PreMedia December 2022 English World Edition

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I N T E R N A T I O N A L M E D I A M A G A Z I N E W O R L D
DECEMBER 2022 NUMBER 12 VOLUME 28
Financial Times to see annual
circulation growth

Online-Statistic of PreMedia
2500
2000
1500
Age per User
über 65
55 bis 64
45 bis 54
35 bis 44
25 bis 34
18 bis 24
2,5%
7,5%
15,0%
10,50%
30,5%
34,0%
1000
Desktop
45,75%
500
Mobile
25,35%
0
Tablet
28,9%
Dec
Jan
Feb
March
April
May
June
July
Clicks per Month
Aug
Sep
Oct
Nov
0 10 20 30 40 50
Systems per view
Quartal 1 german
Quartal 1 english
Quartal 2 german
Quartal 2 english
Quartal 3 german
Quartal 3 english
Quartal 4 german
35,75%
64,25%
47,15%
52,85%
25,25%
74,75%
Quartal 4 english
0 100 200 300 400 500
Flipbook-Views
Website/Flipbook* Privat/Business* new/following User*
France 3,25%
Netherlands 1,87%
Spain2,81%
Philippines 3,45%
United States 3,15%
Italy 3,25%
Austria 6,45%
Switzerland 6,252%
Brazil 20,27%
Germany 49,25%
Country per User*
* Data refer to the current monthly behavior of the users

EDITORIAL 03
TIME TO REMOVE THE PRINT CORSET
AUDIENCES AREN’T INTERESTED in questions of revenue or
platform issues: They simply want their news and information
when they want it, in the format they prefer. The newspaper fulfills
an important function in the free democracies of the world.
However, it can only remain economically successful - if a free democracy
is important to us. The newspaper fulfills an important
function in the free democracies of the world. The English-language
media have the advantage. Media consumption in the
USA, Canada and the home country of the newspaper England
is already closer to digital media consumption. We have to Learn
what key professionals need to know about the direction of our
industry: strategy, trends, subscriptions, product, data, advertising,
and integrated newsrooms. With every published piece
of content, there ideally must be a sense of achievement for the
audience in the form of an intellectual, monetary, or emotional
benefit. If this happens with enough stories, readers and users
buy or renew subscriptions or even expand their consumption to
the brand’s other products.
But reaching this goal is still being hindered by an entrenched
devotion in many newsrooms to print newspaper-driven processes
and practices. This misplaced commitment can be the result of
“doing what you know” and a natural and understandable hesitation
to change. After all, print continues to be a profit generator
in many markets. Some of this response is the result of technology
driving the workflow: Print-optimised processes and systems
are costly to replace, so digital solutions are “bolted on” to existing systems. While
lowering costs, it also limits digital development and is, inevitably, a compromise.
Even if digitisation is well advanced in many editorial offices, the print product still
accounts for legacy practices that may no longer be justified based on print’s contribution
to the growth and sustainability of the business. And even if print still contributes
substantially to revenues, its place in the workflow inevitably must change if
performance is to improve and digital revenue is to grow.
In many newsrooms, content is produced for print and later transferred to digital.
This is true even if the content management system is “media neutral” or even
“digital.” It is still difficult for many editorial offices to think and act completely independently
of print, which is not surprising. Even today, there is still the widespread
concern of “cannibalisation” — that the quality of and revenue produced by the print
product will suffer from digitisation, despite evidence that print decline and digital
growth stems from audience behaviour and not the digital response to their desires.
The content and its impact must be the focus for the (paying) readership. A well-told
story at the right scale works in both digital and print. But the story must drive the
layout, not the other way around.
Sincerely yours, Merry Christmas and a successful Happy New Year 2023!
Prof. Ing. Karl Malik
Karl.Malik@premedianewsletter.de

04 INHALT
EDITORIAL
Time TO REMOVE THE PRINT CORSET 03
COVERSTORY
IFRA World News Media Congress 2022 in Zaragoza 07
CURRENT TRENDS IN
THE MEDIA INDUSTRY
National press ABCs: FT only newspaper to see annual circulation growth in August 10
Golden Pen of Freedom Awarded to Gazeta Wyborcza and the Gazeta Wyborcza Foundation 12
How The New York Times is growing subscription products beyond news 14
„Success can’t just be measured in metrics“: Inside the digital
transformation at DC Thomson 14
York Times continues run of growth with 72% jump 15
Winners of the 2022 Digital Media Awards Worldwide announced 16
Lineup Systems supporting the Media 18
How La Marseillaise unified the newsroom with ProtecMedia 19
How diversity and inclusion make a business case for journalism 21
Gannett prints fake newspapers at Des Moines Register plant 24
Gannett tells its news division that more layoffs are coming Dec. 1 26
Series of major orders continues: Hankyung Media Group invests in
two new COLORMAN e:line printing presses 27
Top 50 biggest news websites in the world in November: New
York Times is fastest-growing year-on-year but drops out of top
three 28
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INHALT 05
07
IFRA World News Media Congress 2022 in
Zaragoza
18
21
Lineup Systems
supporting the
Media
How diversity and inclusion make
a business case for journalism
24
Gannett prints fake newspapers at Des Moines Register plant

06 COVERSTORY
The Spanish King, Felipe VI., with outstanding ideas about free media
Ben Cotton, Head of Subscription Growth, The New York Times, USA
Mohit Jain, Executive President Supply Chain at The Times of India
Kat Downs Mulder, Chief Product Officer & Managing Editor of the Washington Post

COVERSTORY 07
IFRA World News Media
Congress 2022 in Zaragoza
Jez Walters is the Editor-in-Chief of What’s
New in Publishing and a thirty-year veteran
of the European advertising, marketing and
publishing industries. He has edited and managed
WNIP since 2012 with a special focus on how
publishers can prosper at a time of profound tech
disruption.
We’ve just returned from a week in Zaragoza
attending the World News Media Congress 2022.
We will be posting a number of in-depth features
from the conference in due course, but below are
some key ‘front of mind’ takeaways from last
week’s event. Bottom line: Publishers need to keep
agile, very agile.
The WAN-IFRA World News Media Conference
2022 took place last week at the El Palacio de
Congresos in Zaragoza, Spain. The event was well
attended, with over 1,200 senior news media
executives from 80 countries collectively breathing
a sigh of relief at being able to meet in person once
again.
The quality of the sessions was exceptional with a
raft of C-Suite executives taking the time to discuss
in-depth their various business strategies, revenue
models, challenges, and aspirations. Here are five
key front-of-mind takeaways:
• Curve balls incoming – publishers need to be very
agile
Normal times are over, and whether it’s pandemics,
war, price inflation, power shortages, etc, the
publishers that make it through successfully will
be those that exhibit agility and adaptability.
Thinking outside the box will be a key theme for
the coming years.
We asked one international publisher how they
were managing empty office leases and hybrid
working, “Our staff in big, capital cities don’t want
to come into work, they want a hybrid work-fromhome
model. That doesn’t fit our business culture.
We’re now decentralizing to smaller university
towns where the talent pool is large and young
people actively want to work in a space with other
people.” Trend to watch: Publishers decamping to
university towns like Heidelberg, Bath, Grenoble,
Boulder, Santiago De Compostela, etc.
We asked another major LATAM publisher how
they were managing 100% inflation, “We renegotiate
all our staff salaries every three months.
Our main problem is that to dismiss an employee
we need to pay ten months’ salary by law – no
publisher can afford that. Therefore if we need
to make an employee redundant, we won’t renegotiate
their contract. It’s dysfunctional, but
we have to survive.” Trend to watch: Staff salaries
being renegotiated frequently and over much
smaller time lengths.
• Advertising revenue remains king
For some publishers advertising remains the
unwanted guest at a wedding, but at the unveiling
of WAN-IFRA’s 2022-2023 World Press Trends
outlook, it continues to play a significant role for
almost all news publishers.
The traditional ‘either/or’ wall between advertising
and paid subscriptions is also crumbling.
Moving forwards, many paid subscriptions will
be accompanied by advertising. However, as one
speaker remarked, “if you are advertising to people
who have paid to subscribe, you’d better ensure
that the advertising is highly relevant and doesn’t
interfere with the user experience”.

