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Will the iPad save the news?

Joel Meares

by Joel Meares

07 Apr 05:55am

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Filed under: Apple, Ipad, Journalism, Media, News

27 comments

A new messiah arrived in the US over the Easter weekend, ready to save the world’s flailing print media industry.

Sandal-less and sleek, it was, of course, Steve Jobs’ new fantasy tablet, the wildly anticipated, possibly revolutionary, definitely state of the art, iPad thingymajiggy. And America threw a bonza welcome party for its latest chosen one. Australia will have to wait a month to throw theirs.

Apple sold 700,000 iPads in two days, with 300,000 plucked from shelves and UPS men on Saturday, the first day of sales. By any standard that’s a massive take-off; even by Apple standards. The now ubiquitous iPhone sold 200,000 on its first day in stores in 2007, a third less than its plus-sized cousin.

But it was the media laying the palms for the iPad’s arrival more than the shoppers.

Reporters, editors and publishers, particularly those behind old-media behemoths like Time magazine and The Wall Street Journal, enthusiastically flopped to their knees to declare the 680-gram, 24cm x 19cm-device an industry savior.

Surely, the team that brought music back from the brink with its sexy little wheeled device will do the same for the ailing print industry. Right?

As a young journalist, I certainly hope so. But its not up to Apple anymore. They’ve given the media the equivalent of a 21st Century printing press. Now we just have to figure out how to use it right. And soon.

About to graduate with a Masters in journalism from a prestigious and ludicrously expensive American university, Ive been job-hunting of late. The prospects for people in my position don’t look good.

Ravaged by plummeting subscriptions, a downturn in newsstand sales and falling ad revenue, newspapers and magazines are shedding editorial staff, not hiring them. Web sites offer a glimmer of hope for news-fiend job seekers, but display ads are sold cheaply online and digital media has generally failed to develop lucrative business models; at least, not lucrative enough to compensate those who write for them.

The job search pages Ive been looking at are dominated by unpaid internships-some of which turn out might be illegal over here - and of course, the Extras Needed postings so familiar to SEEKers across the country. Laid-off senior journalists looking to come back into the fold often nab the few low- and mid-level editorial positions posted.

The story floated this Easter is that the iPad will change all this, reinvigorating newspapers and magazines and creating job opportunities for collegiate two-minute-noodle munchers like myself.

Old-schoolers say its also likely to bring long-form magazine-style narratives back in favour, with readers turned off by having to click through clunky pages online happily stroking through a feature story on their iPad. Again, us youngsters are hopeful. Our futures may hold more substantial work than updating the company Twitter feed.

Just how will the tablet save the media?


Firstly, the interactive and hyper-visual magazine apps developed for the interactive and hyper-portable iPad – such as the app for online-only Viv Mag shown in this demo or the app for Condé Nast’s Wired shown here - will attract subscribers willing to pay for content they would not fork out for when laid out on a now-archaic seeming Web site. Time’s certainly hoping so, charging $4.99 per week (5 cents more than its print edition) for its app, which includes the print edition, live updates from Time’s Web site and video and photo content

The appeal, as Howard Chua-Eoan writes this week for Time in Me and My iPad: The First 24-Hours, is that:

On the iPad, magazines in their electronic manifestation get to be real magazines again, incarnated without paper. The iPad makes the electronic magazine something you get your hands around again, something you can play with. Look at the fantabulous app from Popular Science where each story is a wonderland that you can scroll and push and pull, moving overlay and text and stories around like a jigsaw puzzle.

With the ability to make ads as interactive and attractive as that-combining the glamour of a (moving) magazine spread with the ability to visit a products Web site with the click of a mouse or push of a screen publishers-expect companies will hand over big mullah to get onto their iPad apps.

Fidelity, Korean Air, Liberty Mutual, Lexus, Toyota and Unilever all signed onto Times iPad launch issue.A promising start.

So, print or type, as we should probably start calling it is back in business, right? If I check back next month, my job prospects might look a little better?

Perhaps, perhaps not. Rivals Time and Newsweek both featured splashy iPad-themed covers on their print magazines this week, touting the tool and its creator as the future. They’re hoping its a self-fulfilling prophecy and there seems to be a little understandable desperation in their camps.

