not repetitive. Going forward we are
diversifying the business and investing
more on our digital platforms such as
Afrilyfe.
Looking yonder I encountered one
Edward Roussel, the digital editor of the
Telegraph Media Group, instrumental in
restructuring the Telegraph’s newsroom
in an article he wrote where he gave ten
ways for newspapers to leverage digital. I
summarised them into four.
Firstly, is to narrow the focus and go deep,
not wide. This is a lesson that newspapers
can learn from magazines which have
always been specialised in nature. Focus
on a few topics and editorial content that
is unavailable elsewhere but highly valued
by readers and do them well. Add value by
looking at the news from several angles.
This might also be useful for television.
Kenyan TV tries to please all children,
teens and their older guardians. This
means that one has to wait, for say business
news later in the day as the morning has
children’s programs and afternoon teens.
The launch of KTN news may be the way
to go where stations have specific stations
for specific audiences. This is what DSTV
offers.
Secondly, curate content from various
sources by linking the reader to networks
that cover areas the paper may not have
expertise. Journalists will, therefore, act
as filters selling this expertise, not just
content. Just like most curators working
for museums and art galleries are not
necessarily artists. They understand their
customers and have an eye for the best.
Third, enhance the experience by engaging
with the readers. The explosion of blogging
and social media websites has created a
culture in which consumers of news expect
to be included. Create a functionality that
encourages readers to share eyewitness
accounts of breaking news, rate services
such as restaurants and hotels, and get into
discussions and debates. Lastly is cutting
costs by collaborating and outsourcing.
When I watch the Ministry of Health
updates, there are so many journalists
from different media houses. Outsourcing
such events may be the way to go. Also,
each media house may not need to have a
journalist in each county, hoping to scoop
a story. Printing is another huge cost and
the investment in modern presses takes
time to pay off. But what if they could
sell or lease this presses to printers who
can utilize them fully instead of for a few
hours each day? The advantage of having a
unique headline as a result of a scoop are
long gone, most print headlines are old
news today. And they are almost always
the same anyway!
He pointed out that this will not be easy
but change calls for flexibility. Newspapers
have been around for long. Journalists
have spent a lifetime working around the
going to ‘press deadline.’ They may find
it difficult to switch to the continuous
reporting demanded by web audiences.
Njoki Chege, too, spoke on the need for
‘the media to be more flexible and change
their perceptions and fix their rigidity and
post covid the media must leave room
for fresh ideas, have the patience for new
challenges and the courage for higher risk
appetite.’
The issue of fake news was also discussed,
bringing out one of the advantages
of traditional media - trust. Given
the editorial policies that guide news
reporting traditional media has strong
guidelines around authenticating their
content. This is a massive advantage over
start-up news operations: They are trusted
brands at a time when the proliferation of
news sources has made trust a premium
for readers and advertisers alike. That is an
excellent springboard for success but time
is running out.
The challenge of getting people to pay
for online content also came during
the webinar. One barrier to this is the
perception that the media houses are
wealthy and should give online content for
free. The other is that there is a lot of free
content on the Internet. My take is that
three things determine the willingness
of people to pay for content: First, the
content must be unique and delivered
excitingly; Second is the experience:
it must be easy to use; Thirdly, is the
customer service, mainly when problems
occur. They must be resolved quickly.
One of the newspapers recently ran a
promotion giving free e-newspapers. A
friend and I tried in vain to subscribe, and
our patience ran out and so did the free
trial period. If they get the above right
and charge a reasonable fee I think it can
work. This is not unique to Kenya though,
writing in the Winter 2006 issue of Nieman
Reports, Picard wrote ‘in the decade and a
half since the Internet emerged as a viable
medium, and the decade since mobile
communications became practicable,
questions of how content providers can
effectively earn money from either have
remained prominent. The lack of truly
effective revenue models to support the
gathering and distribution of news has led
many to argue that providing this serves
other purposes, especially in creating
interactions that strengthen the brand
and form and maintain relationships that
bond users of various platforms to news
organization’.
However since then a number of traditional
media and in particular newspapers and
magazine have found a viable model and
Kenya can learn from them. Invaluable
lessons can also come from the likes of
Netflix and Amazon (Amazon books).
Netflix, is particularly relevant here. They
offer affordable, quality content, and their
use of Artificial Intelligence makes things
easy to anticipate and satisfy customer
needs. No wonder, according to BBC, their
new subscriptions jumped 26 M compared
to 28M the whole of 2019 with revenue
growing by 25%. Though the numbers of
Kenyans on Netflix, Spotify, and Amazon
may be few, it still goes to illustrate that
they can and do pay for content.
One of the areas newspapers and even
television can explore is curating their past
articles and availing them at a nominal fee
on digital. For example if I wanted to read
all the articles written by Macharia Gaitho
for Daily Nation, and I am prepared to
pay for them can I? That’s the model for
Netflix curate content. But to exploit such
opportunities traditional media has to put
all ducks in a row, especially putting the
customer at the heart of the media.
I end on an encouraging note, as told by
William Kisang, writing in The Daily
Nation recently; ‘on a positive note, while
the media environment may, at present,
look bleak, all is not lost for it as we
see in the West and elsewhere, where
big newspapers that embraced digital
journalism early on are thriving. They
include the New York Times, which, as
other newspapers shed staff over recent
years, has been on a hiring spree.’
The lessons mentioned above should help
us avoid living out the quote “the Earth
will go on but some dinosaurs will die’ for
we need all forms of media for the unique
role they each paly in our society. It still
has a place in this digital age.
Robert Wamai is a trainer and
advertising consultant, a passionate
consumer advocate and believer in the
power of brands. You can engage him
on this or related matters via email
at: [email protected].