08 COVERSTORY
The good news for publishers looking to combine
both advertising and paid subscriptions is that
their copious volumes of first-party data should
ensure both context and relevancy. Failure to do so
is, quite frankly, inexcusable.
• Size is no excuse – being smaller can be a
competitive advantage
Kat Downs-Mulder, Managing Editor & Chief
Product Officer, Washington Post, reminded
publishers that you can build a great product with
few resources. However, to do so, you have to,
“understand your audience’s needs, examine the
competitive landscape, create a minimal delightful
product, and keep evolving and developing it.”
The theme was taken up at a seminar session
with Google DNI and FT Strategies, where it was
highlighted that whilst larger publishers might
have more resources, it can be a much harder
process to harness them, more like turning a
supertanker than piloting a navy seal rib. A key
theme: In larger newsrooms, editorial teams have
to be involved to make a success of new products.
• Publisher Alliances are on the rise
A key theme emerging from the conference is
that publisher alliances are on the rise. Reality is
dawning on many news organizations that if they
want to seriously compete with the tech platforms,
they need to form strategic alliances with fellow
publishers and disregard competitive concerns.
A standout example was the Spanish publisher
Henneo who in ten years has transformed from
being a small local newspaper in Aragon to become
a multi-media powerhouse and one of the Top Ten
IT companies in the country. Their Alayans Media
project includes 15 publishing groups across
Spain who have jointly created a shared tech and
monetizing solution that doesn’t rely on thirdparty
cookies.
On a related theme, in Scandinavia and Finland,
local news organizations have thrived only by
being part of larger media organizations where
they can share tech resources and expertise.
• Reader trust – a major, major problem
Trust in news is at an all-time low and there’s no
solution on the horizon. In a presentation in the
main auditorium, Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, Director
of Reuters Institute and Professor of Political
Communication at Oxford University couldn’t
have been clearer:
A key problem is the ‘consensus group think’
exhibited by news organizations as well as the
increasing influence of outside commercial and
political interests. The picture is further clouded
by the significant advertising revenues that news
organizations protect at all costs, often to the
detriment of exposes and exclusives that can be
canceled on a whim. A recent YouTube video shows
firsthand the dilemma news organizations find
themselves in.
The news industry, perhaps, needs to take a leaf
out of the manual of Academic Science:
Science is the pursuit of the truth, not consensus.
Good science involves perpetual, open debate, in
which every objection is aired and dissents are
sharpened and clarified, not smoothed over. The
accomplished scientist is an original…disrupting
established patterns of thought.
-by John Kay, writing in the Financial Times-

COVERSTORY 09
ProtecMedia presenting new software solutions
Edyth Kambalame, Büro Chief-Lilongwe, Nation Publications Limited, Malawi
Tangeni Amupadhi, The Namibian, Dr. Hauke Berndt, ppi Media
King Felipe VI honored Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland, with the World Press Freedom Award

10 CURRENT TRENDS IN THE MEDIA INDUSTRY
National press ABCs: FT only newspaper
to see annual circulation growth in
August
The Financial Times saw marginal year-on-year
growth in circulation in August, with every
other newspaper continuing to decline.
The FT had a circulation of 105,748 in August
compared to 105,213 the year before. Its newsstand
sales and non-UK circulation grew although paid
subscriptions and bulks (copies distributed for
free at locations such as airports and hotels) were
down.
Month-on-month, the only newspapers to see
growth were the Daily Star Sunday, up 2% to
103,200 and the Scottish title Daily Record which
was up by 1% to 69,316. Both are owned by Reach.
The Evening Standard also upped its free distribution,
although by less than 1%. Its print
readership in July was its lowest since before it
went free in October 2009, with August the second
lowest. Its year-on-year decline of 19% was one of
the biggest in our table.
Fellow London free title City AM is also at its
lowest distribution (36,640) since its 2005 launch.
Its print edition was paused for 18 months during
the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Reach-owned Sunday People’s circulation
was down the most, by 22% to 82,597, with DC
Thomson’s Sunday Post down by 20% to 48,943.
Scroll down or click here for new graphs charting
the ups and downs of the UK national press in the
past 20 years.
National newspaper circulations in August 2022
(ABC) with monthly and yearly changes – this page
will be updated monthly:
The column for bulks refers to copies which are
circulated for free at venues such as airports and
hotels.
The above figures do not include the Sun, Times
and Telegraph titles which have all chosen to keep
their ABC circulations private since the start of
2020. The Guardian and Observer joined them in
September 2021.
The last ABC figures we have for these titles are as
follows:
• The Sun: 1,210,915 (March 2020)
• The Sun on Sunday: 1,013,777 (March 2020)
• The Sunday Times: 647,622 (March 2020)
• The Times: 365,880 (March 2020)
• Daily Telegraph: 317,817 (December 2019)
• Sunday Telegraph: 248,288 (December 2019)
• The Observer: 136,656 (July 2021)
• The Guardian: 105,134 (July 2021)
2021/22 in focus
These charts show UK national newspaper
circulation over the past 12 months.
They should be seen in the backdrop of the
Covid-19 pandemic, which hit the UK from March
2020. Free daily Metro was by far the hardest hit
as commuters disappeared from train stations and
other key locations almost overnight. Circulation
had started to bounce back as publisher DMGT
ramped up distribution again, but the title faced a
small slump in circulation in November 2020 and a
larger one again in January 2021 – coinciding with
the start of England’s second and third lockdowns.
In May 2021 it returned to distributing 1m copies
per day.

