Cape Town - If you’re reading this in hard copy, I thank you. You’ve directly contributed to keeping us newspaper hacks employed. It’s not easy ... if newspapers were on an intravenous drip of morphine a decade ago, it’s fair to say the whole business of newspapering is now in a comatose state.
Slowly but surely, the "newspaper people" are disappearing in newsrooms and making way for multimedia content producers. It’s the way of the world and something we need to accept. The way news is being consumed has changed dramatically. Readers and advertisers want a new value proposition.
One such newspaper legend that parted ways with this company this week is Kevin Ritchie, following a glittering 27-year career at one company. He finished on a high - first editing the group’s biggest daily newspaper, The Star, and then being appointed Gauteng’s regional executive editor.
It’s safe to say Kevin had ink running through his veins. But given the chance, after faithfully serving a host of editors as deputy, he proved to be the most innovative in an era when disruption is everything.
To call Kevin a newspaper man at the end of this career would be to insult his talents. He led a team who broke the Homo naledi discovery at the Cradle of Mankind, on multiple platforms. He ripped up entire newspaper editions in honour of the 40th anniversary of 1976, and later an ode to the heroines of the 1956 Women’s March - with content for digital platforms to boot.
He allowed his team at The Star to play, experiment and fail on new platforms and they have one of the most viewed viral videos in the group.
His leadership inspired me as a newspaper editor to make bold moves of my own with the understanding that newspapers, though no longer newspapers of record, still had their place. Break the news on social media platforms and online and give the reader something to chew on in print.
Kevin’s thinking helped me conceive a few memorable, “only in ink” newspaper moments like the Cape Argus edition I co-edited with students during the height of the #FeesMustFall protests, and The Dignity Project editorial series about Cape Town’s homeless.
Someone reminded me this week that I was ready to walk without my “Kevin crutch”, even though I can always count on his counsel as he carves out a new life as a media consultant.
The newspapers you buy week in and week out have been serving you well for many decades, and long may that continue. Now, we have a big responsibility as newspaper people to keep the presses running and the ink flowing. The only way is to keep newspapers relevant.
To stay relevant there needs to be a considerable investment in newspapers, and that means spending what little resources are available wisely, with the understanding that it is a long play. Investing in any media business any way is for the long term, and it isn’t about the money.
I was lucky enough to share a panel about newspapering and the media at a book festival with talented Media24 news executive and author, Adriaan Basson, a while back.
The panel was asked why there was so much frivolous content on the online platforms of credible news brands.
Adriaan’s answer was brilliant in its simplicity. He explained that the most clicked online items were memes of cute kittens. Those kittens pay for the serious Syria journalism.
Will newspapers survive the fourth industrial revolution? I hope so. But if we are to endure, there’s much work to be done.
Will there be Kevin Ritchies with 27-year careers at newspaper companies? I doubt it.
As the man himself wrote in a yet-to-be published piece of his time as The Star’s editor: “I took over at a time when the industry was in the throes of the greatest flux since perhaps Gutenberg-invested movable type and wrested education - and indeed freedom of expression - away from the hands of the Pope and placed it in the hands of the people.
“Today we have a truly democratised readership, which means that people have more options than ever before.
“They can get their news on the internet, on social media, from Twitter to Facebook. They can make their own news, they can blog, post their own paparazzi pix or even shoot videos.”
* Follow Abarder on Twitter @GasantAbarder for more of his musings.
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