Newsweek editor Jon Meacham is quoted in the Washington Post saying, the iPad could finally be the device that does for visual content what the iPod did for music. “To my mind, there’s no bigger story about media or culture-and media and culture affect everything else-than the future of the delivery of news, and that made an iPad cover a clear call.”

I agree with Meacham about the importance of news delivery; it’s why I do what I do. But too much is unsure right now to declaratively say whether the iPad is a genuine savior or just a puffed-up cult leader we might be following over a cliff. And it might be the media’s fault more than the medium itself if it turns out to be the latter.

The iPad has arrived with plenty of promise, but few news organizations have actually released apps for the launch. Those that have are meeting with mixed reviews, Time getting the big thumbs up for its video-stuffed, highly interactive app, while the New York Times has been given a bit of a ribbing for a lackluster effort, two-steps behind its fine Web site. We don’t know yet how other magazines and papers will play out on the tablet. Until we do, the iPad’s future is as unsure as journalism’s.

In theory, the iPad has the potential to dazzle and wow with its features. But it will require leaps of imagination and barrels of money from struggling news organizations to create apps that utilize the technology’s full potential. It will also require plenty of staff -ahem.

That investment could mean the difference between being the iPod or the latest Tamogochi.

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27 comments

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    • Rereke Whakaaro says:

      07:46am | 07/04/10

      It is all about the content ... not the medium.

      Go back to being the fourth estate.  Go back to being cynical about anybody and everybody in power.  Go back to being scrupulously non-partisan in your reporting, of if that is too hard, wear your biases on you sleeve like a badge, but do not decry or prevent other sides to the story.

      And stop regurgitating press releases as if they were journalism.  Nobody is fooled by that any more, but that is why subscribers are deserting in droves.

      Reply

    • Sherlock says:

      07:59am | 07/04/10

      The newspaper owners think we’re abandoning newspapers for online news. Here’s an alternative idea. We’re abandoning newspapers because they have turned to crap over the years.

      As you’ve shed staff after more staff, newspapers have turned form the home of investigative journalism to merely reprinters of Reuters and AAP stories.

      Ask yourself if you’d pay for the crap you get from both Fairfax and News Limited. I’d be surprised if the answer wasn’t a resounding NO!

      Reply

    • Eric says:

      07:57am | 07/04/10

      The elephant in the room is journalism. What journalists actually do is spout their opinions. This worked with older technologies, where there was little or no competition due to huge infrastructure costs..

      But with the coming of the Internet, anyone can spout their opinions for a handful of dollars a month - or even for free. And many of those opinions are of higher quality, as well as more variety, than those of journalists.

      For the first time, the media industry is facing real competition. The fences have been broken. It will take more than a little gadget to get readers back on the reservation.

      Reply

    • Art says:

      08:24am | 07/04/10

      Thanks to the time-to-press pressures placed on them by the Internet and bloggers, journalists end up just regurgitating press releases and reprinting stories that other ‘journalists’ print.  There is very little actual *journalism* anymore.  Very little research, very little fact checking, very little investigation and almost no *real* questioning.  And that’s the good journalists.  The poor ones (the majority) just reprint AP and Reuters releases.  Opinions (and ill-informed ones at that) are all journalists have left anymore.
      Journalism as we thought we knew it is dead.  (just my opinion of course).

    • kel says:

      02:32pm | 07/04/10

      For once Eric, I am in complete agreement with you. The value that was once placed on ‘journalists’ is diminishing. Fast. A different medium won’t stop this process.

    • Julia says:

      08:39am | 07/04/10

      Good on you, Joel! You are spot on - on a number of different points.

      I’m hanging out for my Ipad so I can eventually not get the newspaper home delivered. I’m sick of the quantity of paper I throw out each week, taking it downstairs putting it in the bin and dragging the bin to the roadside.

      It isn’t solely about opinion. It’s news and getting people to pay for online content. I think Australian news media (including The Punch) will find it a real challenge to create apps that are worth buying.

      And again, Joel, you’re right. It’s not just content, but the way the content is presented. I’m a female 30-something so I don’t mind just reading. But a younger person, male might want something that keeps him active while he’s reading. 

      Here’s my message to Australian news media: I’ll invest in the technology and I’ll give your apps a go, but you have to invest too. Not just the money, but in people like Joel who have vision and passion about what’s ahead.