CURRENT TRENDS IN THE MEDIA INDUSTRY 11
2000-present
We have also charted the longerterm
change in ABC circulation
over the past 20 years across the
UK press.
These charts show the extent of
the print decline from The Sun
reaching 3.76m in 2000 and
the Sun on Sunday’s launch in
February 2012 with a shortlived
3.21m before dropping to
just above 2m.
Meanwhile, though the Daily
Mirror and Daily Mail once were
competitive in print reach at
around 2.3m-2.4m in 2000, the
Mail now has a circulation three
times the size of its former rival.
The Sunday tabloids all saw a
spike in 2011 after the closure
of the News of the World but
few retained the readers – the
Sunday People and Sunday
Mirror did best at doing so, but
largely lost them when the Sun
on Sunday launched.
These charts will be updated
each month to include the latest
figures.
-by Charlotte Tobitt and
Aisha Majid Twitter-

12 CURRENT TRENDS IN THE MEDIA INDUSTRY
Golden Pen of Freedom Awarded to
Gazeta Wyborcza and the Gazeta
Wyborcza Foundation
The 2022 Golden Pen of Freedom, the annual press freedom award of the World Association of News Publishers
(WAN-IFRA), has been awarded to Gazeta Wyborcza and the Gazeta Wyborcza Foundation in Poland.
The award, made during the
2022 World News Media
Congress currently taking place
in Zaragoza, Spain recognises “a
news organisation that stands
as a beacon of independence
and as a bulwark against
authoritarianism; a paper of
record that demonstrates its
values daily, across its pages,
through support to young
journalists, in the promotion of
local news, and through work
across borders in solidarity with
colleagues in need.”
“Each of our laureates,
stretching back to the very first
Pen, embodies a set of values
that underpin our industry,”
said Warren Fernandez, Editorin-Chief
of the The Straits Times
in Singapore and President of
the World Editors Forum, in
announcing the award.
“Increasingly challenged, these
values are defended worldwide
by journalists, editors, and news
publishers who recognise the
importance of free media… in
safeguarding the well-being,
and proper functioning of our
societies and democracies. These
are values that underpin WAN-
IFRA and signify the continued
importance of upholding,
and showing our solidarity
with, those on the front lines,
wherever they may be. Today’s
laureates exemplify this tenfold.”
Facing down numerous
challenges to deliver independent
journalism and
reliable coverage, Gazeta
Wyborcza established the Gazeta
Wyborcza Foundation in 2019
to safeguard the publication’s
future and strengthen quality
journalism in Poland. Its
projects have denounced neofascist
organisations, fought disinformation,
polarisation, and
xenophobia, and supported local
and regional media to produce
investigative journalism.
Over the past year, the
Foundation has been
coordinating critical financial
and technical support to
Ukrainian colleagues from
across Europe following the
Russian invasion.
“The deteriorating condition of
Polish democracy means that
civic engagement is needed now
more than ever,” said Joanna
Krawczyk, Head of Partnerships
at Gazeta Wyborcza and
President of the Board of the
Gazeta Wyborcza Foundation,
accepting the award on behalf
of the Foundation. “The events
of recent months and years have
shown with full force the scale
of the challenges facing our
democracies.
“I thank you for your support,
generosity and unity and call on
you to be with us, with any media
in need in the years to come. We
often say nowadays: be brave
like Ukrainian journalists, so
let’s be brave in our decision not
to leave Ukrainian media alone.
Let’s not leave any independent
media facing oppression alone.”
Accepting the award on behalf

CURRENT TRENDS IN THE MEDIA INDUSTRY 13
Publisher and Polish Legend Adam Michník, Karl Malik
of the Gazeta Wyborcza newsroom,
Piotr Stasiński, former
deputy Editor-in-Chief and
current Special Media Advisor to
Gazeta Wyborcza Foundation,
said: “Under PiS rule, media
freedom in Poland has been
seriously infringed. Already, we
see a growing ‘chilling effect’
and a decreasing number of
media outlets that are free and
independent. Developments
in Poland are in line with how
Hungarian independent media
were suppressed by Viktor
Orban’s government. Hungary,
like Poland, is an EU member.”
First published on 8 May 1989,
under the motto “There is no
freedom without Solidarity,”
Gazeta Wyborcza initially faced
heavy censorship but became
critical in convincing the
public to reject the country’s
communist leadership. It also
became the first legal publication
that was outside of government
control.
By the early 2000s, ‘Wyborcza’
had become one of Poland’s
best-selling newspapers and
has since consolidated its
position as a journal of record
that keeps a constant vigilance
over Polish democracy. Today,
as one of the country’s few
remaining independent news
titles, Gazeta Wyborcza – no
stranger to resistance – finds
itself under constant attack
from a government hostile to independent
news.
A systematic effort by the
ruling Law and Justice party
to capture public service media
has led them and their allies to
turn their attentions to private
media. An onslaught of legal
and financial pressures has
been brought to bear, targeting
Gazeta Wyborcza in particular.
The publication is facing some
100 legal challenges.
“A media house that faces down
dozens upon dozens of lawsuits
from government and its allies,
and counters regular efforts to
undermine its integrity; one that
has established a foundation
to ensure a future whereby
its work reaches far beyond
its circulation – all of this has
required leadership, purpose,
and courage,” continued Warren
Fernandez. “Gazeta Wyborcza
and the Gazeta Wyborcza
Foundation are showing us
the way, providing just that.
Showing there is indeed, “no
freedom without solidarity.”
“The mission we are committed
to is especially important now,
in our troubled country, and in
the increasingly troubled world,”
concluded Piotr Stasiński. “The
Golden Pen of Freedom award,
which we humbly accept today,
helps. Helps us carry on, helps
us to persevere.”
Joanna Krawczyk,
Head of
Partnerships of the
Gazeta Wyborcza
Foundation

14 CURRENT TRENDS IN THE MEDIA INDUSTRY
How The New York Times is growing
subscription products beyond news
The New York Times recently announced they added 180,000 digital-only subscribers during the third quarter,
and they are on track to reach their goal of 15 million subscribers by 2027.
While the news product remains
the core of The Times’ digital
subscription success, their
growth has brought its own
set of challenges. Among them
is to keep current subscribers
onboard while bringing in new
ones.
A key way the company aims to
do this is by putting a greater
emphasis on its products beyond
news, said Ben Cotton, NYT’s
Head of Subscription Growth.
This is not to suggest The Times
has any intentions of moving
away from news. They don’t,
and Cotton made that clear.
“The way we talk about this is,
if our products at The New York
Times are the solar system, then
news is the sun, right in the
middle, and the other products
are building off of that,” he said.
These additional products are
intended to have their own
appeal and audiences, and may
represent significant revenue
streams either on their own, or
by being bundled with news or
other products.
An opportunity to grow
subscriptions beyond news
“This is not a huge change in
strategy or anything like that,”
Cotton said. “It’s very consistent
with the news mission that we
have had over the last several
decades. But we do think it
speaks to an opportunity we see
to grow our subscription product
beyond the news product and
into a number of other areas.”
Take NYT’s Games, for example,
which includes the popular word
game Wordle that The Times
bought earlier this year, along
with their famous, long-running
crossword puzzle and several
other games designed to keep
players coming back regularly.
The Times also has a number of
other successful product-lines
such as the product review website
The Wirecutter and their
standalone Cooking product.
„Success can’t just be measured in metrics“:
Inside the digital transformation at DC Thomson
UK news publisher DC Thomson
has amassed 25k paying subscribers,
18 months into
starting a digital-first strategy.
To attract paying audiences
to titles such as The Press and
Journal and The Courier, every
person in the newsroom took
on a new job, said Richard Prest,
DC Thomson’s head of content
development.
Reporters are now grouped

