the only unregulated space in Britain. then newspapers are in trouble. You are I said Andy Coulson, the Editor of the News of probably more qualified than me to say the World, would probably love to hear that whether that matters; I honestly think it
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matters but I think there is a question about I will stop there and see whether that what used to be taken for granted. It used to sparks any thoughts or questions. be taken for granted that for a society to work Paul Crake: Thank you very much well, citizens had to be informed, they had to Alan for an inspiring run around of the be pretty well informed across a broad area of horizon in a world that looks, I guess, quite subjects and that actually politicians, for all that scary to most journalists. We have about they despair of newspapers, sometimes would 25 minutes for questions or comments. The find countries very difficult to govern unless rule is very simple, when the roving mike gets you had a sufficiently informed citizenship. to you, can you tell us your name and also There used to be a link between reading a any affiliation you think we ought to know newspaper and being a proper citizen and then about and could you keep things as short as there are all the other things a newspaper does possible. Who’d like to start us off? Right at in terms of challenging; standing outside the very back please. government and not being part of the mechanisms of state and for that you only have Anita Bennett: Thank you very to think back to the Iraq War. I had a very much for that very interesting talk. I think interesting dinner last year on Chatham House the notion of trust as a conduit to individuals Rules with some very, very distinguished like myself who don’t sit in their bedrooms people who represented the Law, the reading, looking, tapping all day long must be, Intelligence Services, the Judiciary, Parliament for me, an important guide and as you the and the Military. They were discussing Gilligan guardian of a brand, it must be something and Hutton and all that kind of stuff and one by that you must observe and feel an important one they all went round the table and said we guide to lead you to decide which route all failed, all the bits of the State that we were you’re going to take for information but the supposed to represent didn’t work. They said, speed is so rapid. How do you maintain the not me, they said the only bit that worked was level of trust as a brand? It seems to me that newspapers, Newspapers and broadcasting you as a newspaper do that very well by organisations actually got stuff out for debate comparison but I’d be interested to know that other people wanted hidden and that was how you do it. a valuable thing to have done. We’re having a Alan Rusbridger: It is something debate at the moment about Baghdad; it’s so that we thought a lot about and helped shape dangerous; it’s so expensive to be there and by this paper that you did see behind me. It’s the way there are not many bloggers one of the reasons that we didn’t want to go volunteering to go and set up in Baghdad City tabloid because it struck me that if you go at the moment. Jonathan Steele, who’s 67 and tabloid, tabloids do something very well; should be retired but he won’t step down, said they’re very punchy, they shout, they simplify I want to go back to Baghdad, it terrifies me, I and it struck me that somebody in this hate it but what happens if the journalists pull country ought to be saying that actually it’s out of Baghdad, where will the information complicated, we don’t need to shout, let’s try come from then; there’s a duty that we have to and be a little quieter and it is about the issue go in and report. I will never lose sight of the of trust because I think people who shout importance of what I believe newspapers and over-simplify in the end aren’t trusted should be doing as their role in society; in a and so that’s why we went for the format way it’s the most exciting time to be in that we did. We shankle our headlines and newspapers, it’s the most revolutionary time we became a quieter paper and we thought since Guttenberg and Caxton. Everything is quite deeply about separation of viewers being challenged but it’s also frightening from comment – you ought to know what because many of the things that we took for you’re reading; is this news or is it comment? granted are being challenged. If you read some newspapers today, there’s a mingling of news and comment because some
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newspapers react to this and say actually we me sitting with these two young guys from can’t keep up with this, we can’t keep up with Digg last week who are already in profit. the speed of this so therefore we won’t try There’s The Guardian losing many millions of and do it, we will give people comment pounds at the moment along with nearly all because that’s what they want. I think the next newspapers; we’re all losing shed loads of thing behind your question is discretion of money except for the Daily Telegraph which speed and this is one we’re still grappling with. has problems of its own, and there were If people no longer want to wait 24 hours; why these 27 year old kids selling advertising into should I wait till breakfast time tomorrow for Guardian content and in profit. One instinct you to tell me something that you know now is to