Newspapers have taken readers for granted
May 25th, 2007 by Lloyd Gofton
That was one of the quotes from The Daily Telegraph’s editor, Will Lewis, according to Matt Well’s Media Guardian coverage of Lewis’ keynote at last night’s ‘change and renewal in the press’ debate.
The full quote is included below, but in essence Will Lewis is continuing his public and honest appraisal of the newspaper industry’s approach to the digital age.
It’s refreshing to hear such a candid opinion, considering it would have been practically unheard of for an editor to be that outspoken about the industry just a year ago.
Lewis is also confident that the future holds better things for the newspaper industry if it evolves, and he is certainly walking the walk as it were. I hear the multimedia newsroom at the Telegraph, which initially caused so much upheaval, is superb.
On top of that, the Telegraph is genuinely trying to push forward, its blogs have certainly stepped up a gear and even when things go wrong, as in the case of this week’s denial of service attack, it is still pushing forward.
Of course you could say The Telegraph has no choice but to develop if it wants to survive, and it still has some catching up to do, which I wouldn’t argue with. You could also argue that Will Lewis is PR savvy and his statements reflect well on his own paper, but the fact that the Telegraph has pulled its head out of the sand and is pushing ahead deserves a bit of recognition.
Here’s Lewis’ quote from Media Guardian:
“Having fought and won its battle with the print industry in the mid-80s, the industry became once again bloated, lazy and arrogant. Fleet Street continued to operate on the same assumptions about its readers, just as those readers began changing their reading and consumption patterns, and in many cases walking away from the newspapers they once held dear,”
“And what was the response of the industry? Not much, it would seem, except to take heart that we were all in the same, sinking boat.”
“If the newspaper industry took a beating, it deserved one. It took readers for granted and continued to make assumptions about them that no longer held true.”