CURRENT TRENDS IN THE MEDIA INDUSTRY 15
in mini-publisher teams that
produce content for specific
audiences with a user-first
mindset. For example, the
publisher found that food and
drink content is often most read
during the weekend, so that is
when the team now publishes it.
Read also: ‚Actionable user
needs‘ make for more efficient
newsrooms
Similarly, deeper investigative
pieces, like video documentaries,
did particularly well when
released during the evening or
on a Sunday night when people
had more time to watch them.
Unlike Reach Plc, which
launched minimum page view
targets for its reporters, DC
Thomson measures success
with engagement metrics. It
has developed its own approach
called Quality Reads which
looks at scroll depth, mouse
movements and average reading
time, allowing reporters to see
how their content is being read
or viewed.
In addition to engagement,
Prest and his teams look at
interaction time, assisted
subscriptions and page views.
But the Quality Reads score is
the most important and widely
used metric in the newsroom.
„Success, though, can’t just
be measured in metrics,“ he
says. „Witnessing changing
behaviours is key. We are seeing
increasing collaboration with
specialist areas who work with
the newsrooms, graphics, SEO,
AV, data, insight and social.“
Cross-team collaboration is
central to success and teams
often discuss the best ways to
structure their content, so it
is more effective in terms of
engagement.
Human transformation
As media advisor Lucy Kueng
recently said, „digital transformation
is a people transformation
masquerading
as a technological one.“ At
DC Thomson, changing the
mindsets was as important as
introducing any new tools.
Prest says that the whole newsroom
got on board with the
digital transformation plan, as
it was considered the best way
to futureproof DC Thomson’s
quality journalism.
„In a change like this, you
have to be quite humble and
patient, especially those leading
people,“ he says, adding that the
team also sought advice from
publishers in the US and Europe
who had been there before.
„I was a print editor, and had
worked in print all my career
but was asked to help lead the
transformation which meant relearning
everything I knew.“
A digital transformation journey
is full of obstacles but Prest
says they are often a result of
overthinking and fearing to
fail. An antidote to this energysapping
mindset is taking the
next step and learning from its
successes and failures.
„Insight, data, product, social
and audience specialists provide
incredible support, ensuring
that our content, subscription,
and product offerings are all
aligned with our audience’s
wants and needs,“ he concludes.
York Times continues run of growth with 72% jump
The New York Times was the
fastest-growing top ten site in
the world in September, according
to Press Gazette’s ranking of
global online traffic to English
language newsbrands.
Visits to nytimes.com were up
72% year-on-year to 618.6 million,
according to data from digital
intelligence platform Similarweb.
Mail Online, the only other
top ten site to see double-digit
growth, saw visits grow by 11% to
411.6 million.
The NY Times was the fastestgrowing
top ten news site in the
world
Year-on-year change in visits
(%), top 10 sites by number of
visits
nytimes.com 72
dailymail.co.uk 11
theguardian.com 8
cnn.com and edition.cnn.com 5
news.yahoo.com 2
bbc.co.uk and bbc.com 1
msn.com
−7
news.google.com
−7
finance.yahoo.com
foxnews.com
−13
−17
Source: Similarweb
-by Aisha Majid Twitter-

16 CURRENT TRENDS IN THE MEDIA INDUSTRY
Winners of the 2022 Digital Media Awards
Worldwide announced
WAN-IFRA has announced today the winners of the 2022 Digital Media Awards Worldwide during a ceremony at
the annual World News Media Congress in Zaragoza, Spain. Five global winners were recognised in six different
categories for their exceptional demonstration in digital strategies to meet the changes in how people consume
news and information today.
Winners of the WAN-
IFRA Digital Media
Awards Worldwide
2022 in Zaragoza
(Photo: PreMedia
Newsletter Magazin)
WAN-IFRA’s Digital Media
Awards Worldwide are the news
media industry’s only truly
global digital media competition.
To qualify for the worldwide
competition, finalists first had
to win at the regional level of our
Digital Media Awards during this
past year in Africa, Asia, Europe,
Latin America, North America
and South Asia, which together
provide news publishers with
regular showcases for the bestpractice
innovation in digital
publishing worldwide.
The regional awards are
evaluated by local juries and
then later in the year, a different
set of judges examine all the
winners across the regions and
select the best of each category
for the Digital Media Awards
Worldwide.
And the winners are:
Best Data Visualisation
Spain lives in flats: why we
have built our cities vertically,
eldiario.es (Diario de Prensa
Digital SL), Spain
“Exceptional. This is a visually
and aesthetically stunning
story that also provides rich
historic and geographic insight
and context,” said one judge.
“The overlay of charts and text
over the map is beautifully
executed, and the way the
visual finds examples of the
trends highlighted in the text is
extremely enlightening.”
“The piece is interesting and the
maps function seamlessly,” said
another.
“Works amazingly well on
mobile,” added a third judge.
“Great storytelling, and really
good use of data visualisation to
make a potentially dry narrative
pop.”

CURRENT TRENDS IN THE MEDIA INDUSTRY 17
Best in Audience Engagement
Dapat Totoo, GMA News Online,
Philippines
“In a world dogged by fake news
and declining public engagement
in public interest journalism,
this campaign is right on the
money in its approach in trying
to engage with a younger, more
difficult -to-reach audience
with an election process,” said
one of our judges. “A really
imaginative approach, utilising
the social media platforms of
the generation to engage with
the younger audience who often
grapple with the complexities of
elections.”
“This is a superb entry,” said
another judge. “I love the range
of ways in which you have sought
to connect with youth audiences
on an important topic.”
A third judge noted: “This project
isn’t just about engaging with
a news brand but encouraging
audiences to engage with
the fundamental principles
of democracy itself. GMA
has devised an experimental
approach with young people
firmly in mind and the playful,
multi-platform messaging,
design and distribution of this
educational campaign should be
celebrated.”
Best News Website or Mobile
Service
CNA website and app, CNA
Mediacorp Pte Ltd, Singapore
“The new app and website have
been created in a way that
is entirely compatible with
mobile-first thinking for news
consumers, using a fantastically
forward-thinking approach that
should be a standard for the
industry in 2022,” said one of
our judges. “As well as looking
great, the attention to detail in
terms of innovation makes the
CNA offering stand out. The
whole in-app experience with
the variety of content available,
customisation options and even
just the pleasure in navigating
around is superb.”
“Simple design, clean nav menus,
and impressive increases in use:
‘A 17% increase in monthly
average time spent per visit
on the website…. grew 28% in
monthly active users on iOS and
18% for Android.’ Looks good
on iPhone too,” noted another
judge.
Said a third: “I really like their
Context Snippets… a great way
to help readers through difficult
topics!“
Best Use of Online Video
Disordered, Stuff Circuit, New
Zealand
“This is a beautiful and gripping
telling of an important national
story of pain and abuse all too
common in countries with a
wounded and often overlooked
population damaged before
they were even born. It has
an almost languid pacing but
each segment keeps the viewer
engaged enough to want to see
‘What happens next?’ Bravo to
this team,” said a judge.
Best Reader Revenue Initiative
Maverick Insider, Daily
Maverick, South Africa
“Maverick Insider is a fantastic
solution to a particular problem
in Africa: how to get people to
pay for news in a less developed
economy,” said one of our
judges. “The latest iteration of
the project, which comprises
this year’s entry, highlights the
ongoing iterative effort which is
at the heart of all digital success
stories. Bringing in ecommerce
offers and new partnerships
was a smart way of showing the
value of membership in tough
economic times. Creating an
expert database manages both
to make readers feel like they
are gaining something from
membership but also helps to
improve the title’s journalism.
The numbers show that this
initiative is clearly working.”
“The longevity of this
programme is testament to its
success,” added another judge.
“The lesson learnt was honest,
and pertinent.“
Noted a third: “One of the
most impressive things about
Maverick Insider is the way the
team is using data to better
understand their audiences
– and also incorporating best
practice and ideas from across
the globe. As a membership
play, Maverick Insider is tapping
the true definition of reader
support: the members care for
the product, understand the
role they play in its future and
are emotionally rather than
transactionally involved in its
ongoing success. The variety
of benefits on offer is really
compelling as is the quality.”
Best Newsletter
First Thing with John Stupart,
Daily Maverick, South Africa
“Going from being ‘a spark plug’
to ‘one of the wheels’ sums it
up well,” said a judge. “Being a
‘primary driver’ of much other
success says a lot. Continuous
evolution of content and
function is critical. Selling out
two months in advance? Raise
the rates, or add ad modules.
Or both. Thirteen years.
Well done!“

