It’s a rare editor who sees the web and sees opportunities

When a journalist takes the editor’s seat for the first time on a publication, his or her first editorial is an exciting piece to write. It will be the first opportunity to champion the changes that he or she believes in, and it will be the benchmark against which their journalistic aspirations are measured.

In his first week in the top job at The Drum, Gordon Young writes about how the internet is changing his publication, but unlike many in his position he is optimistic about the future.

I hope this short editorial will go down in history, because it makes some very poignant observations about how his magazine has used the Internet to build on its success. Observations which are not typically shared by journalists that work in the print business.

He starts by citing that two years ago, the magazine was producing 30 articles a week for a fortnightly print edition. Today it produces 30 a DAY for its website. He openly admits that the paper product no longer has a role in breaking news.

‘There are other things the magazine can do far better than the internet,’ he says. Recognising that two distinctly different media have two distinctly different responsibilities is something other editors should take note of.

Is the internet damaging their sales, their readership or their revenue?

No. By producing ten times more content across web and print, the magazine is now enjoying the highest readership in its history, which also means the highest sales. And it’s got a lot more ads in it since the last time I was a subscriber several years ago.

The magazine is not shy of using social media and emerging ideas such as QR codes. It uses both, and it knows how to do it.

And he is spot on when he says ‘readers are not interested in passively waiting for us to serve up the news’.

What Young says is not revolutionary, it’s just that it’s rarely heard from the mouth of a journalist, even rarer from their pen or keyboard.

But the most inspiring comment from Young is his last sentence which should inspire every editor that thinks the internet is killing journalism to get off their soapbox and ‘look to the future, which is more about opportunities than threats’.