The National Union of Journalists is due to hold a meeting tomorrow (Wednesday, 2 November) to discuss the recently announced cuts to editorial within the Times and Sunday Times, which is open to member and non-member freelance, casual and staff journalists at the publisher’s titles.

Last month the Times announced it was to cut around 100 staff from the newspapers’ editorial workforce, with the bulk of those said to be to casual staff. It was also confirmed that 20 compulsory redundancies are due to be made from full-time staff at the Sunday Times, which is cutting 30 per cent of its casual editorial workforce.

Following this announcement the NUJ set up a meeting, which is open to any staff who wish to seek advice. It will be held from 1 to 3pm at the Captain Kidd pub, 108 Wapping High Street, E1W 2NE. The union has also invited representatives of the company’s in-house union NISA to attend if interested in working with the NUJ.

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Should we pay for a digital subscription if we want to maintain quality journalism?

In this article on ZDNet, Tom Foremski, a former Financial Times reporter who writes about the intersection of technology and media, is urging people to “pay the wall” to “help to make an important contribution to the quality of our society and government”.

We need quality journalism because: media is how a society thinks about things.

Media is vital to our decision process.

We are facing a media landscape that is becoming ever more dominated by garbage media and that means that we, as a society, will be making bad decisions.

He argues that just because online news started out being free, it doesn’t – and shouldn’t – have to remain that way.

It seems that the Geekorati believe that once something is free then it should be free forever, and that if you can get past the New York Times paywall, then you are smart.

But will becoming a paid-up digital subscriber raise newspaper revenues? And what effect is digital having on falling print circulations?

The Guardian’s Dan Sabbagh and paidContent UK’s Robert Andrews have both taken a closer look at News International’s claim that, despite a sharp decline in sales of the print edition of the Times, overall circulation has increased with the addition of 79,000 digital subscribers, who pay to read the Times and Sunday Times online, on an iPad, or on a Kindle, according to figures released this week.

Sabbagh has made an educated guess at income from digital versus print and reckons the Times makes around £7.50 a month from each digital reader and £25 a month from those who buy a paper.

Now we can apply these values to the paywall numbers. What’s been lost are 58,421 print buyers of the Monday to Saturday Times – and 74,557 readers of the Sunday Times. The blended average decline is 60,726 – and the lost revenues for each of those readers is £25 a month as discussed. That’s a monthly revenue lost of £1.51m, or £18.2m a year. (Actually it’s a bit lower because there’ll be some print subscribers paying less than the news stand rate, but never mind that – the broad principle still holds).

Meanwhile, there have been 79,000 new online customers at £7.50 a month. That’s revenue gained of 592,500 a month (£7.1m a year). That’s a useful sum of money, but it is clearly not as much as the revenue lost from declining print copy sales.

Andrews also delves into the Times stats:

Our take (1): In other words, the papers notched 50,000 digi subs in their first four months – but only 29,000 additional subs in their second four months.

This is a slowdown. The Sunday Times iPad app, which launched in the second period, should have bumped up these total subs slightly. The challenge now is to maintain new subscriptions at a high rate and, in time, to keep churn low – new concepts, when applied to consumer news.

The Times has another challenge. It has seen a decrease of 12.1 per cent in circulation of its print edition within the past year. But is the decrease due to the fact the Times increased the cost of its print subscription or have newspaper readers moved to become digital readers? It is impossible to say but it will be interesting to keep an eye on the subscriber and print figures for the New York Times, which went behind a ‘porous paywall’ last week, easing readers in with  $0.99 a month subscription rate. Its model differs from the Times in the UK, but the more the paywall model is tested, the greater the understanding of the paid-for digital era.

• Paywall subscribers worth a quarter of print counterparts, claims survey
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Media commentator, digital soothsayer and all-round interesting read Clay Shirky gives his views on News International’s paywalls at the Times and Sunday Times, the first figures for which were released last week.