18 CURRENT TRENDS IN THE MEDIA INDUSTRY
PreMedia:
Hello Susan, it’s a real pleasure
to meet you again here in
Spain. The media industry is
undergoing dramatic change. In
your opinion, is there a concept
for the winners in the multimedia
competition?
Susan Macdonald:
If I knew the answer to that
question, I could win the Nobel
Prize! However, I can say there
are signs of a positive future
for newspapers. Content
is becoming increasingly
important, but ad sales are
steadily declining. So it’s about
stabilising ad sales and ensuring
that both online and print advertising
has a lasting effect.
Susan MacDonald and Karl Malik
Lineup Systems supporting
the Media
PreMedia:
You’ve worked in many cultures
around the world. You spent
20 years working overseas incl
15 years in Asia, and you travel
all over the world for Lineup
Systems. Can you introduce
Lineup to our readers?
Susan Macdonald:
Gladly. For over a decade,
Lineup has helped the world’s
largest and best-known media
companies such as Die Zeit, Der
PEOPLE
IN
DIALOGUE

CURRENT TRENDS IN THE MEDIA INDUSTRY 19
Tagesspiegel, New York Times &
News Corp successfully maximise
their advertising sales
with Adpoint; an end-to-end
media sales solution spanning
CRM, Order Management,
Finance and Reporting offering
one source of the truth so
optimising data management.
Some of the key benefits
for our Publishers are tech
stack simplification, reduced
TCO, streamlined operations,
improved workflows and team
collaboration.
Our new subscriptions solution,
Amplio, is Lineup‘s multichannel
audience monetisation
solution that helps media
companies realise their full
reader revenue potential, using
data-driven intelligence to
engage, nurture and monetise
readers with personalised offers
that increase reader revenue
and reduce churn.
Our two software platforms,
Amplio and Adpoint,are focused
solely on media companies
and enable our customers to
ditch their legacy systems and
take a faster, more modern
and efficient approach to all
their advertising sales and
subscription management
operations to increase efficiency
and boost revenue.
PreMedia:
I‘m going to visit the New York
Times. They are also a customer
of Lineup Systems.
Media in France
How La Marseillaise unified the
newsroom with ProtecMedia
The newsroom team‘s web and print editing work is made much easier thanks to Protecmedia technology.
La Marseillaise is a French
regional newspaper. It sells
around 80,000 copies a day
and its website receives some
170,000 visitors a month. It has
been delivering comprehensive,
high-quality local and regional
information since 1943 in the
departments of Bouches-du-
Rhône, Var, Hérault and Gard.
It currently delivers news via its
website, its daily newspaper and
a weekly publication.
The digital strategy of La
Marseillaise has been driven
by this switch to Media Cloud
technology, adopting a multichannel
integrated system and
updating its website. This focus
on technology has helped the
La Marseillaise team to focus its
time and efforts on producing
high-end journalism and
delivering high-quality content
to its readers.
Straus News unifies its
editorial team for 18 print
and web publications
with Protecmedia‘s Cloud
technology.
Straus News renewed together
with Protecmedia the editorial
system of its newsroom for the
18 publications they manage.
Thanks to this technological
upgrade and the adoption of
Protecmedia‘s Cloud system,
print and web workflows have
been unified.
Straus News is a privately held
group whose publishing activity
began in 1943 and whose
regional information reaches
populations of more than
30,000. Its circulation covers
Manhattan and Orange counties
in New York, Sussex and Passaic
counties in New Jersey and
Pike County, Pennsylvania.
It has a total of 17 local news
editions, both weekly print and
digital publications and the
environmentally themed Dirt
magazine.
Metrics attest to the digital
revolution of El Correo Gallego,
a leading news site in both traffic
and registered users
Rossel-La Voix Group optimises
subscription management
thanks to the power and agility
of Shipo
u Two distinct newsrooms
worked separately on editing
content for the 18 weekly
print publications, which
have more than 150,000
subscribers, and their
corresponding daily digital
editions.
u Coordination between their
team of 10 editors, 5 designers
and 20 correspondents was

20 CURRENT TRENDS IN THE MEDIA INDUSTRY
not smooth in the work tool
itself.
u The editorial system did not
allow them to optimize the
work of editing the same
news for several publications.
These work processes were
duplicated and performed
manually.
u Their technology did not
allow them the flexibility a
journalist needs to complete
their work from any device
and place.
“We have found the perfect tool
for our team, which works on both
web and print content. It also
offers a superior user experience,
so we are very happy to have found
Protecmedia and its Milenium
publishing system”
-Jeanne Strauss, President &
Publisher Straus News-
La Dépêche Group speeds up its
digital transition with automation
of its print editions
Streamlining processes and
saving time were the key
objectives of the La Dépêche
Group in its transition to a newsroom
3.0 with the same quality
and proximity of its hyperlocal
news.
The Dépêche‘s enormous digital
transition challenge was closely
tied to the value proposition
of its readers whose loyalty
is based on the newspaper‘s
ability to provide them with
high quality, local journalism.
This compromise with local
information would not be
possible without the work of
an extensive network of up to
700 freelance writers, whose
management is complex and
costly.
La Dépêche Group publishes 10
newspapers in 14 departments
in the Occitanie region and has
4 local television channels. Its
publications include 6 print
newspapers with their own websites
and their own app.
La Depeche‘s core mission is to
support the economic growth of
the group which is threatened
by the decline of the print
press. This area of its business,
which accounts for 80% of
its activity, is experiencing a
slowdown due to rising paper
costs, and declining revenues
from circulation, advertising
and subscriptions.
Through a complete redesign
of its editorial workflow
coordinated with our MDXP
system and the implementation
of the Print layout automation
tool, Aida dxp, La Depeche
has managed to optimise its
processes and draw up a solid
and promising plan for the
future. The industry interest
of this story is such that a
dedicated webinar at INMA
and a full article about it are
available on the INMA´s website.
Rossel-La Voix Group optimises
subscription management
thanks to the power and agility
of Shipo
Metrics attest to the digital
revolution of El Correo Gallego,
a leading news site in both traffic
and registered users
Compromise with the local
information demanded by its
readers.
Decline in Print business, which
accounts for 80%.
Transition to a Digital First
model in the newsroom
“We have more than 700
journalists and local contributors
and a commitment to our readers
to provide local coverage for all the
territories in the region.”
-Michaël Bourguignon, Group
Director of Revenue, IT and
Digital Development, La Depeche
du Midi.-
Print and web editing were not
integrated, they were managed
in different systems
Their editorial systems were
obsolete
Their newsroom transferred
content from print to digital
manually
The team detected room for
improvement to make their
website more mobile-friendly
Their technology did not allow
the team to work remotely
Their website did not support a
paywall
“Having a single space for inputting
and distributing print and web
content has been a major development
in our operations” (Jean--
Jacques Schneider, Directeur La
Marseillaise)-

