‘Online newspaper publishing is expensive business’
A player in the online newspaper industry says anyone who thinks setting up an online newspaper is cheap will be shocked by the reality unless such a publisher aims to do armchair journalism. “Online newspaper publishing is capital intensive and is made particularly tough by the sort of financial climate of Nigeria today,” publisher of […]
A player in the online newspaper industry says anyone who thinks setting up an online newspaper is cheap will be shocked by the reality unless such a publisher aims to do armchair journalism.
“Online newspaper publishing is capital intensive and is made particularly tough by the sort of financial climate of Nigeria today,” publisher of The Nigerian Insider News, Mr Emmanuel Onwubiko asserted in an interview.
Onwubiko who became widely known earlier for a nongovernmental organization, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) which he runs, added, “It’s difficult for a human rights platform such as ours to comfortably finance an online newspaper like the one we have started.”
The Nigerian Insider News or www.thenigerianinsidernews.com was inaugurated officially August 11 in Abuja, but the newspaper had been running three months earlier, essentially publishing human rights-related news items and articles, although the scope is intended to be wider.
Speaking of such intention and the obstacles in the way, Onwubiko said, “We are working at attracting co-investors to put in some funds so that we can widen our scope beyond mostly human rights issues and events. There are many issues that The Nigeria Insider News sets out to highlight: general news events, political events, health events, events and trends about the economy, issues of terrorism, cybercrimes, and so many such things; but sustaining a newspaper outfit – online or hard copy – is quite costly. So, we are on but we are still far from where we wish to be.”
He said many online publications exist by recycling materials from established media houses, which he says he condemned, arguing, “It’s easy if you don’t care about credibility, if you don’t bother to build an unique identity, when you choose to sit in the comfort of your home or your barbing salon or some such places and lift breaking news from established online mediums with reporters all over the place, such as Daily Trust and the other big outfits. I don’t subscribe to that. Few professionally run online publications exist, but the rest are lazy practitioners who don’t want to spend money to establish their own news sourcing networks and produce news stories of their own.”
Naming some online mediums which he gave a pass mark, however, the rights activist and publisher said, “There are people who are professional in their approaches. Premium Times has for example shown to a very large extent how an online news medium should be run. News Express is another online newspaper that has been quite professional. Nigeria Eagle online is another commendable example in my own estimation. There are a number of other shining stars but the rest are online junks which must be whipped into line, especially because Nigerians are increasingly relying on what comes out of the social media.”
He stressed that a newspaper website is particularly demanding because it requires deep technical knowhow. “It takes a lot of technical expertise. You require an efficient IT team apart from a pool of good editorial staff and offices,” he said, reiterating, “highly knowledgeable IT staff is essential, otherwise, you will be wide open to hackers who can make nonsense of your efforts. You need continually to guide against angry government officials, members of the public that your stories may have offended, as well as cyber criminals who could hack into your site, corrupt it and possibly run you out of circulation.”
Online publication coaches typically make it sound as if content goes far in determining success, but Onwubiko who did not exactly disagree over such opinion said to get good content is not as easy as many may think. He explained, “It’s still about money. You need to spend money to get at some news sources. A particular online newspaper based abroad used to get news stories from inside the bedroom of President Goodluck Jonathan. And most times those stories were true. How do you think such newspapers get such information from the private places of the powers that be? They don’t get it for free. They pay and they pay heavily. They have to pay their informants, mostly people that are disenchanted with newsmakers but who nonetheless have to be paid to part with such sensitive stories.
“And because news publications like that consistently published such privileged news stories that attracted huge readership audiences, they got into national and global consciousness that has uplifted and made them publications of advertisers’ choices. To get intelligence requires spending of money. The big-time players have used money to source stories from difficult-to-reach places and they are now making the money by first raising readership and then advertorial patronage.”
Onwubiko said anyone expecting to start a serious online newspaper with the complement of qualified staff and equipment should have at least N10 million. He said, “When Simon Kolawole started his online medium (TheCable), all of us saw pictures of the unveiling published by THISDAY newspaper. It was a big deal which the likes of business mogul Dangote and other shakers and movers of society attended. Kolawole must have spent quite a lot of money considering alone the huge interest that the unveiling generated. So, online publishing is real serious business”