‘Paywall thinking’, he suggests, may not be possible in a world where “the internet commodifies the business of newspapers”:

Over the last 15 years, many newspaper people have assumed continuity with the analog business model, which is to say they assumed that readers could eventually be persuaded or forced pay for digital editions. This in turn suggested that the failure of any given paywall was no evidence of anything other than the need to try again.

What is new about the Times’ paywall – what may in fact make it a watershed – isn’t strategy or implementation. What’s new is that it has launched as people in the news business are rethinking assumed continuity. It’s new because the people paying attention to it are now willing to regard the results as evidence of something. To the newspaper world, TimesSelect looked like an experiment. The Times and Sunday Times look like a referendum on the future.

Full post by Clay Shirky at this link…

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After months of waiting, News International released figures for its much-discussed Times and Sunday Times paywalls today.

According to a release from the group, the Times and Sunday Times have more than 105,000 “paid-for customers to date”. This figures includes subscribers to the websites and to the Times’ iPad app and Kindle editions. Around half of these are monthly subscribers, News International says, adding that “many of the rest” are either single copy or pay-as-you go sales.

Speaking on Radio 4′s Today programme this morning, the Times’ editor James Harding said it was “early days” but that he was “hugely encouraged” by the figures so far:

What we’ve seen is for the first time in 225 years we’re selling copies of the Times on something other than paper; we’re seeing that those people who read the digital editions of the Times and the Sunday Times really like them, if they sign up for a trial they tend to stick with us; and most importantly we’re able to say something that very few papers can say which is that we’re growing …

What you get now is you see over a couple of million people who look at the front page of the Times online … we’d engaged in quite a suicidal form of economics which was giving our journalism away for free and we knew that if we continued to do that we couldn’t invest in reporting. So what our concern was was would be cut off from the internet conversation and the truth is that we haven’t been, because a) the media works as a huge echo chamber so our stories get picked up and the other thing we’re seeing is that our readers engage with or stories and comment on our stories in a much deeper way …

What you’re seeing here is something at it’s very early stages, but also a revelation as well as a revolution in journalism. The iPad edition for us has changed the way we are doing our journalism and technology as we all know can be a tricky business.

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Media Week reports on figures from ComScore, which suggest that unique users of the the Times and Sunday Times websites have fallen from 2.79 million in May to 1.61 million in July.

The new websites were launched on 25 May with compulsory registration introduced in June and the paywall for both sites going up on 2 July. According to the report, page views for the sites dropped from 29 million in May to 9 million in July.

Prior to the launch of the new websites, News International withdrew from the monthly Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronic (ABCe) reports for newspaper website traffic.

Full story on Media Week at this link…

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Following the arrest of Mzilikazi wa Afrika, Sipho Ngcobo, Sunday Times investigative journalist and former deputy editor of Business Report, reflects on what he says was a “frightening” week for journalists in South Africa.

South African media are currently battling the Protection of Information Bill, which according to Ngcobo is fuelling fears the government will be able to “clampdown and muzzle media”.

There is virtually no real clarity as what Mzilikazi wa Afrika was arrested for. But we worry, I worry about him. I worry about the profession and the business of media. I am worried sick about the future of the industry.

But, he adds, the growth in poor quality journalism does warrant improved regulation of the media, or else reporters should prepare for the “death” of the industry.

I cannot say I am totally surprised by the proposed Bill. There has been a lot of shoddy journalism taking place. Some of it has been outright criminal, extremely libellous, demeaning to individuals and families and even contemptuous to the courts. It has been so bad that I have often wondered what the future holds.

See his full post on MoneyWeb here…

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Mzilikazi wa Afrika, a journalist for South African newspaper the Sunday Times, was arrested at the paper’s headquarters earlier today for possession of a letter, which police claim to be “a fraudulent letter of resignation” from premier of the Mpumalanga region, David Dabede Mabuza, to South African President Jacob Zuma.

