How does the FT do it?

March 23, 2010

SpoofFT460

One thing we wonder, amid yet another report on the decline of traditional media, is how the FT does it.

Advertising revenue has plummeted in all media. Local and national newspapers are struggling to survive, with online ad revenue barely making a dent in ever-diminishing returns. Staff culls are routine and some papers are mere ghost ships, denuded of all but the most essential masts and rigging. Sub-editors are the ancient mariners of the modern media world, condemned to roam Fleet Street and its environs bemoaning the day when, long ago, people cared about language, about communication, about the newspaper’s duty to report, observe and illumine. Their albatross may have been the internet, or it may have been the “global financial meltdown”, but one thing’s for sure: nothing will ever be the same again.

Except, that is, at the FT. For all its talk of pay walls (about which we harbour grave doubts, but that’s another story), week in, week out the FT produces the highest quality journalism without even a hint of a concession to celebrity froth and meaningless recycled drivel. The dreaded list – the “Top 10″ saucepans, or desk drawers, or socks, or laptop cases, which has become the staple of modern journalism – is nowhere to be seen. Instead, there is simply good, fluent and insightful writing. Why, every now and then the FT even goes left-field and writes about surfing.

If that’s how (even a spoof) FT does it, perhaps there’s hope for the rest of the media?

 

One Response to “How does the FT do it?”

Posted by:
How does the FT do it? Here’s how | Professional Services PR Firm on April 6, 2010 at 8:54 am

[...] We’re not sure about that, but as admirers of the FT we’re heartened to see just how well it is doing (11.4 million unique users for its website; revenue from online subscriptions and digital advertising expected to contribute one-third of revenues by 2012; an overall profit in the recession that decimated many of its readers’ businesses). But good though the paidContent:UK analysis is, it omits mention of one other thing that, with due circumspection, we submit has assisted the FT in these lean times: good writing. [...]

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From the inside of the maze, ethically outwards

February 9, 2012

Curious times in the media; strange days at The Times.

Would ‘Dacre Cards‘ – the system of licensing journalists proposed by Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre – have prevented the embarrassment now palpable at the Times over the NightJack story?

Times editor James Harding’s evidence to the Leveson Inquiry seemed heartfelt and contrite, albeit that the paper’s former long-serving and much-respected lawyer, Alastair Brett, seems to have been, er, rather dropped in it. Clearly, mistakes were made with regard to NightJack by young reporter Patrick Foster who, once he had hacked into NightJack’s account and thus discovered his identity, then embarked on a quest to expose it via legitimate methods. This, as Inquiry counsel Robert Jay QC put it, was “rather like working from the inside of the maze out”.

But had Foster been licensed via a Dacre Card, would this unsavoury episode in the Times’s history have been avoided?

We suspect not. A raft of laws were in existence at precisely the time when many News of the World journalists seemed to believe that they were entitled to hack any phone they liked. Those laws forbade them from doing so, and yet made no difference. Aside from the obvious objection to them – that they will squeeze out freelancers and citizen journalists – Dacre Cards would simply amount to something to circumvent.

What is really required is an ethical shake-up, from top to bottom. Society generally – not just journalists – needs a sense that some things are just plain wrong.

Supreme Court on Twitter

February 6, 2012

Something remarkable happened today. Yes, the Supreme Court launched its Twitter feed. It even has a Twitter policy, one of caveats, disclaimers and little by way of illumination but regardless: who would have thought that the successor body to the House of Lords would stoop to engage with the world of tweets, hashtags and retweets?

We look forward to the day when court business will be conducted via Twitter. Meantime, check out this link for an excellent blog on the Supreme Court.

Not so right said Fred

February 2, 2012
fred hat

So Farewell, then, Sir Fred Goodwin.

Now you are just Fred.

Not Right Said Fred, but plain Fred.

The Forfeiture Committee did for you.

No one had heard of it before,

But Dave said it had to act, and it did.

Trouble is that no one knows what to think.

Is it ‘Alas, poor Fred‘,

Or ‘Hurray! Sir Fred is dead!’?

We don’t know.

Do you?

By A. Mob, aged 1,378 and a half.