say, hold on a minute, this doesn’t seem and can tell me now. How do you structure a quite right, we’re going to put up a wall that newsroom so that you can provide in effect will stop you digging our stories but actually rolling news and how do you do that alongside they are driving traffic back to The Guardian the things that people traditionally bought site so the more of a wall you put round, papers like The Guardian for? Traditionally, you whether it’s a wall of payment or a wall of give your reporters a few hours to think, to registration, the more you’re repelling people write, to make phone calls, to check in the rather than building an audience for the day expectation that they would write something that we hope advertising will come in like the that was better than if they’d pumped it out in cavalry and rescue us. I think at the moment 10 minutes. If you’ve got an audience saying, I the smarter thing to do is to make your want it now, there are a number of ways you content available everywhere and have it can go, I’ll do it now and I’ll give to you in a aggregated and linked to like mad by different form but that may require two people everybody in the World because that way instead of one person so you’re then adding to you will reach a gigantic audience and that your costs at a time when your revenues are matters journalistically. If you’re in the declining. These are very, very tricky problems business of journalism for influence and to grapple with and to make sense of in an because there’s a Guardian world view that economic way and there are some bits that I you believe in, it’s terrific to have an audience can’t pretend we’ve begun to get. Any editor of 14 million instead of 400,000, that’s who sat here and told you that he or she had wonderful so why would you want to turn cracked it would be lying; you should not them away. Again, there are some believe them. newspapers who don’t believe that and erect Phil Harding (Director of News at the barriers and say, push off we don’t want you BBC World Service): You’ve got all these to aggregate our content. aggregators who are now lifting your content Michael Leapman (Fellow of the and putting it up and putting it on their sites Society and Journalist): I was interested in that and at the same time you’ve got internet sites very first, as you said, rather badly drawn that are disaggregating the advertising market graph that you showed showing newspaper and taking your advertising away from you. circulations going down on a very steady How long before you start saying to the decline. If that happens forever, they will aggregators, hang on a minute, I’m not really eventually vanish to nought. You did say that happy for you to start lifting my content and you value newspapers, I think they have an putting it up on your site and could you do important role to play. Do you think there is anything about it if you wanted to? a moment at which they will plateau and Alan Rusbridger: The answer is yes, there will always be some people, even after you can and I think I’m right and Emily will our generation has gone, that there will still shake her head if I’m wrong. I think you can be some people who read newspapers or will stop any crawler crawling over your site and eventually, and when will newspapers say push off we don’t want you to take our disappear altogether and be replaced by the content. I must admit this thought occurred to internet.
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Alan Rusbridger: I mean the honest is Free which is an intriguing experiment. answer is I don’t know and nobody knows. My Two things; you pointed out that you’re guess is that somebody, I think they have essentially aggregating, giving people their already invented this, so that there will be a own blog and so on, now clearly writers like portable sheet of paper that will be plastic with George Monbiot have quite active blogs electronic ink which is refreshable that you can already and blogging technology as we’ve read in sunlight and maybe in the bath and will seen is very cheap and easy to get hold of and be completely up to date and if you had that, I so on. Now within Comment is Free you do think although some people would still hanker have the best of the web element where you for the texture of paper, actually that’s better link out to external blogs which are rated by than a newspaper or maybe Michael, I’ll buy doing that. In the end, you’re not actually you a printer and we’ll send you the paper putting those things at the same level as Polly overnight and you can print it yourself because Toynbee or Simon Jenkins or whoever and I we don’t want the £80 million cost of printing wonder why that is. If you really want to and trundling vans through the night and incorporate what’s out on the web, you wholesalers and shops and little boys being could syndicate it back into the site and if prodded out of bed to deliver your paper. If that model were what you wanted to do you want to print it and read it on paper, I’ll ultimately then any site could really be buy you a printer and you can take out a Comment is Free because ultimately all subscription to my site. The under stance is I serious writers will have their own web blogs don’t know and it’s completely out of my and they will probably post for free. In a hands so I can’t lose any sleep worrying about sense I think it’s a very brave experiment but it because