The Sunday Times reports on the arrest via its Times Live website:

Wa Afrika was seized by police who became involved in a screaming match with senior editors about whether photographers could take pictures.

TheTimes editor Ray Hartley, adds in a blog post:

I am deeply concerned at the fact that a journalist can be arrested and held at an undisclosed location in a country where the rule of law ought to apply.

He was arrested by a large number of policemen in an operation which was clearly designed to intimidate and I can only conclude that this was the true motive for what took place today.

The Times used Twitter to help break the story of Wa Afrika’s arrest, including posting a picture of his empty desk:

• Sipho Ngcobo charts a ‘frightening’ week for South African journalism
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He likes to eat papaya for breakfast, wants to set up an investigative journalism foundation and wakes up every morning prepared for arrest – welcome to the world of newspaper billionaire Alexander Lebedev.

Speaking to the Sunday Times for its ‘A Life in the Day’ feature, Lebedev, says his ownership of three British newspapers – the Evening Standard, Independent and Independent on Sunday – prompted some “absurd” suspicions at the start.

When I bought the Evening Standard and the two Independent titles, people thought I was some kind of Trojan horse for the Russian government. That’s absurd. I bought them because I truly believe in newspaper and a free press. An independent press that holds those in power to account is a vital part of a democratic society.

In fact he claims his “dream” now is to set up a foundation that will finance journalistic investigations into international corruption.

The free media can change the world. My idea is for some of the biggest titles around the world to pool resources to uncover the schemes and money flows used to sustain massive corruption.

But, he warns, life in the media elite is a risky business.

I sleep like a log and rarely dream. But as a big businessman in Russia who sees things differently from those in power, I tell myself every night and every morning that I should be ready to go to jail. The risk is always there.

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Jon Swain, foreign correspondent and war reporter whose experiences were the basis of Oscar-winning film The Killing Fields, may leave the Sunday Times as part of planned job cuts at the title.

Full story at this link…

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Having had a day to “browse and snack” on the new Sunday Times and Times websites, what’s the feedback so far? What’s the reaction to the new editorial layout, multimedia changes and approach to journalism behind a paywall?

Starting with those bloggers who were given a sneak preview of the sites the night before they went live:

Malcolm Coles on the Times:

Without the need to chase search engine traffic or page views for advertisers, the idea of covering fewer stories but in a better way sounds appealing (…) an article, for instance, with an information graphic and tabs to let you explore the history and different aspects of the story without leaving the page. This package of content is brilliant – it works much better as an experience than lists of related articles or auto-generated tag pages.

But, asks Coles, shouldn’t readers be allowed to subscribe to just one site with completely distinct sections and topics?

It strikes me that there is either sufficient distinction in the audience for the two brands that you let users subscribe to just one site; or the audiences cross over so much that you combine the two sites in one and think about what makes most sense from the user’s point of view.

Forcing people to subscribe to both sites but keeping them entirely separate, with no cross-linking, seems a bit odd.

Adam Westbrook on the experience of reading the Times and Sunday Times online:

Well, at first impressions I am not bowled over: black text on a white screen, size 12, serif font – just like every other news website out there (and even this blog!). A web page can be any colour and fully dynamic – a concept no major newsroom is yet to grasp.

Rory Cellan-Jones on how a smaller audience might offer a more engaged readership:

[T]he company is convinced that advertisers will find the smaller audience of committed readers more attractive than the 21 million promiscuous passers-by who flit through the free Times Online site each month at present. While there’s been plenty of sniping from the sidelines by News International’s rivals, I suspect they are all glad that someone is at least testing the waters.

Tim Fenton:

It’s a slick package, although whether well-bundled, good content is enough of a differentiator from everything on Google News remains to be seen. For me, the biggest surprise is that the Times is not planning a splashy ad campaign to launch the paywall – it is relying chiefly on promotion in the newspaper.

It’s a low-key – and very analogue – start to one of the biggest experiments in modern digital media.

