In the spotlight: Relevance

newspaper techniques: If everybody can be a journalist –how important is quality?

Arend van den Berg: The most important task is to change news into relevant information for the audiences. A business paper should convert all news in what is important behind the stock quotes. The press release may feature one thing, but the reader should know what’s behind the scenes. For example: a company may report a profit increase, but the readers should know if there is a loss of market share in their home market.

The publication with the best quality will be the choice. We grew by 5 percent in circulation while the market is down by 2-3 percent. It might have to do with our decision to identify different target groups and to provide more relevant news to these audiences. We added flesh and blood to our newspaper. And we changed our mindset: Rather than reporting about financial issues, we report for entrepreneurial people.
Also, quality has a lot of dimensions: It used to be speed – now it is in-depth analysis and the aggregation of all the different sources. Also, the presentation is very important. You can read our paper in two minutes or in two hours, either the summaries or the full story.

nt: With print and radio, how do you deal with convergence?

A. van den Berg: For nearly two years, we share a brand new building for both radio and print, and a lot of our newspaper editors appear as experts on our radio program. Every morning, the editor of the day appears on air to announce the special stories of the paper. Also radio reporters write for the printed edition. About 40 percent of the editorial staff have done training as radio journalists. At first, some were hesitant to
nt: Did you find solutions for your organisation at the IfraExpo?

A. van den Berg: We have to look at technology. It can enable convergence and support our activities. Most important is the attitude how you approach things. We set up our environment in a way that editors use it voluntarily. That works fine.

Page first published: 17.10.2006