      Reply

    • Ben81 says:

      02:46pm | 07/04/10

      Why don’t you just go out today and get a cheaper and far more functional netbook?

    • julia says:

      03:50pm | 07/04/10

      Ben, I’ve looked at Netbooks and yes you can pick one up for $400 and it’s perfectly functional. But something stops me from buying one which may or may not be compatible with my Mac set up at home. The same thought has stopped me getting an Iphone. I don’t want a phone, internet combination.

      But my newspaper doesn’t come as an app.  I can wrap any netbook or Ipad in my newspaper, but I can’t get it online as a readable (without the flashing ads) version.

    • Scott Glennon says:

      09:47am | 07/04/10

      Will the media save the Ipad?

      Reply

    • Ryan says:

      11:40am | 07/04/10

      @Scott Glennon: they already give Apple more ridiculously biased reporting as it is. If news.com.au doesn’t have an article on Apple every day then its a miracle.

    • AdamC says:

      10:15am | 07/04/10

      The iPad seems too bulky at present to be a genuine portable e-reader. It needs to get down to Kindle size. But, then, that would reduce its effectiveness as a video-watching tool.

      The iPad seems to be a compromise device without a core function, but rather many different functions. It also has all of those Apple drawbacks, as well as the Apple flair, of course.

      On the media, one question: what does one actually learn doing a journalism Masters. I am not being smart here, I genuinely don’t know. I would have thought that, if you can write, you can be a journalist. This seems like useless creddentialism.

      Reply

    • Patrick says:

      10:54am | 07/04/10

      So that’s why every bloody news website has been going on about how awesome the iTampon is, and how it’s a totally “new and never before done” technology and loads of other bullshit.

      Every Apple product is just a gimmick, made for the masses of idiots who like shiny things. No Flash = complete and utter fail for internet usage, oh, and you can buy a netbook of the same or smaller size than the iTampon, for half the price, with so many more features.

      HP tried tablet computers ages ago, nobody cared.

      Reply

    • Al says:

      11:23am | 07/04/10

      Let’s hope the ipad is the media’s game-changer. Those cheering for the demise of traditional journalism end up sounding like Chinese cadres shooing away interfering questions. A lot of us are sick of democracy, or at least policy development, playing second fiddle to the 24-hour news cycle as pollies focus on their grabs. But that gripe is a little different to hankering for life without professional journalism.
      I don’t trust any one news outlet enough to rely solely on it for my information. I want to read as many publications as possible before my opinion crystallises, and I’m happy to pay for it. As one of the rubes who walks by perfectly safe taps to puchase a bottle of water, I reckon I can throw a few bob towards something to read on the bus.
      Can’t wait to see whether the ipad is the vehicle to allow access to as many news producers as possible while maintaining journalism as a viable business.
      If nothing else, the ipad might let me read in bed at night with the light out.

      Reply

    • Eric says:

      11:19am | 07/04/10

      As P. T. Barnum said, “There’s one born every minute.”

      No doubt there will be a minority prepared to pay through the nose for worthless opinions. But that will be a sideshow, in a future increasingly dominated by social media.

    • Adam Dennis says:

      11:38am | 07/04/10

      I have to take issue with Joel’s assertion that the iPod brought music back from the brink. Actually music was never on the brink; it was old-style major record companies. And the majors still are on the brink - if not over it altogether. Music itself has always been doing very well, thanks. What the iTunes store did was empower indie labels - some the size of a bedroom - to sell to a global audience alongside the majors.

      How does that lesson translate to media? Time will tell but I think if I was Joel I’d be working on setting up my own niche media outlet. That’s probably a more certain path than committing to old media.

      Oh, and @Patrick? Way to come across as a fool with your use of childishly insulting language. You criticise “the masses of idiots who like shiny things”, and then declare that No Flash equals a fail. Flash is the ultimate pointless shiny consumer of computing resources that will be left in the dust when the next versions of all the web browsers support HTML5. Apple is ahead of the curve on that one ... and they’ve already sold over 700,000 iPads so clearly somebody cares. Plus HP’s now coming around the block for a second go in their wake!

      Finally, don’t confuse “many more features” as being equivalent to doing any single thing excellently. Netbooks are almost universally underpowered and ultimately frustrating.

      Reply

    • Patrick says:

      12:06pm | 07/04/10

      “Netbooks are almost universally underpowered and ultimately frustrating. ” - And the iPad, with it’s even less computing power and features, is going to be much better? Lol.

