Are we missing a passion for news?
By Andrew Grant-Adamson • Jan 20th, 2009 • Category: Journalism, NewspapersOnce businesses used to express their commitment to their products with advertising lines like, “A Passion for Chocolate”. Then as businesses became increasingly diversified you would hear directors who had grown up in companies that had a range of related products pleading, “We need to stick to the knitting.”
Whatever we think about proprietors like Rupert Murdoch and Lord Beverbrook passion for newspapers has marked their approach. The same could be said of the first Lord Northcliffe.
That is why I worry about a quote in the Financial Times today from Peter Williams, the Daily Mail and General Trust’s finance director:
From our point of view [the Standard approach] is simply a commercial transaction, equally as if we had a loss-making B2B business.
That is the way we think of it. We went through the emotional stuff with the Northcliffe decision, I think.
The last line refers to the failed offer to sell the regional newspapers which was withdrawn because no bids of a sufficient price were forthcoming.
Andrew Grant-Adamson is Andrew Grant-Adamson is a journalist who now teaches a new generation of writers, subs and editors at the University of Westminster.
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Yes its amazing that digital world has taken over the market. Just like the selling of alarm watches has gone down drastically after the robust use of cell phones.