Rosanna – the exception that proves the rule? I still think that the whole presence of the GM online seemed very reluctant, and the odd foray into data journalism might just show that while the editors knew what it was, they by and large weren’t interested.

Fergus – I think that’s all spot on, sadly. They did everything they could to deter readers and return visitors.

Leaving aside the website design, and the lack of digital native storytelling forms like data visualisation and interactives, they seemed to have little sense of how people find and consume media in the current era.

Tim’s points at Mumbrella count the ways.

Thus far it has been a failure of marketing; not in a publicity sense, but in the sense of matching a service to an audience need or desire. Your point, Jason, about their stated target audience being ‘everyone’ reinforces my impression that they didn’t think about their audience at all.
Let’s assume that we’re talking about a politically engaged, educated, relatively affluent target. These people are likely to have access to huge amounts of great content, have existing sites, services or platforms they habitually use to consume content, and little real need in their life for what The Global Mail was publishing. Interest perhaps, and best wishes perhaps, but no real compelling need.
In that context simply putting up a website, having a tiny link down the bottom to subscribe to their newsletter, having a single teaser only RSS feed, publishing infrequently inside a walled garden, generally gives the impression that they expect to win their audience’s loyalty very easily and deeply. Very confident indeed.

There are still large audiences for serious, considered journalism and analysis; take a look at the long-reads phenomenon or the rising audience for The Economist or The Atlantic. I’ve got no quarrel with The Global Mail’s mission, just their execution.

By this I refer to the symbiosis between journalists and public relations professionals. Over 60% of what appears on TV, radio and newspapers is driven by public relations. Most “interesting” non-random events and stories (e.g. natural disasters) are PR driven.

Attard said, in one of the interviews I heard, that she wanted to insulate GM from the daily barrage of PR media releases. Their unresponsive nature was due to wanting to avoid the influence of PR and media spinners.

Unfortunately, that’s how our news works. Journos get tips and insights from PR staffers and insiders. If you’re isolating yourself from that, you’re not going to get the juicy stories and exclusives. Investigative journalism can’t compensate for that.

This can explain the lack of content — they simply excluded themselves from the loop.

As a sessional lecturer in media management at VU, I can attest that every first year student is taught that journalism and PR go hand in hand since the dawn of time. Journalism has always been about filling the gaps between the ads.

There was never a golden age of journalism as imagined by Attard and the rest of the Global Mail crew (including Wood). Journalism and the media is an essential part of the promotion cycle — and it just doesn’t work without PR.

As you say, The Atlantic produces amazing content. But you can be the regular journalists on the books are tapped into the PR beltway — as I imagine the freelancers would be.

More here: http://alexwhite.org/2012/05/the-global-mail-journalism-and-pr/

My impression was that they were so busy being clever with bells and whistles, they forgot to check if their site worked widely.

Once they get a normal web site, I’ll go back and form a judgement about the journalism once the delivery vehicle stops preventing me from reading it.

I emailed them to let them know, and was ignored – the sure sign you have ABC-trained people handing consumer feedback. The assumed entitlement to the consumer’s attention is something I wish they had left behind at Auntie.

“Andy Semple said…
Easy to fix. Unless you have 50% or more aboriginal blood, then you’re NOT an aboriginal or Islander. There 80% saved.

As for the tent embassy. They’re squatters and the law should equally apply to them just as it applies to everyone else. If they were OWS tards they would have been moved on.

BoltA was right also. There is plenty of people claiming “their aboriginality” to get preferential treatment. That’s got to stop also. If not then I’m just as aboriginal as they are. I was born here too so I’m an indigenous to this land as they are.”