CURRENT TRENDS IN THE MEDIA INDUSTRY 21
How diversity and inclusion make a
business case for journalism
In July, the World Economic Forum (WEF) published its annual report on the Global Gender Gap, assessing
146 countries, of which India ranked 135th in terms of gender parity in the workforce.
While the ranking this
year saw a marginal
improvement (up from 140th),
the issue of gender disparity
persists.
Akanksha Saxena, a person of
colour, has worked in newsrooms
internationally for about
10 years. She joined WAN-IFRA
for its recent Indian Media
Leaders eSummit to talk about
the need for building diverse and
inclusive newsrooms.
Saxena started her career
as a researcher with BBC in
2011. This was the time when
discussions about diversity
were already underway and
media organisations were forced
to make policy changes after
minorities demanded to see
more on-air representation.
“I’ve faced a slew of challenges
working in these newsrooms
that are largely white, male
dominated, and I have tried to
make my way through that. It’s
been an interesting journey filled
with learnings,” said Saxena.
Now, an editor at Deutsche Welle,
Saxena said the organisation
is constantly working towards
becoming more diverse and
inclusive.
Diverse businesses
perform better
While there are many reasons
for creating more diverse newsrooms
and companies, a very
tangible one is that the most
diverse companies are also more
likely than ever to outperform
non-diverse companies on
profitability.
This is proven by a 2019
McKinsey analysis that shows
that companies in the top
quartile of gender diversity on
executive teams were also 25
percent more likely to experience
above-average profitability than
peer companies. The reason behind
this is bringing diverse
perspectives and taking risks,
said Saxena.
“Given the degree to which media
organisations rely on the ability
of all their staffers to effectively
connect with sources, audiences
and each other, there is little
doubt that a more diverse newsroom
can be more productive,
and therefore a more profitable
one,” Saxena said.
Diversity brings in unique
storytelling
According to Saxena, diversity
is each person’s individual
story stemming from their
experiences and circumstances,
which makes for a unique view of
the world; and diversity is being
accepting of these realities.
“My experience as a woman
having grown up in urban India
is starkly different from say,
a Dalit (a member of what is
considered to be the lowest
caste in the traditional Hindu
social hierarchy) journalist. So,
without diversity, we end up
painting a distorted picture of
reality,” she said. So, what does
diversity mean in the specific
context of journalism?
Women in news
u Women in TV in India
According to the 2021 UN
Women Report, only one in
five panellists across English
prime time debates is a woman,
with the gender representation
actually decreasing between
2019-2020. The situation for
Hindi prime time is worse with
just one woman for every 10
male panellists.
u Women’s voices missing on
COVID-19 discussions
According to the same report,
while discussing sports, all the
panels across English and Hindi
channels are manels (men-only
panels), with women being best
represented in human interest,
cultural, and entertainment
stories.
“There are very few women
covering sports, politics, defence
– fields that are referred to
as ‘serious journalism beats’,”
Credit: Pexels

22 CURRENT TRENDS IN THE MEDIA INDUSTRY
from digital and print media
surveyed:
A “manel” of 12
male speakers
discussing a female
politician – Priyanka
Gandhi – without a
female perspective
that could add
substance and
layers to the debate.
(Screengrab)
Saxena said. As per the latest
Oxfam-Newslaundry Gender
Representation in Indian Newsrooms
2022 report, women were
completely missing from panel
discussions on defence, sports
and business. Only women
experts from specialised fields
such as law, civil societies and
NGOs were seen discussing
issues such as politics
and law.
Female journalists rarely
touched the mark of 50 percent
even on issues related to gender;
representation of the third
gender still remains far-fetched
in newsrooms.
Digital media fared slightly
better than traditional media.
Against 61.5 percent male
representation, there were
37.5 percent women. However,
the increase in women’s
representation merely rose from
35.5 percent in 2020 to 37.5
percent in 2022.
u Women in print
The situation is no better in
print media. Across newspapers,
three in every four articles are
written by a male journalist.
The UN report found that
most publications saw an
improvement in the share of
news stories written by women
from 2019-2020, but a dip in the
number of female journalists
(i.e. there were fewer female
journalists, but they were writing
more articles). The report also
recorded a disproportionate
amount of co-written articles
were male collaborations only.
According to the report, the
highest share of womenauthored
news stories was on
business pages, and the least on
sports pages. Gender issues were
covered sparingly but women
wrote 44 percent of those news
articles.
Of the 18 percent of all analysed
articles related to COVID-19,
only 36 percent were authored
by women.
Marginalised groups get
marginal representation
The latest Oxfam-Newslaundry
Caste Representation Report
(2022) surveyed 218 digital,
print and TV newsrooms and
found that 191 of them had
leadership positions that were
held by journalists from the
general category. None of the
mainstream media houses had
people belonging to SC/ST
(Scheduled Castes/Scheduled
Tribes) categories in leadership
roles. Two from SC/ST categories
held leadership positions in two
alternative media platforms.
Here are the key highlights
Print media
u More than 60 percent of
bylined articles in English
and Hindi newspapers were
written by people from general
category. Less than 5 percent
of the articles were written by
people from SC/ST categories
and 10 percent belonged to
OBC (Other Backward Class).
Majority of the writers in the
top decile belonged to dominant
caste groups in both English and
Hindi newspapers.
u Over 50 percent of journalists
who have written on caste
and tribal issues belonged to
dominant castes. No newspaper
had a journalist from SC/ST
categories writing on caste and
tribal issues.
u Around 60 percent of
magazine stories were by people
from the general category.
Around 5 percent of the stories
were written by people from
SC/ST categories. None of the
magazines had any SC/ST writer
at the top. Only a few had OBCs
in the top decile of writers.
Magazines had 14 percent of
writers from SC category writing
on caste and tribal issues, while
only 3.6 percent ST writers.
Digital media
u More than 55 percent of the
writers who wrote for various
mainstream digital media outlets
belonged to the general
category. Less than 5 percent
of the articles were written by
people from SC/ST categories.
u Alternative digital media
outlets such as Mooknayak,
EastMojo fared better in terms
of total number of articles
contributed by people from
marginalised caste groups.
“These hard facts are indicative
of why the Indian news media
is not diverse and inclusive