the technology or readers’ habits you’re disaggregating yourself in a way. The will dictate it. There may be a price, a last thing is, I’m interested in the fact that in newspaper might cost £2.50 and people who Comment is Free you have made writers or really want to buy it in its bespoke old columnists the way into the newspaper and fashioned form will pay £2.50 and the rest will clearly personality is becoming more and get it for free on the internet, I don’t know. more important in print or in editorial but Nico McDonald: I would remind you you haven’t made them the way into Alan, probably slightly before your time, The Comments so if I want to find all the Guardian was printed on Tyvec. You did it, comments by Emily Bell on Comment is Free, sorry I didn’t want to curse your first that’s actually very difficult to do and actually groundbreaking initiative. I think the the comments on what people write are relationship between print and online is very often what people are interested in. What’s interesting and the examples you have given in your view on making the commentators on response to that question are very useful. I am the Comment is Free writers the way? wary about counter-opposing them, I think the Sorry, it’s a bit of a complex question but really interesting thing is how you tie print and there is an important idea in there. online together and clearly The Guardian’s done Alan Rusbridger: The short answer that to some extent by having best of the web is that it is only two days old and we built it elements in the paper and summarising stuff in about six weeks and I don’t think any other from Comment is Free back into print. I think newspaper has done this so we’re making this it’s a very interesting challenge about how you up as we’re going along. Some of these allow people to move from one to the other things, I don’t think that you should imagine so if I read an interesting thing in the paper in that there’s been a vast editorial thinking the morning, how do I send it to my friend, process and that all this is set in stone. Anne, here for instance and that is a challenge We’re literally putting a toe in the water and that hasn’t really been addressed by any it’s going to be a very iterative process and newspapers or publications I’ve seen. I just lots of people are writing in saying fantastic, wanted to ask you something about Comment you got it right. One or two people are
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saying the kind of comments that you’re doing there’s an interesting link here; it can’t be so to say it could be better or you could do accidental. I think that the fall in newspapers this differently. I think actually you can, luckily is happening at the same time as a fall in the site editor is here. voting and I think probably you’ve got young Emily Bell, Guardian Unlimited: people looking at the way that politics is Yes, I agree there are some clunky things done and let’s just limit this to Britain and about it but as Alan says it’s actually quite saying actually, here are my interests, here complex to knit all that amount of technology are the things that concern me that don’t together at once. You can look at the most seem to be reflected in the political active posts with the most comments on them discussion or the political parties or under and read by comment. What I would like the present voting system and so I switch off. eventually is the site, not just Comment is You get 44% of people under the age of 25 Free, but the whole of The Guardian to be read voting last time round as against 88% of through whichever prism you choose to put on people 40 years ago – it’s a huge fall-off. That it so you could read it through the prism of must be linked with people saying if I can’t be comments; you could read it through the prism interested in the way that politics are done of what is the most read article; you could and political society, why should I read about read it through the prism of what is the most it; there’s no point in reading about it highly rated article but we’re in an industrial because I can’t do anything about it any way. revolution phase and we built spinning jennies These are very big questions and I don’t along time ago and we’re very pleased with know where it’s all leading. ourselves that we’re still only making a pair of Paul Crake: If I can abuse my trousers a week; we’re slightly locked into position there for a bit, there seem to me to that, we’re trying to change it at the moment I be a whole bunch of issues around the think with lots of other publishers and you’ve changing nature of social interaction and got people producing boxes of Levis in their discourse so we’re seeing increasingly things bedrooms through a laptop and actually we’ve like reality television becoming more and got to transfer all of our content into that kind more important and factual based television of system. Actually being first does have some becoming less important and your own disadvantages now when you actually want to newspaper, over a masthead recently you had be much fleeter with technology but I think in a little advertising banner saying Cherie and the next year to 18 months you’ll see some Me – the True Story – Carole Caplin speaks. really significant changes of how things are Even in The Guardian, in the serious journalist published and your comments are noted. world, we’re getting into personality