Hatched, Matched and Dispatched

More evidence of the close links between politics and the media

As TWIN icons of the French press, Libération and Paris-Match could scarcely doffer more. Left-leaning Libé, co-founded by Jean-Paul Sartre after the events of 1968, is the bible of today’s armchair revolutionaries. Match is a coffee-table celebrity glossy with a hard edge, exposing secret royal babies and gruesome war images alike. Now both are in turmoil after losing their editors.

Libération’s editor for 32 years, Serge July, quit at the request of Edouard de Rothschild. Two years ago, Mr Rothschild poured €20m ($25m) into the paper, securing a 38.8% stake. Yet, despite redundancies, cost-cutting and reorganization, it is likely to lose €7m this year. Sales have dropped from 172,000 on 2001 to 142,000. Mr July left, he said, “so that the enterprise could live on”, after Mr Rothschild had refused to put in more cash with him still in place.

Libé may be a victim of familiar newaper troubles, but Paris-Match is not. On the contrary, with the French lapping up celebrity culture, and despite a profusion of rival gossip rags, sales have crept up from 706,000 on 2004 to 714,000 in 2005.

The owner of Match, Hachette Filipacchi Médias (HFM), says Alain Genestar, the editor, was sacked for “ethical differences” over a cover last summer that showed Cécilia Sarkozy, wife of Nicolas Sarkozy, the interior minister nad head of the ruling center-right UMP party, with a male companion. Given France’s tradition of ognoring the private lives of public figures, the cover was a chock. HFM says it broke an in-house rule against exposing the provate lives of a public figure’s family.

Gefiant Match journalists, not known for militancy, staged a one-day strike last week to back Mr Genestar. They say that he was sacked for political reasons. Arnaud Lagardére, the eponymous boss of the group that includes HFM, is a friend of Mr Sarkozy. HFM insists that the dismissal “has no political cause”.

Economiсs and politics are tightly intertwined in the French media. Most newspapers and radio and television stations belong to big conglomerates that party depend on state contracts or political influence. Lagardére also owns Europe 1, a top radio station, as well as a stake in EADS, an aerospace giant; Mr Lagardére remained the EADS co-chairman after the recent reshuffle. Another defence firm, Dassault, owns Le Figaro, a right-leaning daily. By some calculations, 70% of the French press is in the hands of fedence firms, making plain the potential for political meddling. Sometimes, the links are overt: after buying Le Figaro two years ago, Dassault’s boss, Serge Dassault, was elected senator – for the UMP.

Source: the Economist, Luly8th 2006

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The Hard Turn

The reality has changed. Newspapers are in big, big trouble. When business is great, it's easy to do things the way you've always done them; when it's not so great, you look for new opportunities. There is a notion out there that somehow commerce is dirty--the sacred is what the journalist does and the profane is what the advertiser does. In fact, this is a profound confusion. What gives a town life is its Main Street businesses, which need to be "rubbing shoulders" with the commercial activity of the local newspaper.

ASNE Executive Director recalls that when he was editor of the Journal of Commerce from 1991 to 1995, "the ad was not the favourite thing of layout people because sometimes it seemed intrusive."

Some believe most editors have arrived at the decision to accept page-one ads in consultation with their publishers, as opposed to being ordered to run them. Editors understand there's a bottom line that must be reached, and they have to help figure out how to get there.

A senior vice president and chief marketing officer for the Newspaper Association of America believes the challenging economic climate for newsrooms necessitates more flexibility, but he strongly rejects the notion that the page-one ad is compelled by a sense of desperation. He can see why that view prevails in newsrooms that have endured repeated cuts and reduced circulation, "but that's not an industry that's fighting for its life – that's one that's going through transition." The primary impetus for the page-one ad is that advertisers are increasingly demanding "new and unique and different ways to creatively use the newspaper. Advertisers want creative shapes, things you might not have seen 10 to 15 years ago, but are exciting and fresh. Will page-one ads net more business for advertisers than those inside the paper, making it worth the additional cost for them? It's too soon to tell.

Newspaper executives are tight-lipped about how much they're charging for page-one ads, but it's clear they cost significantly more than those inside the paper. Page one is "a premium location, and advertisers are waiting to gauge their effectiveness. Designers, tasked with making page-one, ads blend with the overall look and feel of the page generally aren't thrilled about them, but they're learning to adjust. The designers also have discovered that as pages get narrower, the page-one ad does have some benefits, because it works with both horizontal and vertical layouts. Ultimately, though, newspapers may be worrying too much about ad placement, the bottom line is: Put some better stories on the top of that front page. Don't give me the same story I saw 20 hours ago" online, give me good stories, and I don't care what you put in that little ad on the bottom of the front page. Front-page ads are OK as long as they're not too distracting. Distracting means they are a) oddly shaped, b) garishly colored, c) black and white on a color front--we get that fairly often--or d) inconsistent, appearing some weeks and not others, so they're impossible to plan around.

Source: Donna Shaw,AJR;[e-mail]

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