CURRENT TRENDS IN THE MEDIA INDUSTRY 23
enough,” Saxena said. “Without
proper representation, we
cannot actually have a complete
picture of the mediascape. These
varied experiences are what
really make the crux of news
storytelling.”
What diversity and
inclusion can look like
In recalling her time as a BBC
Producer, Saxena said: “We
would cover stories from the
hinterlands of India and mostly,
women would refuse to talk in
front of the camera. We realised
they were uncomfortable with
a male cameraperson and were,
therefore, unable to express
themselves clearly.
“Once we switched to a female
cameraperson, we noticed the
women we were filming appeared
more confident in talking about
the discriminations they face
daily, asking for accountability
from those in power. So, this is
primarily about access.”
Similarly Saxena emphasised
on caste, regional, cultural,
and linguistic diversity and
representation being equally
crucial.
“News should be about balance.
We need to have different
viewpoints to add value to our
coverage.
As part of Deutsche Welle’s
growth strategy and ethical
responsibility, the editorial team
is increasingly trying to include
more women in their coverage,
as well as strike a gender balance
in the newsroom.
Last year, DW launched a
miniseries called HER – Women
in Asia, which follows the lives
of Asian women talking about
issues plaguing them in a maledominated
society.
“As a result, so many more
women have actually started
engaging on our platforms,” said
Saxena.
Diversity builds trust by
giving agency
Global trust in media has been
rapidly depleting.
An Ipsos study of 27 countries
found that during a fiveyear
period from 2014-2019,
public trust in newspapers
and magazines dropped by an
average of 16 percent. In the
United States of America and
Great Britain – two countries
traditionally seen as home
to model independent media
systems – public trust in print
media dropped by 26 percent
and 27 percent, respectively.
A similar pattern can be seen
in radio, television and digital
media, in all the countries
surveyed.
The study also states that building
diverse newsrooms is even more
important to establishing trust
with underrepresented groups,
where “the challenge is often
not about rebuilding trust, but
about building a relationship
from scratch.”
Best practices for and
from newsrooms
Saxena shared five tips to help
newsrooms work towards
improving diversity, equity and
inclusion:
u Be bold: Create a culture
that recognises, supports and
advances diversity.
u Ensure effective re presen
tation in news coverage
(demographic surveys, incorporating
it as a corporate goal).
u Build diversity within the
newsroom at all levels (viz a
viz pay gap, mentoring, mental
health, executive roles).
u Engage with marginalised
parts of your community. No
false diversity; similarities
beyond differences.
u Remove unconscious bias.
Are women victims? Are
migrants criminals? Are Dalits
disenfranchised?
-by Neha Gupta

24 CURRENT TRENDS IN THE MEDIA INDUSTRY
Gannett prints fake newspapers at
Des Moines Register plant
Photo provided by
Illinois recipient,
published with
permission
Fake newspapers designed
to drive Illinois voters away
from Democratic candidates are
being printed at the Des Moines
Register‘s plant, Gannett
staff confirmed to Bleeding
Heartland.
At least eleven printed
publications, which are part
of the conservative network
Local Government Information
Services (LGIS), have been
distributed to Illinois residents
since August. Sometimes known
as „pink slime“ journalism, such
publications combine political
advocacy with stories resembling
neutral coverage of local news or
sports. The material has the look
and feel of a newspaper, but the
content is more like political advertising.
Jem Bartholomew of the
Columbia Journalism Review
was first to report in early
October that Gannett had
taken over printing of the
LGIS products. The previous
publisher, which also owns the
suburban Chicago newspaper
Daily Herald, canceled its
commercial printing contract
with LGIS in late September,
saying „Many critics cannot or
refuse to differentiate between a
commercial printing operation“
and the Herald‘s „editorial
mission to be unbiased and fair.“
The Des Moines Register‘s
executive editor, Carol Hunter,
had no comment beyond
confirming in a November 4
email that „these are commercial
print clients.“ She provided
a statement from Gannett‘s
corporate communications
staff: „We do not discuss our
commercial print clients and
have no further comment.“
The Illinois mailings have
featured numerous materials
targeting Governor J.B. Pritzker
or promoting his Republican
challenger, Darren Bailey.
The fake newspapers don‘t
appear on a regular schedule.
Many „articles“ contain
inaccurate information or push
conservative talking points
about issues such as COVID-19
and how schools approach sex
education or gender identity.
Pritzker has denounced the
publications as “racist”; they
have highlighted people of
color alleged to have committed
crimes.
Journalist and media critic
Dan Froomkin, who runs the
Press Watch website, told
Bleeding Heartland, „The image
of real news and fake news
coming off literally the same
presses—presses owned by a
legitimate news organization—
is horrifying.“
Froomkin added that the
groups pretending to be
news organizations „are
inherently fraudulent. They
do enormous damage to real
news organizations both by
misinforming people and by
blurring the line between news
and propaganda.“
Priyanjana Bengani of Columbia
University‘s Tow Center for
Digital Journalism recently
published new research on a network
of some 1,200 conservative
sites purporting to provide local
news. The sites have offered
„a range of campaign services
to conservative candidates“
before the 2022 elections.
They are also running „stories
that boost the positions
of special-interest groups

CURRENT TRENDS IN THE MEDIA INDUSTRY 25
interspersed between thousands
of algorithmically generated
stories and republished press
releases.“
„While publishing news sites or
newspapers to exert influence is
not new,“ wrote Bengani in the
Columbia Journalism Review
on October 31, the network‘s
tactics „create a challenge for
independent local journalism
and demonstrate how modern
political campaigning makes it
harder for readers to distinguish
between political advertising
and journalism.“
For Froomkin, „Fake news
should be at the top of the
list“ of things Gannett won‘t
publish. „As news organizations,
presumably including Gannett,
fight to reduce the spread of
disinformation on social-media
platforms, the idea that they
are letting groups like this use
their own presses is incredibly
hypocritical,“ he said.
In 2018, the Des Moines
Register‘s editorial board joined
more than 400 other newspapers
in a coordinated effort to
denounce then President Donald
Trump‘s comments portraying
accountability journalism as
„fake news“ and reporters as
„enemies of the people.“
Many Iowans received a fake
newspaper purporting to be
the „Iowa Catholic Tribune“
in October. The eight-page
publication, not affiliated with
any Catholic organization in
Iowa, pushed negative storylines
about Democratic candidates
and positive messages about
Republican ones, along with
misleading information about
abortion and LGBTQ materials
in schools. Some of the content
was nearly identical to the
„Arizona Catholic Tribune,“
distributed around the same
time.
The slogan „Real data. Real
value. Real news“ appears on the
fake Catholic newspaper‘s masthead,
similar to what appears
on the LGIS products in Illinois
(„Real data. Real news“).
Hunter told Bleeding Heartland
the Des Moines Register‘s plant
did not print the Iowa Catholic
Tribune. Asked whether
another Gannett facility printed
that product, she referred
the question to corporate
communications.
UPDATE: A Chicago resident
provided this photo of a
newspaper that arrived in the
mail November 5.
Photo by Laura
Belin
Top image of fake
„Chicago City
Wire“ newspaper
provided by an
Illinois resident
and published with
permission.

