media update’s Adam Wakefield spoke to Andrew Trench, group digital editor at Tiso Blackstar, about what makes Times Select unique in the South African media marketplace, and what it takes to be a journalist today.

Times Select is classed as “South Africa’s first digital daily edition”. What is exactly meant by that and why is Times Select unique in the South African market?

The difference with Times Select in the digital space is that it is designed to be a once-daily snapshot of news, opinion, lifestyle and sport where almost all other major digital news products in the market, like our companion property TimesLIVE, focus on rolling coverage of breaking news.

Times Select is also differentiated by exclusive content, particularly in domestic journalism, for its readers who will soon be asked to pay for it. Our thinking has been driven by looking at what are the attributes which for decades made the medium of a newspaper a desirable option among readers.

If you strip away the economic challenges we have as an industry, for the reader many of the attributes of a successful newspaper are still relevant in the digital space. These attributes are:
  • Quality content;
  • Quality editing; 
  • Excellent selection; and 
  • Curation of material from all our sources, all attractively packaged in a single offering which readers can consume at their leisure and convenience;
We have also built a bias towards explanatory journalism and analysis into our content mix to further distinguish Times Select from the endless stream of news which flows around our targeted reader. We are also not alone in this approach, with similar models being pursued by Der Spiegel in Germany, for example.

From April, Times Select will become a subscription-only product. What motivated the decision to take this route and from your perspective, what is key when seeking to have a subscription-only service for online news?

We believe that reader revenue i.e. subscriptions, will be a key part of our future sustainability, especially as programmatic and other advertising technologies continue to apply downward pressure on rates for online inventory.

We are a business which values and invests in quality journalism, which places us in an excellent position to pursue this option. Other examples in our business, like our positioning of BusinessLIVE as a premium subscription product, have shown there is an appetite among consumers to pay for journalism.

With the restructuring in our editorial operation following the closure of The Times, we are able to experiment with launching a product like Times Select at relatively low-cost and risk, so we thought it was worth having a go and to see if we can add some other models to our editorial and business repertoire.

From a staffing perspective, which areas of attention has seen a shift in emphasis in the last three years and what is driving this change?

Multimedia has certainly been a key growth area simply because of the demand from the audience, and the same applies to the appetite for more explanatory journalism.

As we saw in our coverage of the #Guptaleaks, excellent reporting finds an almost insatiable demand among readers. I think it is difficult to pin down a single area of staffing, as this tends to be fluid and dependant on the audience segment one is pursuing and the dominant themes of the news agenda.

With the dominance of the political story on the national agenda, of course there is immense demand for quality political coverage at the moment – but there is also huge demand for, as an example, fun entertainment journalism.

When hiring new journalists, what skills do you consider to be absolutely critical for them to have in their locker for today’s news environment?

For me, the single most important attribute for a new journalist today – outside of basic core professional skills – is the ability to adapt and learn. They must be able to adopt new technologies, experiment with new story forms and journalistic techniques, and be skilled enough to tell stories in different ways from text to multimedia and so on.

They will also have to appreciate that their editorial environment will likely change often over the coming years as we adapt to a constant threats and opportunities. If you are adverse to change then I cannot see you being comfortable in today’s newsroom. All the above also applies, by the way, to people who are veterans in the newsroom.

Where do you see the future of news journalism in South Africa in terms of generating revenue and keeping newsrooms viable, via either subscriptions, donations, hosting events and so forth?

I think successful media organisations will adopt all – or most – of the above. There are many examples from around the world which now suggest that this is the key to a successful future. Despite our challenges, news journalism here continues to be vibrant and strong with a growing audience hungry for it.

For more information, visit www.timesselect.co.za.

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Times Select’s intention to adopt a subscription-only model in the near future. This further underlines the importance subscriptions will and do have to the online journalism industry. Read more in our article, Why online publishers are favouring subscriptions.