Passionate about technology, media and chocolate eclairs, I've worked in web and print for over twenty years and now run a digital media consultancy in Scotland.
This week I learned of the impending launch of a new newspaper for Scotland.
Considering the current state of the publishing industry, this might seem a rash move. Only it isn’t. It’s one of the soundest moves any publisher has made in recent years, and the reason it is sound is because its content is going straight onto the web… first.
The man behind this yet-to-be-named ‘publication’ is Stewart Kirkpatrick, former online editor of the Scotsman, a publication whose website readership rocketed under his leadership.
Until this week, I admit I hadn’t heard of Stewart, and it goes without saying that he probably hasn’t heard of me or Moray Firth Live.
But since we recently doffed caps on Twitter, I’d like to give him a slap on the back. Someone in newspapers who actually believes the internet is a viable publishing platform.
Over the past five to ten years, I’ve listened to diatribes from management and journalists who have unambiguously trashed the internet as a threat to the publishing industry.
But hacks are as hard-headed as honchos are highly paid, and changing the mindset of either was a battle I never won. I had the conviction, I just didn’t have the evidence.
But they were wrong. Now is the best time for publishing and journalism. I choose my words carefully, because that doesn”t mean it’s the best time for publishers and journalists. It could be, if they thought outside their boxes.
It’s a difficult time for those, as Stewart says, who have invested heavily in printing presses and huge buildings to house them, to witness them printing less and less copies each day, week, month and year.
But right now, we have the best tools, the most economical publishing platform and in some quarters, the right mindset.
Publishing online is cheap, dynamic, adaptable and interactive. Our audience is now adept at commenting, participating, contributing. Â They have the tools that we have. They are publishers too. They are part of our story. Part of our future. The shape of journalism is changing, quickly and fluidly. Journalists who adapt to this model will benefit from the new (media) world order.
We need more people like Stewart to pull their finger out and keep journalists in work. They will be in huge demand. The industry didn’t die. It just changed. For the better.