driven Philip Goldenberg (RSA Trustee): It’s media as opposed to what we might think of a complex observation that society’s atomising as hard news that is about empowering the institution and losing their force, the citizens so surely The Guardian must take families no longer have meals together etc. It some responsibility for, if not leading that may be a chicken and egg question, it may not charge, then contributing to it. be. Which is the driver? Is it societal change Alan Rusbridger: There’s no demanding technological change or is newspaper on earth except possibly the technological change driving society? Frankfurter Allgemeine and that’s a very Alan Rusbridger: I think the honest serious audience of Germans but there’s no answer again is I don’t know. It is atomising newspaper audience on earth that can and I think it’s interesting that some of these completely detach itself from the pre- solutions are about de-atomising; it is about occupations of society so if there are lots of drawing people together and the size of those people who want to know the relationship communities and the nature of them, I think between Carole Caplin and the Blairs, which I we’ve no idea where that will end up. I think think is actually quite an interesting one and maybe non-trivial, you can’t completely seal
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yourself off and just say we’re going to do touching on which single out the strengths of social policy and international politics; you journalism; one goes back to Raymond would have a very small readership. It Williams in the sixties in his book wouldn’t work and you would become slightly “Communication” when he was comparing irrelevant to the national debate so all the television and the newspaper and of newspapers become a mix of stuff that is course the newspaper you can do much important and less important. You pitch more serendipitously – I think that was your yourself on that spectrum somewhere and say word – I can suddenly see an article on the we are relatively serious and this is a broad other side of the other page that makes a link range of our concerns, we won’t behave badly, which I can’t do on the screen so there is a we won’t intrude into people’s privacy like kind of actual real thing about a newspaper. some other papers but we are writing about Secondly, journalists actually do double and in society as it is. Michael was on the Times I some cases treble-check what they’re writing think when the famous letter was delivered to so normally I can trust them whereas a blog William Rees-Mogg saying that he shouldn’t I’ve no idea whether it’s right, wrong or until carry stories about the Beatles in the paper. I go there and find that restaurant doesn’t It’s difficult to think of William Rees-Mogg as exist. being in the vanguard of modernity but he was. Alan Rusbridger: I completely We have the same choice, do we write about, agree. As I said at the beginning and the end, I’m searching for a contemporary … somebody I’ve approached this from believing in give me a contemporary reference of desk cad journalism and believing in the value of cuties that went bad at the moment because journalism and there is a lot of value and that’s what millions of teenagers are interested credibility in what the best of us do at our in or do we say, actually we’re only going to best; it doesn’t go for all of us. I think that is write about the concert at the Wigmore Hall why, as I said, the penny is dropping amongst last night. Do you write about the World as these young aggregators that the stuff that you want it to be or as reporters on society people are aggregating, a lot of it is coming and Carole Caplin is part of the interesting from journalists. I couldn’t agree more about national story that we wouldn’t go in search of the value of journalists but simultaneously I that kind of information as original subjects. can’t think of a time in history when Robert Gifford: I should say by way journalists have had to, almost before they of introduction that on Tuesday of last week I wake up in the morning and go to work, the was quoted on the front page of The Guardian first thing they have to do is to try and in the top story and it got more hits to our persuade people of what you’ve just said. website in one day than we normally get in a You know they have to persuade people of month so the trade goes both ways. the value of reading newspapers because Alan Rusbridger: Were you there’s so much competition from so much accurately quoted? else and we make much less noise than a lot of the other things. Some of these things are Robert Gifford: I was actually … I pendulum swings and it may be that the wasn’t going to complain about that at all. pendulum has swung away and is beginning to Alan Rusbridger: You were just swing back to the content if not the form. bracing yourself there were you? Robert Hazel (Constitution Unit at Robert Gifford: It was going to be my UCL): A short question if I might about 15 minutes or more of fame. politics. You have described very graphically the threat to newspapers from the new Alan Rusbridger: I thought there was media and how newspapers are adapting in going to be a complaint. response. Can you say a little bit about how Robert Gifford: I was going to ask politicians are changing? In particular, in the about two things that seem to me you were ways that they engage with newspapers.
