This is a two-part post
due to length, so forgive me!
Honestly, I could’ve
come up with a better title, but let’s just go with this, it’s all part of the
article as you will see. I’ve worked for two newspaper companies, one in their
advert department; the other as an aggregator. I am not and have never been a
journalist or considered myself one, EVER! I am just a guy who loves to write.
The first company I worked for was and still is a physical newspaper business,
which means tons of paper is being wasted to give us information we don’t need,
though you can argue there’s no such thing as wasted knowledge. The second
company was an online publication, which means tons of data may have been
wasted reading information we don’t need, though again you can argue there’s no
such thing as wasted knowledge.
This article will look
into the two different obstacles I faced working in each, one dealing with
finances and reasoning, the other dealing with content and creativity. Just so
you know this isn’t necessarily a fair and balanced portrayal of the decline of
newspapers in Nigeria and why they’re still alive. For every argument I make
here, I’m sure there’s someone at a desk in some newspaper company that will
counter with, “but this is how it works… just do it!” God knows I heard that a
lot as an aggregator. Do I have bitter experiences working in these companies?
Yes, one more so than the other. This is going to be a very cynical post. So
let’s get to it.
Newspapers all over the
world have generally been on the decline, at least physically. This doesn’t
mean newspapers don’t get printed, it just means if I can check the news on my
phone, particularly just the bits that I like, why pay for an actual newspaper.
As someone once said, “They’re always be the news, but it doesn’t mean they’re
always be paper.”
The newspaper in
Nigeria has survived for two reasons in my opinion, possibly three. One; like
most newspapers around the world, those in Nigeria have survived mainly on
readership and advertising, largely the latter when you consider how much of
the same news is in every paper. Two; many a Nigerian newspapers still exist
due to the fact that despite all the noise Nigerians make on social media and
by and large the web, the truth is only about 15% of us are online or can
afford to be at any given time of the day (though the number is rising).
When the newspaper
decline hit most first world countries, part of it was because of the number of
people online; the same can’t be said for Nigeria. If more than half of Nigeria
was online, some companies would have folded by now. At the fear of sounding
elitist, there’s all the fact that the population offline may not know any
better and that’s even if you assume they buy the papers to begin with. And
then there’s the third possible reason why the Nigerian newspaper is still
alive: actual unique content. Considering the Nigerian culture of copy and
paste (hello Naija bloggers) or read-and-aggregate (which is also common around
the world), this is a big reason why certain papers are still in print. Certain
newspaper companies have distinguished themselves like Media Trust and its
various franchise papers.
But let’s get down to
the nitty gritty; the obstacle at my first company: finances and reasoning. In
my first company, I worked as a freelance advert executive. I imagined the job
(perhaps naively) was on some Don Draper type tip and we were to come up with
ways to get people to advertise in our newspaper(s). Turns out it was just a
marketing job and if need be a door-to-door salesman exercise (Wait, WHAT?!).
This was 2012-2013. If you open a random Nigerian newspaper on any given day,
really just pick any freaking day, you might see pages upon pages of messages
to Governor What’s-His-Face from his cronies. At some point this can turn out
to be half the paper, especially if it’s ex-president Uphill’s birthday or
someone of that caliber. The newspapers would’ve made a killing in that week.
Having been in the boardroom
of many a long (and I mean LONG) Monday meetings (with opening and closing
prayers) about finding clients, I can give you a rundown of who basically
advertises in your local newspaper. The big guns are usually the
telecommunication companies (the MTNs, the Glos, etc) and brand names like
Guinness, Dangote and so forth. Companies who can afford to place an ad every
day of the year in every newspaper in the country without breaking a sweat
(money good o). Then you have your state and/or national level cronies who send
felicitations to their ogas (Happy birthday Governor/Senator/President
I-Bow-To-You) or mention the “great” things they have done for their local
govts/states/country.
You also have governors
or presidential aides who take journalist on media campaign tours and pay to
have a feature of their “good” works on display for all Nigerians to see. You
have your foreign companies trying to break in, road construction companies,
expats and embassies and these are all the people with the money. And once in a
while, there’s those group of people that substitute for what is Nigeria’s
middle class.
What you don’t have are
the everyday people, what the elite Hausa man might call Yakubawa, except when
you flip over to the pages of classifieds ads and loss-of-documents and
change-of-name pages, which is usually just all one page. All these usually
don’t cost more than N10, 000. The classifieds are pretty much non-existent
today if you consider how much easier it is to send a tweet requesting for such
and such services and having it retweeted.
Now mind you when you
work in an ad department like this, all the big name clients have people that
they already talk to to place their ads. These are your co-workers and by
default your competitors. Aside your regular salary, your other source of
income is the commission you get for every client. Your job now is to either
find more big name clients (‘cause God forbid you steal somebody else’s) or
regular old people to fill up the cheaper boxes. Now if you’re like me, you
look at the “cheaper” boxers and say to yourself, “Would I actually spend that
much money for that little a box… in the age of social media?!”
And hence began my
argument with the board of executives or rather their representative, the
advert boss (really nice man, who turned down my resignation three months in
and kept me for five more months… where we argued more about those so called
cheap boxes). I was hired to get “small to medium” Abuja businesses to
advertise in their papers at an offered cheap rate. My argument went thus: the
prices aren’t cheap (no matter how you see it)! Social media is cheaper. If you
want Abuja businesses to advertise in your papers, do a profile on them. Entice
them. Give them more for less and not just a box in a paper.
But they weren’t
listening. They argument went: we can’t do a profile on them, unless they pay
for it. We can’t offer more than an ad for a day. Giving them a week’s ad for
the price of a day goes against our principle. We are here to make money.
Our countered: I get
your point, but these small to medium-size businesses DON’T need you, but you
apparently seem to want their money, so listen up! They have all their clients
on BBM, twitter and facebook. When opening their new businesses, all they need
to do is send broadcasts and tweets and post fancy pictures on Instagram. Never
mind that these so-called small to medium-scale businesses are mostly owned by
people from wealthy backgrounds (some IJGBs) we went to schools and come from
families where they were most likely taught to spend less for more. They don’t
need us! And speaking of even smaller-scale businesses, the maishayi and
indomie maker don’t need to advertise in your papers. People eat everyday; they
know where their stands are. Are you going to convince a maishayi to part with
what he makes in a week to place an ad in your paper?! Even Yahuza doesn’t
advertise for God’s sakes!
Their counter-argument:
We don’t care!!!
Me: Well, I tried… you
go shay continue to pay me ba?!
So take away the big
brand spenders and physical newspapers in Nigeria might only survive on
readership, however long that may last, which leads us to the question why do
they still have any patronage. We’ll
discuss that in part two.
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