What the editors of The Sun and The Guardian think about the future of newspapers

^{Catherine Wiener at the Shift 2016 conference scene in London on March 1, 2016}

The British news industry is becoming really intricate.
A week after “The Independent” announced the termination of its print edition, the newspaper “Trinity Mirror's the New Day” appeared. Only a couple of months after “The Sun” charged a fee for accessing information on the network to increase its audience, “The Guardian” reported that, despite the huge number of its online users (158 million!), It had to reduce costs by 20%.
In the face of such uncertainty, there are few people who could better explain the trends in the British media than Tony Gallagher and Catherine Wiener, the editors of The Sun and The Guardian. “The Sun” is the most popular newspaper in the UK with a daily circulation of more than 1.78 million copies (according to the latest ABC (Bureau of Control of Circulations) report), while the number of global visitors of The Guardian in January according to SimilarWeb amounted to 266 million
Both journalists spoke at the Newsworks newspaper marketing agency at the Shift 2016 conference in London on March 1 and shared their views on the future of newspapers.
Below is what we learned.

How to make money online

Neither Wiener nor Gallacher believe that their publications can exist only through advertising. Wiener explained that The Guardian hopes to re-launch its membership scheme in order to receive more funds from its most loyal readers. Members of The Guardian currently provide access to exclusive, real-time events featuring journalists and cultural figures. The cost ranges from £ 5 (US $ 6.96) to 60 (83.52) per month.
However, “The Guardian” does not consider a fee for access to information on the network (online). It was said (our selection):
“We are considering how to make ... readers more loyal and shape our partners out of them. One of the situations that I often encounter - especially after I got this job - is that people tell me: “How can I give you money? I feel embarrassed because I read a lot of your materials, use them, watch your videos all day, but I don’t pay you anything. “Therefore, we would like to just help such people realize their desire ... We are not required to introduce access fees to Information on the network, no. It is about deeper relationships and forms of providing the possibility of payment ... "
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^{Interviewing Tony Gallagher, editor of The Sun newspaper, at the Shift 2016 conference}

Having recently provided free online access to information, “The Sun” is looking at other means of obtaining funds that would fit the situation of the newspaper. She is already making a profit from the fantasy football game Dream Team (Dream Team), and soon The Sun will be a bookmaker based on the Sun Bets betting website, which is expected to launch this year. Mr. Gallagher says:
“One of the biggest cases that we will do this year and that we have high hopes for is the launch of the project Sun Bets, which we hope will work during the launch of the new season of the Premier League in August. There are 14 million people in the UK who bet; about 55% of them are regular readers of The Sun. We think that this is very good for us, this is one of the areas we would like to enter. Look, I think that the future for news brands is a multitude of revenue streams of income, and the income will no longer be just the price indicated on the cover or advertising ...; as Katherine Wiener emphasized, we all need to look at our strengths and understand that there are areas that we can enter and be successful for a long time in a stable future. ”

Typography or Network

This question people have been asking all the time since the Internet prevailed, but, nevertheless, it still sounds: do print media really die?
“Hm, I don't know,” Ms. Wiener replied when asked this question on stage. I mean, I think, you know, if we produce something called “The Guardian”, then the product must be really good. I think we should produce really good newspapers. You know, “The Guardian” and “The Observer” should be as good as we can. I believe that the future is in digital technology, and we should invest in them and other innovations. But we must also take into account that there are different types of readers. "
She then added: “Last year, the income we received from print readers actually increased.” The total revenue of The Guardian media group increased by 3% to £ 214.6 million ($ 298 million) on March 29, 2015; In its annual report, the company stated that “the increase in revenue from digital and new products more than compensated for the decline in revenue from print media.”
Mr. Gallagher, whose publishing business is key to the success of The Sun, was more confident in discussing the merits of paper-based journalism compared to online journalism.
“I’m not sure if the binary choice should be considered: how much time I devote to, and how much time to another kind of journalism. The model, I believe, for most news departments is an intuitive account of both directions ... Although we work with all new trends, but reliance on traditional information media is extremely important. And I think it is certain that the newspapers continue to be a public discussion drive. ”

Social networks

^{The Guardian Editor Catherine Wiener}

Both Ms. Wiener and Mr. Gallagher agree that this industry is far from asking whether social media can replace traditional media. Mrs. Wiener described social networks as leading us to the “medieval misinformation” when “everything is messy and shaky.” She added:
“I feel that there is a movement back to the brands that people believe are checking and sorting out information to some extent, eliminating speculation, rumors and lies.”
Mr. Gallagher talked about changing relationships with established social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. He said that Facebook was clearly more important from the point of view of the traffic coming to the site “The Sun”, but he noted changes in the use of Twitter. He said:
“Most reporters in some format or otherwise live on Twitter. Although I have noticed in the past few years that the situation seems to have changed from a traffic driver to a strong, essentially competitor for such structures as Press Association [news feed service]. People now use social networks as a source of news, but I'm not sure that this is a significant traffic driver, unless of course you are not like TV presenters and journalists Jeremy Clarkson or Pierce Morgan. And, in any case, I think that in some forms of social networks, especially Twitter, there is a tendency to become something like a “media echoamer”, with the group thinking system of all decision makers for some horrible or some wonderful situations and this led to a loss of thought among journalists.

Development: from proprietary applications to Snapchat

Discussing the search for new ways to drive traffic to their websites, both editors talked enthusiastically about other innovations in brand promotion. Ms. Wiener talked about the new product:
»We launched this new product, to which, I dream, everyone will subscribe. It is called “The Minute” (“Minute”), and you can subscribe to it in the “The Guardian” app; one minute is enough to read. Everything looks very good. It is installed on the smartphone and informs within one minute what is happening in the election campaign today. He is quite funny, quite functional and, as I said, looks great. Thus, we are actively acting on all fronts to a certain extent. This development turned out to be quite interesting and sparked talk; You know, we are trying to be innovative at the same time. "
Later, Mr. Gallagher talked briskly about the launch of “The Sun” on Snapchat Discover: “We think that some disrespect that we demonstrate to the other side is ideal for Snapchat Discover.”
However, as in the situation with the fee for access to information on the network, Mr. Gallagher acknowledged that new projects may fail and that if this happens again with other projects, it is important to leave them before wasting too much time and resources on of them.
He said about the risk of entering Snapchat Discover: “If this does not work, then I would advise you to postpone the project for several years, without being obsessed with something. We think that this will work, but if one of these things doesn’t do something, you shouldn’t persist in this for many years. ”