26 CURRENT TRENDS IN THE MEDIA INDUSTRY
Gannett tells its news division that more
layoffs are coming Dec. 1
Roughly 200 more employees are expected to lose their jobs
AP Photo/
Jacquelyn Martin
Gannett’s news division is
being hit with another
round of layoffs, the company’s
third move to slash costs in the
last six months.
Journalists were informed in a
note Thursday from the news
division’s new interim head,
Henry Faure Walker. It said
those affected will be informed
Dec. 1 and 2.
The note did not specify a
number, but communications
chief Lark-Marie Anton said in
an email that the target was a
6% reduction. With a headcount
of 3,440, that would amount
to roughly 200. Faure Walker
said that he had conferred with
other executives and decided,
“While we have taken several
steps already, we must enter the
new year in a stronger economic
position, and the reality is that
our News cost base is currently
too high for the revenues it
generates.”
After posting a big loss in the
second quarter, Gannett laid
off more than 400 employees
and said it was leaving 400
more open positions vacant.
Then in October it imposed
a week’s unpaid mandatory
leave, suspended contributions
to 401(k) plans and asked
employees to consider a
voluntary separation offer.
Those actions were all company
wide. Thursday’s was directed
just to the news division.
Faure Walker, who is CEO of
Gannett’s United Kingdom
subsidiary, also assumed the
top role directing U.S. news
operations when Maribel Perez
Wadsworth announced earlier
this month that she would be
leaving the company at the end
of the year. Some employees
represented by the NewsGuild
and in the middle of contract
negotiations are exempt from
the layoffs.
The company had 12,331
employees as of the end of the
third quarter. It publishes USA
Today and more than 200 local
dailies.
In tweets and emails, Gannett
journalists complained about
the timing of the note – leaving
them in suspense for two weeks
about whether they will be asked
to leave.
Anton told me in her email,
“While incredibly difficult, we
felt it was important to be transparent
that further efficiencies
will be implemented across
the company as we decisively
respond to the ongoing
macroeconomic volatility to
continue propelling Gannett’s
future.”
The news division is also in
the midst of a reorganization
announced a week ago that
will split its smaller dailies and
some weeklies into a new Center
for Community Journalism
division.
-by Rick Edmonds-
+++ Latest News +++ Latest News +++ Latest News +++ Latest News +++ Latest News +++ Latest News +++
US magazine circulations: America’s
biggest titles saw circulation fall
8% year-on-year but digital growth
continues
The top 50 US magazines’ collective average circulation fell
from 145M in H1 2021 to 133M in H1 2022; print subs fell
11% YoY, digital grew 28%
-karma-

CURRENT TRENDS IN THE MEDIA INDUSTRY 27
Series of major orders continues:
Hankyung Media Group invests in two
new COLORMAN e:line printing presses
The South Korean Hankyung
Media Group, which prints
„The Korea Economic Daily“, is
investing in a comprehensive
newspaper printing project
with manroland Goss. The longestablished
media company
opted for the highest print
quality, the fastest production
speeds, and state-of-the-art
automation. At the heart of
the newly built printing plant
are two highly automated
COLORMAN e:line presses that
will supply the newsprint market
in South Korea with high-quality
print products in the future.
u Hankyung Media Group
sets a strong signal for
the future of the Korean
newspaper market with the
new COLORMAN e:line
presslines
u State-of-the-art automation
technology is the
foundation for efficient
production of subcontracted
printing orders
u The COLORMAN e:line
technology raises the
quality standard in the
Korean newspaper industry
to a new level
At the new production site in
Bupyeong National Industrial
Complex in Incheon, a new stateof-the-art
print production is
being built on a 3,700 m² site.
The presses will be equipped with
a very high degree of automation
and maximum production output
to ensure productivity and
top print quality.
After signing the contract in
September 2022, Mr. Hyun,
Executive Director, is convinced
From left to right: Mr. Park BumSuk – AllesInternational CEO, Mr. Kim Dong-Suk – Printing Manager,
Heiko Ritscher – Vice President Sales & Service International, Franz Kriechbaum – CEO manroland Goss web systems
Mr. Kim Jung-Ho – President & CEO of The Korea Economic Daily, Mr. Park Hae-Jun – General Affairs Director,
Mr. Mr. Hyun Seung-Yoon – Executive Director, Mr. Lee Seo-Jun – Finance Director, Mr. Jung Hee-Jun – Production
Director, Mr. Ryoo Won-Seok – Management Support General Manager
that: „With the acquisition of
the COLORMAN e:line, we will
have the most powerful and
automated production line for
daily newspapers in Korea. A
major focus of this project is
also that the 60th anniversary
edition in 2024 will have the best
print quality of all newspapers
printed in Korea. With these
features, the production line
naturally also offers many
attractive advantages for
contract printing orders from
the Korean newspaper market.”
Heiko Ritscher, Vice President
International Sales & Service
at manroland Goss adds: „Two
partners with similar goals
are working together on this
project. The management and
project team of „Hankyung“
with a business model that, in
addition to high-quality printing
of its own daily newspaper, also
focuses on becoming the largest
newspaper contract printing
company in Korea in the next
few years; along with manroland
Goss, an established supplier and
service provider for web offset
printing presses on the global
market, which is clearly focused
on further consolidating and
expanding this leading position.
This as a clear commitment to
the future of the printed daily
newspaper as a news channel.”
High-tech and high-speed times
two made in Augsburg
The investment is characterized
by clear project goals. Two
manroland Goss COLORMAN
e:line presses will print the highcirculation
business newspaper
„The Korea Economic Daily“.
The printing presses each
consist of six printing units, six
reel splicers, two folders and
a comprehensive automation
package. The reliable long-term
service availability provides

28 CURRENT TRENDS IN THE MEDIA INDUSTRY
strong investment protection.
High-tech and high-speed
are standard for the „e:line“:
the production of one system
is designed for an output of
95,000 copies per hour. This
means that the new Hankyung
Media Group printing plant has
a total production potential of
190,000 copies per hour. This
corresponds to a production
output of up to one million
newspapers per night. The aim
is to achieve cost-effectiveness
with reduced unit costs for the
production of large circulations,
as well as smaller subcontracted
circulations – thanks to the high
level of automation.
COLORMAN e:line –
convincing and powerful in
daily operation
Before signing the contract,
a delegation of experts from
South Korea had already had the
opportunity to inspect similar
printing presses. „The fact that
we were able to demonstrate
the automation functions and
the performance potential
when visiting new COLORMAN
e:line presses with the project
group here in Germany certainly
contributed to the success in
this major project. The success
story of the COLORMAN e:line
continues in the Asian market,“
says Alwin Stadler, Deputy Vice
President Sales at manroland
Goss.
Technically sophisticated,
highly automated, and efficient
– Hankyung Media Group
and manroland Goss making
competitive newspaper
production in South Korea ready
for the future.
Top 50 biggest news websites in the world in
November: New York Times is fastest-growing
year-on-year but drops out of top three
The New York Times was the
fastest-growing news website
in the world in November
but dropped out of the top three,
according to Press Gazette’s
ranking of global online traffic to
English-language newsbrands.
• Top 50 most popular news
websites in the UK (monthly
ranking)
• Top 50 most popular news
websites in the US (monthly
ranking)
Visits to nytimes.com were
up 93% year-on-year to reach
702.2m, according to data from
digital intelligence platform
Similarweb. However the site
lost its third-place ranking
in the top 50 to CNN (779.1
million visits), which outpaced
the New York Times for monthon-month
growth in visits (21%
compared to 11%).
CNN was the second-fastest
growing site year-on-year
among the ten biggest sites
by number of visits (up 22%).
It was followed by Microsoft
news aggregator, msn.com
(870.8 million visits, up 15%),
theguardian.com (387.6 million,
up 13%) and washingtonpost.
com (186.2 million, up 13%).
Overall, eight of the top ten
sites by number of visits grew
year-on-year in November
with only Google News (453.3
million visits, down 8% year-onyear)
and Yahoo Finance (245.3
million, down 8%) seeing less
traffic than in November 2021.