Of those reviewing the sites today, TechCrunch Europe expands on concerns raised that the papers’ journalists will miss out on social media conversation around their work, with thoughts on what the paywall means for mobile and ecommerce developments:

I don’t know The Times’ development roadmap, but if it does not have an API for its content (I presume it won’t since the whole of the new sites will be paywalled and invisible to search engines) then there will be no opportunity to catch the Third Wave of social or indeed of mobile or commerce. The Times cannot possibly come up with all the ideas which will happen in the Third Wave, which is why third-party developers will be so important.

Will the Times and Sunday Times be taking themselves out of the social media conversation with paywalls that redirect deep links to a generic login page? (Interesting to note findings from a Pew Research Center study, which report that bloggers will share more links and stories produced by mainstream news organisations, Twitterers less so, suggesting there’s is still a reliance of the social media news world on traditional news outlets. Interesting also – digital director of Mirror Group Matt Kelly’s remarks last week about the importance of honing news sites to niches that their readers identify as the values of that particular paper or brand.)

Adam Tinworth provides food for thought on the issue with his post on the potential impact of a subscription wall on a site’s community:

People sharing what they think will be identifiable, and they will have paid an entrance fee to get in there. This is, in fact, a community model, just one that differs from the wide, inter-connected community model we’re used to on the open web.

I recall Lee Bryant saying at last year’s Social Media Influence conference that sometimes its the wall that defines the community. And that maxim will be tested on these sites.

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We gave you a sneak preview of the Times’ new design a couple of weeks ago, but the new websites for The Times and Sunday Times have gone live today.

At the moment the homepage of each site is the only part freely available. Readers will have to sign up for an initial free trial, before a paywall comes down on both sites (£1 a day or £2 a week for access) in four weeks time.

Journalism.co.uk was given a talk through of the new site designs by their editorial teams last night, so we’ll be posting more details later, but for now see the homepages below or visit the sites which you can read about at this link.

Meanwhile former Observer and Independent editor Roger Alton is joining the Times as executive editor, according to this report from MediaGuardian.

TheSundayTimes.co.uk

TheTimes.co.uk

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First, a bleak piece by Ed Caeser in the Sunday Times on the realities of a career in journalism. According to Caeser:

Today, you’ll need luck, flair, an alternative source of income, endless patience, an optimistic disposition, sharp elbows and a place to stay in London. But the essential quality for success now is surely tenacity. Look around the thinning newsrooms of the national titles. Look at the number of applicants for journalism courses, at the queue of graduates – qualified in everything except the only thing that matters, experience – who are desperate for unpaid work on newspapers and magazines. Look at the 1,200 people who applied in September for one reporter’s position on the new Sunday Times website. You’d shoot a horse with those odds.

It includes quotes from members of what he calls the class of 2008: the under 26s nominated as Press Gazette Young Journalist of the Year two years ago.

But the piece lacks examination of new paths and opportunities in journalism. Adam Westbrook fills in one of the gaps on his blog:

Caeser gets one thing right: he realises journalism is changing. The advice he has sought, however, is for an era in the industry heading towards the grave. He is stuck in the mindset that to have any career worth having in journalism it has to be working on a national newspaper or big broadcaster (…) there is no mention of entrepreneurial journalism. Caeser hasn’t even thought about it.

The very concept that the next generation of journalists might take control of their careers, become the chess player and not the chess piece seems alien to him; that these ‘poor saps’ might see opportunity where he only sees despair.

So here’s my advice: if you’re just starting out in journalism don’t read this article. While you’re at it, don’t make yourself ill eating nothing but Supernoodles for a month (as I once had to) just to afford a shitty flat in Clapham. Don’t spend hours squeezing the desperation out of a desperate email to that sub on the Guardian you chatted to briefly at some conference somewhere. And don’t think you should give up just because you live in the North of England, or you’re poor, or because Ed Caeser says you should.

Instead, do this: Start looking for the brave, exciting new opportunities presented by this wonderful digital age we now live in.

