‘Online journalism can’t kill newspapers’
Newspaper publishing is now considered by many investors a very risky venture to engage in, yet you decided to plunge into it. What inspired you to dare the risk and start PRESS GALLERY?It has always been my desire to go into publishing and own a newspaper. Having gone round working for a number of newspapers, […]
Newspaper publishing is now considered by many investors a very risky venture to engage in, yet you decided to plunge into it. What inspired you to dare the risk and start PRESS GALLERY?
It has always been my desire to go into publishing and own a newspaper. Having gone round working for a number of newspapers, starting with The Punch and from there to Daily Times, TheNEWS/PM NEWS, City People and Leadership, I realised there was no way I would work for an individual and achieve my ultimate objective or goal in the journalism profession because one would be constrained by so many factors.
If you are unlucky to work for some publishers who pursue more of their selfish interest rather than work for the noble ideas that journalism stands for, no matter how beautiful your prose is, the truth is you still don’t have the last say and your views and reports would always be censored.
This has been a major problem for many journalists who will not be able to express themselves the way they conscientiously want to. The way you see things is not the way your publisher or principal does because of his direct personal agenda. In such a situation, you have no choice than to follow the house rules because the newspaper simply doesn’t belong to you. It can be morale-killing.
So it has always been a dream with me that no matter how small I would be starting a newspaper, I would do it and be able to express myself along the finest ideals of journalism. I wanted to be different – in the way we cast our cover headlines, do our interviews and report generally – from what readers see on a daily basis.
And would you say you are achieving that now?
Of course, yes. This has been my dream and I am glad to be actualising it now. Six years ago, I was an Assistant Editor with the Leadership newspapers (Saturday) and one afternoon, I just decided I would take the plunge. I told myself that no matter what it takes, I would kick-start something. So I did, and here we are today.
How has the journey been? Was there any time you felt like packing it all up?
No. There has never been any bad patch that brought such a gloomy thought for even one second. Of course, there are lots of challenges, but it’s been very fulfilling that I am achieving my dream. That alone is a push; it spurs one on. There is the joy that you are in control of your name, image and honour. You are at liberty to define and decide your destiny.
There will be constraints here and there, especially as regards funds. The financial situation could be horrible sometimes, more so when you don’t have financial backers and you need to raise money for production, for salaries and for other overheads. The demands can be excruciating.
But you are encouraged when you get results – in words from people who appreciate your efforts and react to your stories, results in adverts here and there, and even results in sales, no matter how little. No matter the level of income, it makes you healthier and happier.
One very instructive lesson here is that the way you serve other people is the way you will serve yourself when you are on your own. One prepares you for the other. Your kind of commitment in serving another person is the attitude you bring to your job. Even as the publisher, I still travel about to report. In every edition, I need to fill two pages.
Well, God has been kind; he has not disappointed us. Within a short period of time, we have got our own PRESS GALLERY HOUSE; we aren’t tenants.
You said you don’t have financial backers. Considering how poor sales can be for newspapers in this age of online publishing, how has the newspaper been able to overcome its financial challenges?
One thing whoever is going into the newspaper publishing business should know is that it require strict financial discipline, wisdom and professionalism. And you start it on a very humble background. You can’t force your paper on readers. People will develop a love for the paper based on its editorial offer. You may be printing your newspaper in London and nobody will touch it in Nigeria.
The editorial content is the main attraction. If you are offering something people want to read, they will have no option but to patronise you. Yes, that patronage may not be an immediate bang; it could be slow, but gradually, it will come.
A new newspaper doesn’t need to go into competition with an established name, otherwise it would go under fast. It must try to create its own identity. That’s what we have been doing. A new publisher on his own who has no financial backer must on take-off be ready to do the job of five workers. He shouldn’t be thinking of luxuries like personal or special assistants.
When the money is not there, you don’t start a new paper acting so arrogant or big. The beginning must be humble and you grow from there. We have seen growth like that. City People started like that; I was part of their humble beginning. Vanguard started like that and it’s now a national newspaper. Even the Daily Trust has become a big, national newspaper from its humble beginning. You strive to operate at your own pace and steadily, you will grow. Be consistent with your operational philosophy and continue to work at winning the goodwill of the people.
Recently, a renowned publisher and veteran journalist, Bayo Onanuga, who is Editor-in-Chief of TheNEWS magazine said in an interview that with online reporting seriously threatening, the end of print journalism is near. Do you agree?
With due respect, I don’t. Even with the issue of online journalism and all that, I don’t believe so. One, we should realise that in Nigeria, many people are still not in tune with reading newspapers online. Even in Europe and the US where online journalism is advanced, many people still buy the hard copy and many newspapers are still doing well on the newsstands.
Publishers are not compelled to splash all their stories online anyway. The choice is yours. When you are a good sell, and you don’t splash your stories online, your readers will have no choice but to pick up your hard copy. Patronage still boils down to your editorial content and the price readers can afford to pay for it.
Many newspapers are finding it difficult to sell hard because a publishing tradition in Nigeria has evolved whereby what you see in newspaper A is what you will read in newspapers B, C and D. Our investigative abilities are seriously eroded and we don’t separately break different stories. If it’s a Boko Haram story that is on, every newspaper reports the same Boko Haram story in the same manner. To worsen it, before newspapers hit the newsstands in the morning, the same story they are reporting would have been trending for hours. The situation simply demands that a newspaper, even in reporting the same story, must be imaginative in reporting differently from the rest.
I believe there are lots of stories on which nothing much has been written and one can go after to give one a good portion of the market.