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Have the terms of trade altered as a result of reasonable reservations that you’ve just what’s been described? mentioned. John ?: (Fellow of the Society): In these On continuity of editorship, I’d days it’s very unusual for a football manager or thoroughly approve of it. C P Scott was a cabinet minister or a national newspaper editor for 57 years; I don’t think anybody’s editor to stay in post for more than a few going to beat that; he started when he was 25 years. I wonder, I hope you won’t be too and stopped when he was 82. Peter Preston embarrassed to say what you feel the and Alastair Hetherington did 20 years each significance of having continuity of editorship and I think clearly you can go stale, you can has been for The Guardian over the last decade? go mad, many editors do. I hope that hasn’t Nico Heller: Guardian readers I think happened to me yet but there is something is a fairly stable audience; I have been reading to be said I think in terms of having a run at a The Guardian for many years and interestingly job and also in terms of building a culture. my information consumption habits haven’t There’s a very strong culture about The changed that much say in the last five years. I Guardian; everybody on The Guardian knows think the same would go for many of my what kind of paper it is and should be for friends who would also read The Guardian. I better or worse and that’s not true of think their internet habits haven’t changed that newspapers where you change editors every much either but circulation tends to drop and five minutes because you just have to begin yes we do read less of The Guardian and yes I again. What you gain in freshness, I think you do think there’s a certain disillusionment with quite often lose in just certainty and culture the mainstream media and increasing distrust, and joint conviction about what the probably as much distrust as there is towards newspaper is that you’re producing and we politicians in this country. Then there’s this can all think of recent examples of that. phenomena of other websites abroad, I would On Robert’s question about keep an eye of Ultrasaurus for instance and I’m politicians. I’m not sure the terms of sure a lot of other people do it as well so engagement with newspapers is changing, but there’s the possibility to double-check, as you at the margins there are all kinds of small said yourself. In the media, which is really a things and New Labour is different from the much more politicised media response to self- last government. I think that politicians, you publishing. How does The Guardian deal with can see it with David Putnam’s report; you this kind of substantive threats? Threats that can see it with Helena Kennedy’s report; have to do with form, run your own blog, but there’s a lot of serious thinking going into quality improvements that would basically stop their process of communication which are the drops in circulation and would put the beyond newspapers and it’s just amazing to Guardian back on that footing. me that they’re taking so long and that Alan Rusbridger: I’ll try and do those there’s so much resistance particularly in in reverse order. The Guardian audience is Westminster politics. It’s almost as though exploding, it’s not shrinking. There are they’re unaware of this extraordinary change marginally fewer people buying the paper that’s going on or are like newspapers and although many more than when we were in a are terrified by it and want to hold it at bay. broadsheet but my chart at the beginning It must change and the Putnam report and indicated the story of all papers; that they are the Kennedy report – there’s lots of all declining. That doesn’t worry me if I’m blueprints for Harwich to change but reaching 14 million people a month around the something is stopping the collective World. The Guardian is bigger than the LA Westminster Village from embracing it. I’m Times in America now. I’m not pessimistic afraid it probably has something to do with about the size of the audience and they’re New Labour and their attitude to news coming to us despite all the perfectly management I think.
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Paul Crake: Okay, I’m afraid we’ve now run out of time. That isn’t the end of your opportunity though to engage with Alan. The RSA’s bar down in the Vaults is now open through the door to my right, all the way down both sets of staircases; please do come and continue the conversation informally. All that remains for me to do is, on behalf of the RSA, to thank Alan for a fantastic tour de raison of the newspaper world and the extraordinary changes that you’re all facing now and I think on behalf of the audience I can safely say that you have shown no signs of being either stale or mad. On behalf of the RSA, thank you very much indeed.
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