Read Adam Westbrook’s post in full at this link…

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Following yesterday’s news that the Times and Sunday Times are looking to cut 80 staff between them and editorial budgets by 10 per cent to stem sever daily losses of around £240,000, Times editor James Harding has told staff that all departments will be involved in cost-cutting to protect the future of its journalism:

In an email to staff, reports MediaGuardian, Harding says:

We are clearly in a period of galloping technological change and we need to ensure that we have the resources to invest so that we can lead the market in digital journalism (…) Today, we are starting a process to cut costs, reduce our losses and free up resources for the future of our journalism.

Full story at this link…

Meanwhile, Will Lewis’ departure from the Telegraph has been followed by exits for Chris Lloyd, deputy managing editor at Telegraph Media Group, and Rhidian Wynn Davies, consulting editor – both key executives in Lewis’ digital operation, Euston Partners.

Full story at this link…

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More details for the Great Paywall of Wapping have been released:

Two new websites  www.thetimes.co.uk and www.thesundaytimes.co.uk are to launch in  May – free to registered users for a trial period until June.

Then, the content will be available for a charge of £1 (one day access) or £2 (a week’s subscription) – across both sites.

Seven-day subscribers to the Times and Sunday Times in print will also be given digital access.

“This is just the start. The Times and The Sunday Times are the first of our four titles in the UK to move to this new approach. We will continue to develop our digital products and to invest and innovate for our customers,” said Rebekah Brooks, chief executive, News International, in a release.

BBC Radio 4 Today had Media Show host Steve Hewlett commenting on the plans (07:42). The audio is not yet up on its site but will be available at this link later this morning.

• Times and Sunday Times reach 79,000 digital subscribers
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Could you spare 10p for a news report? Maybe 5p for the sports results? Many in the news industry would like us to pay to see news articles that we’ve previously enjoyed for free, whether it’s via websites or hand-held devices.

But one of the problems of this brave, new paid-content world is that the news publishing industry has yet to move on from long-held assumptions about the value of content, inspired by centuries of physical, print distribution.

For example, just look at the sheer size of national newspapers: they are huge products, especially on weekends. Big is better, goes the saying – and mass reach gives you more circulation and advertising revenue.

But in the global, decentralised, just-Google-it content economy, it doesn’t work like that: the publishers that will win through will have the most relevant, findable, highest quality content – not just lots of it.

To illustrate the mismatch between offline and online economics, I’ve gone through Wednesday’s edition of the Times to find out just how much is in it…

• News: there are 42 separate substantial news items in today’s Times, not including some of the smaller NIBs, and at least seven separate analysis pieces;
• Comment: including the three leaders, 13 comment pieces make their way into the main book;
• Sport: 21 news stories and two features;
• Then there’s the diary section: five lengthy and well-written obituaries, crosswords, weather, travel and the Register pages of interesting factoids;
• The Times2 centre pullout has 10 features, some short, some long, as well as four reviews.

So our grand total for today’s Times is more than 100 articles. The quality of writing, pictures and editing is, as you would expect, consistently high.

But if these articles were available via a pay-per-view offer, how much would you pay? If they were priced 10p each, that means to buy everything in today’s paper, you would have to pay £10; at 5p per article, that’s £5 per issue. But my copy of the paper only cost £1.

News International boss Rupert Murdoch will more likely opt for a subscription model for the Times and Sunday Times websites – just as he’s succeeded in selling long-term pay TV packages around the the world.

But to reach a competitive pricepoint, he and other publishers will have to massively realign the value of each piece of news and comment from its current-day, paper value of one or two pence to fractions of pence.

In reality, the real market value of news is what people will pay and the danger is that for an entire generation of readers weaned on the free-to-air internet, that price is nothing at all…

[See also: What's the average cost of a news article?]

Patrick Smith is a freelance journalist and event organiser, and formerly a correspondent for paidContent:UK and Press Gazette. He blogs at psmithjournalist.com and is @psmith on twitter.

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