Newspapers need to walk the talk

On the day the Australian government announced its package of measures to defend the economy from the Global Financial Crisis, the splash in the Sydney Morning Herald read: Spend til we mend.

“Excellent,” I said to my then-editor the next day. “Is that the approach we as a newspaper company are taking?”There was much laughter around the news desk, because of course, while we could talk the talk on the news pages, as the fourth estate we reserve ultimately our right to live by the maxim “Do as we say, don’t do as we do”.

Governments around the world announced their investment packages to see their countries through the storms, aware that it was a risk, hopeful it would work, knowing that there was no guarantee.

It got me thinking about the example our world leaders have set for newspaper and media company executives. Have we now entered a new era where it is acceptable to consider the idea of spending in lean times and taking risks? And if so, how long will it take for newspaper companies to cotton on and get with the new program?

Because let’s face it, as an industry, we prefer incremental adjustments and “evolutionary” change. I’ve always been astonished at the idea of evolution as the preferred method for adjusting to the lightning fast digital revolution – do it’s proponents understand that evolution takes tens of thousands of years is based on “survival of the fittest”? And that itself begs the questions – can we wait that long? And what if we’re part of the chain that dies off?

It highlights our misuse of language. For a business based on a bunch of wordsmiths, newspapers and newspaper people sure as hell can get their definitions mixed up while blindly believing we speak the ultimate truth.

Maybe it’s our determination to have headlines on our pages that don’t repeat key words that make us shorthand important ideas, even in the language that we use in running our businesses.

Here are some common words whose definitions are often confused:

We talk about strategies as newspaper companies, when we really mean our plans.

We talk about innovation, when we really mean creativity.

We talk about communication when what we really mean is lecturing or being the ones that everyone else listens to.

We talk about protecting our independence, when we are really protecting our egos.

At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old sub editor, the subtlety of definition between words IS important, especially in newspapers where language is sacrosanct.

Newspaper companies currently need broad-reaching strategies that support strong visions to reposition themselves – both editorially and commercially – in the digital world. This is hard work, takes a Herculean effort to conceptualise, and a willingness to get a few things wrong, while defending strong investment to the market. Our reality still sadly only translates into short-term plans that focus on the next quarter’s result which can hopefully be shored up by reducing book sizes, cutting another round of staff and offering sales teams new incentives to flog the same old products.

Editorially we are just as bad. We tell ourselves we are totally innovative, while overseeing another page redesign and twiddling with the promotional boxes or layout, while real business growth opportunities languish for want of editorial love, because journalists don’t talk to advertisers (we just interview business operators and experts – there’s no way we’d incorporate their expertise into our business – that would offend our independence.)

And we talk about our communication skills proudly, while our letters to the editor, blogs, subscriber dialogue, reader feedback, and advertising satisfaction are all handled by totally separate silos, and we thunder our learned opinions from the Editorial pulpit.

There is a common theme running through all these verbal misuses; as an industry, we are claiming to be on top of it all, to have our eyes on the big picture. In reality, we have our fingers in our ears and are shouting “la, la, la”.

The devastating headlines internationally about the failures of newspaper companies – putting staff on unpaid leave, additional layoffs, sales to former KGB agents and share price plummets, show no one is fooled.

If we are not clear in the language that we use to communicate what we do and how we do it - and how we relate to each other and our advertisers, readers and staff and where we are headed - then confusion and cynicism reigns.

This ensures your integrity goes off kilter and before you know it, you’re running a newspaper that cannot be trusted – not because of that quality of your journalism, but because of the quality of your own internal messaging and the spin we’re believing about ourselves.

We wouldn’t tolerate it from the industries and bureaucracies we report on.

Good grammar and language use, and strong communication should not just be something reserved for the front page – it is integral to our brands and our businesses.