Ever since my first experience with journalism in high school, I've been told that print is a dying breed. Even though I spent years being the editor of the school's newspaper, I eventually stepped back from the field and decided to pursue a career in advertising at The University of Georgia. Certainly with the boom of social media and technology, words on a screen would eventually outlive anything on paper. Especially with interactive, banner, and all other digital ads we see in our media classes.Yesterday however, our excursion to The Financial Times (FT) in London gave me a massive reality check. Print is NOT dead.
Christopher Grimes, a 1992 UGA alumni (forgive me if I've got the year wrong) greeted us at the security gates of the building. He was younger than I imagined and well dressed in a grey suit. No tie. I thought this was odd because when I knew we were going to a big business newspaper like the FT, I thought certainly the atmosphere would be overly professional and even a little stuffy. But there Mr. Grimes was, happily greeting us and excited to give us the tour.
Our first stop was a large conference room where Mr. Grimes gave us a brief overview of his position at the FT. He's in charge of the large feature piece found in the middle of the newspaper. He and his higher editors determine what the topic on the insert will be based upon their perceptions of importance. As we all obviously know, this is the epitome of gate keeping and agenda setting. What I don't think we all realized however, was how close to a deadline decisions like these are made. Mr. Grimes provided us with a specific example of how six hours before a deadline his head editor decided that he wanted to cover a specific topic about Mexico. Thus an avalanche of necessity was triggered where the general Latin American reporter and Mexican correspondent needed to be contacted in order to crank out a piece right before the morning's publication. Mr. Grimes described how one floor of the building could go from complete calm and boredom (like how I thought it would be) to a chaotic and adrenaline motivated war zone.
This blew my mind. I couldn't believe how tight their deadlines could be. Especially considering how many drafts or versions an advertisement can go through before it's even considered. So much effort goes into one publication that is from an industry that's allegedly "barely hanging on." But certainly something so stressful must have some sort of a pay off if people are still keeping it around. To be frank, I was asking myself were the money was. Why stay in this industry?
My question was immediately answered while in the same conference room. Mr. Grimes went on to tell our class that a yearly subscription to The Financial Times costs roughly $350. Yet another mind bomb. But wait, there's more--Mr. Grimes literally threw down multiple copies of the FT's affiliate magazine called How to Spend It. This ungodly large glossy magazine featured advertisements from Louis Vuitton, Maserati, and Michelin-Star restaurants. Earlier today I looked up just how much such an ad would cost. According to the current rate card, a double page colored ad can cost up to $103,000 at the most and $49,000 at the least.
Let this blog post serve as a retraction. About my original judgement of how the atmosphere of a business magazine would be, and for anyone who claims that newspaper is extinct. Reign on FT. And long live the print.
It is crazy how successful the Financial Times is in the UK. It seems like in every advertising class, we are discouraged to place our "project advertisements" in traditional media, such as newspapers but encouraged to use a new medium instead. The way we receive our information and news is changing but maybe not as rapidly as we think. I am still not sure where newspapers will be 10, 20, 30 years from now and it seems to me like the UK has a greater purpose for their publication to be printed. They spend more time on public transportation in the morning when in America, we hop in our cars and could not nearly read the paper. As a result, we skim websites to look for a headline that catches our attention, or we listen to the radio. As lucrative as FT is, it seems to me like the newspaper itself is not what brings in the revenue, but a magazine instead.
ReplyDeleteAs a journalism major, seeing a professional journalist like Mr. Grimes and hearing about and observing the success of the Financial Times had me leaving the building in a very good mood. I hear constantly (mostly from my concerned parents) that journalism is a dying field. On my first day in Intro to Journalism, our professor asked how many of us had heard that, and we all raised our hands. Thankfully, he then when on to tell us that it's not at all, and that it's actually one of the most exciting times to go into the field. I think the industry is just going through some major changes and figuring out the new business model it needs to implement. I found myself breathing a sigh of relief when I learned that a company like the Financial Times seems to be coming out on top in the midst of these scary times for print journalism. I'll definitely have to share this knowledge with my parents when I return home. Long live the print.
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