How can the media survive in the rapidly changing business environment in which it operates?
This was the nut that media gurus, led by Vanguard Publisher, Mr. Sam Amuka-Pemu, popularly called Uncle Sam, gathered in Lagos yesterday to crack at the Lateef Jakande Annual Memorial Lecture, organised by the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE).
The maiden lecture was held last year in the guild’s desire to continue to interrogate developments affecting the media and society in appreciation of Jakande’s legacies.
The late Jakande, a former governor of Lagos State, was the guild’s founding president.
Setting the tone for discussions at the well-attended event with the theme: Rapidly Changing Media Landscape: Survival Strategies, Uncle Sam, who chaired the occasion, said the media was killing itself to produce newspapers for a rapidly diminishing audience.
“People do not buy papers on the streets again like in the past; they now read on phone. Then, there are no vendors from whom to buy the papers. Vendors are no longer interested in selling because they do not make enough to fend for themselves,” he said.
In the past, Uncle Sam recalled, the papers were everywhere.
“The Daily Times was seen in many places; we cannot say the same for any paper today. We must do something about it. We can introduce subscription as they have it abroad… If we want to survive, we must decide on what to do,” he said.
Uncle Sam added: “Time waits for no one. It takes a lot to produce the papers that vendors do not sell. How many titles are making money? If they do not sell the papers, the print will die; you (newspaper editors) will become members of the online publication brigade.”
Uncle Sam also lamented the high cost of newsprint, saying from about N600,000 per tonne a few years ago, it is now over N1.6 million.
The Lead Speaker and ThisDay Publisher Nduka Obaigbena said the media’s survival was in its hands.
“That survival,” he stressed, “must come from the audience – the audience is young, compared to the editors whose average age is 40 and above.
“Are we connecting with this audience? Are we working with them? We are in a new world, which is being shaped by technology. The means of distribution is changing. It is now the phone and not the paper, but good journalism, old fashioned journalism, getting your facts right, telling it as it is and engaging with the people will never change,” Obaigbena said.
The publisher said the coming of Artificial Intelligence (AI) was a threat to media business, noting that “it is a machine which will respond to how we treat and engage it”.
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He urged the editors to prepare for AI and promote the education of their personnel to enable them understand the use of AI.
Obaigbena suggested that intellectual property be recognised as an asset and paid for by other channels, such as Google, Facebook, and related social media that use such works.
The Chief Executive of Diamond Media, Mr. Lanre Idowu, wondered if the editors were speaking the language of the youths to know what they actually wanted.
The media, he said, must reeducate, rediscover and rededicate itself to what it was doing, pointing out that diversification was crucial to its survival.
He recalled that the Daily Times management under the late Alhaji Ismail Babatunde Jose became what it was because there were other businesses to support the title.
Operator of Journalism Clinic, Mr. Taiwo Obe, emphasised the need for stories to have context in this era of social media, which would have carried such reports the previous day on their sites.
“So, papers must give insight, intelligence and information on the stories they are carrying in order to keep their audience. Papers have built trust over the years, we must convert this trust into money by doing our work diligently,” he said.
Obe said he believed that AI would aid the work of the media, urging the editors to start preparing for its use now as it is an advanced technology which the industry could not run away from.
Lagos State Commissioner for Information and Strategy Commissioner, Mr. Gbenga Omotoso, said the print would not die.
He recalled that the same thing was said when radio and television came, but papers never died.