You are not the READER… and 5 other commandments of journalism

I just gave a keynote speech at the Finnish Periodical Publishers Association in Helsinki. The title of my speech was “Are magazines relevant in tomorrow’s marketplace?” The simple answer for the question was YES. The more detailed presentation followed this outline: 1. Journalists and reporters are not the readers. 2. Journalist should remain in charge in order to create Good Relevant Content to a Relevant Audience via the Relevant Medium. 3. Each and every member of your society may become your freelance informer, but he or she is NOT the trained expert or journalist. 4. The Smart One Shop Stop media company will be involved in all media, yet they have to provide different content in different departments (you do not want to buy your dress from the cafeteria in the store, although both items are in the store). 5. Good Content will remain King and Queen, based on four basic elements: good reporting, good writing, good editing and a good sense of news judgment, regardless of the medium. 6. Good design will help Good content, but Good design will NEVER help BAD content. In short, focus on the readers’ needs, wants and desires and not on your colleagues’ view of you or on the awards you may win for your work.

Loft Bookazine… Living, Travel and Architecture

From Sweden comes this new quarterly “Bookazine” part book, part magazine. Yet, the whole is much larger than the sum of the two parts. The magazine is bilingual, Swedish and English, and is aimed at the cream of the crop of audiences worldwide. The price tag is a hefty one: 22 Euros in Europe and $28 in the USA. I picked up the first issue on the stands in Helsinki where I am keynoting today the Finnish Periodical Publishers Association conference. Loft’s founder Mikael Becker is a mutli-tasker. He writes in the first issue, “I created the Loft concept, which currently consists of Loft Bookazine, loftcard, the Loft television series and the Loft website. Right now I feel proud, happy and exhausted.” And can you blame him? It took him a year to get the whole concept of Loft refined “like polishing a diamond.” This boutique magazine continues in the latest trend of other boutique magazines from the Nordic countries using their own language and English as a second language in the magazine to create that instant international flavor and flair to the magazine. Loft has been able to do so ever so graciously. The picture above is from the loftcard web site. A very good example of what some like to call “publishing 360.”