In January 2010 Guido gave a presentation at Microsoft’s HQ to the Online Journalism Association, the thesis was that newspapers as we know them will die and journalism would thrive. Guido’s pitch was that the old deadline based “news cycle” is being replaced by “news streams” and that newspapers as we know them will be replaced by “news brands”.
Today the industry trade body for the dead tree press, the Newspaper Marketing Association, accepted the thesis and announced it is renaming itself “Newsworks”, dropping dead entirely the word “newspaper”. CEO Rufus Olins says “We need to start thinking differently… It’s all about newsbrands, about delivering content through a range of platforms.” Guido thinks we can only measure the strength of news brands in terms of their mindshare. The broadsheets – Guardian, Times, Indy – all lose money and are more akin to vanity publishing than profit motivated businesses. It is about who they reach and how much they influence their consumers.
As the news industry and more importantly – from a financial perspective – the advertising industry comes to realise that online and print consumers are fungible, reality starts to hit home. In under a decade this blog has become as strong a news brand in our field in terms of readership and mindshare as the New Statesman, hell we’re part way through a reverse-takeover of The Spectator. The great thing for consumers is that because of low barriers to entry, we have an ever more competitive, pluralist, thriving free market in news. Without slaughtering trees…
Analysis of "Acropolis Now!" in the 50p #DailyStarSunday, No. 11s Big Mac growth strategy, we reveal Jeremy Hunt's new SpAd plus lots more
— Guido Fawkes (@GuidoFawkes) May 20, 2012
With the sudden, and possibly unwilling, departure of Cabinet Office Permanent Secretary Ian Watmore, the job has been given temporarily to Melanie Dawes. AKA “her in doors” to one Ben Brogan…
The switch-over makes today’s column by the Telegraph’s Deputy Editor about Steve Hilton versus the civil service all the more interesting:
“Without Mr Hilton, how much will survive? His [Dave’s] proposed public sector reforms, let alone his ideas for slashing the Civil Service, are likely to stall..”
Slashing the civil service doesn’t look to be stalling this afternoon…
Private Eye Guido Fawkes
Sir, I wonder if any of your readers have noticed the striking resemblance between this week’s front cover and our own site four day ago. Could they by any chance be related?
https://twitter.com/#!/GuidoFawkes/status/201641260287664128
Miliband probably had his best Commons outing yet this afternoon. When Guido asked his team what what they fed him today the reply was “Tories on toast.” There was a touch of a young William Hague in the balance of well-timed comedy and attack…
Ed (or his speechwriters) have clearly been reading the Daily Star Sunday – his Boris gag was lifted straight from it:
NOTICEABLY, the Prime Minister did not pop in to the party to congratulate the only Tory success of the elections. Just as well, since Boris, when he finally arrived, thanked supporters who, he joked, beat “the rain, the BBC, that Budget and the endorsement of David Cameron”.
If you missed that, and the rest of Guido’s Sunday column, then you can read it online here.