      “Flash is the ultimate pointless shiny consumer of computing resources that will be left in the dust when the next versions of all the web browsers support HTML5” But how many websites that people use now use HTML5? And how many use Flash? Agreed, in a year or so most will be on HTML5, but Flash is still a pretty big part of the internet for younger people, games / interactivity etc.

      And I will be interested to see what HP’s new one can actually do, but from looking at the youtube video and their blog, it seems as much of a gimmick as any Apple product, but they might at least price it reasonably ($800 for a 64 GB hard drive and netbook power is just plain ridiculous)

    • mw says:

      12:35pm | 07/04/10

      The fact that people stil use Flash makes my soul hurt.

      I assumed when Adobe bought out Macromedia that they might actually fix it; how wrong I was…

    • CM says:

      12:00pm | 07/04/10

      I don’t neccessarily think the iPad itself will be the saviour of print (or type), but actual tablet PCs/notebooks will be. HP are starting to show off their touchpad device and, as Samsung, Nokia and Blackberry provided alternatives to the iPhone, I think we’re going to see a lot more devices that are similar to the iPad and a strong alternative.
      As a Journalist, I don’t stress too much about the decline of print. However, with the development of portable touch-screen devices and considering the rate at which technology expands and develops, I think it won’t be long before touchpads are commonplace and people are reading their daily rag on their iPads/HP whatevers before closing that app and opening up to the latest issue or update from their favourite magazine.
      Interesting times, to say the least.

      Reply

    • David says:

      12:09pm | 07/04/10

      Here’s a forecast based on nothing more than my own habits. I’ll continue to pay for some media (e.g. magazines I have subscriptions to which have consistently excellent content, such as The New Yorker, that I want to sit down and read).

      I won’t be paying for everyday news (can get this from TV, radio or public media sites) or opinion, which is space-filler.

      How does that square with how others use media?

      Reply

    • Margaret Gray says:

      12:40pm | 07/04/10

      “...Surely, the team that brought music back from the brink with its sexy little wheeled device will do the same for the ailing print industry. Right?...”

      Wrong.

      First things first: iPods and iTunes have killed the music industry and it’s killed commercial music radio.

      Second, what makes you think having an iPad will all of a sudden make me read from news sources I don’t read now.

      This was never about the conveyance, it’s all about content.

      Print media is dead.

      And now they want me to pay for its funeral.

      Reply

    • Scott Glennon says:

      03:57pm | 07/04/10

      @Margaret Gray,

      Spot on baby!

    • shabangabang says:

      01:38pm | 07/04/10

      Wonder if Rupert Murdoch will make the Times of London available on iPad, after he decided to put it behind a paywall. Will he expect people to have to pay for an iPad subscription as well as an online access fee? Surely that is double dipping at its most greedy.
      My opinion of the iPad is negative overall. My Kindle has free wi-fi where as Apple will expect people to purchase plans for the iPad. The average price of books is higher; $15 as opposed to $10 for the kindle, plus there will only initially (USA only also) 50,000 books available, as opposed to 360,000 for the Kindle.
      Feel free to quote me in the future, but Apple has failed big time with the iPad. 2 thumbs down.

      Reply

    • Peter says:

      02:37pm | 07/04/10

      No, the ipad will not save news.. Smartphones is what will save news.  The ipad is a waste of time and money… I would not touch this… Also Mr Murdoch wants people to pay for news, what about the savings he is making from not distributing news papers? Not having to use paper? Not having to use ink? Not having to use printing presses? Not having to use trucks that deliver them? or not having to use Newsagents? or all the other benefits from transmitting these things electronically? Murdoch wants to keep all these savings to himself and charge us the same for news.. Mr Murdoch, good luck in trying to shut down the BBC and ABC as it is never ever going to happen..

      Reply

    • Luke says:

      02:41pm | 07/04/10

      shabangabang

      The iPad offers free Wifi. The iPad as it is released right now is Wifi only, so Apple aren’t expecting people to buy plans for it.

      I guess the price of books is an interesting one to see how it pans out, Jobs promise the same pricing as Kindle, I guess we’ll see with that over time how the publishers why set the price respond.

      Reply

    • Dann .C says:

      02:56pm | 07/04/10

      I believe that the newspapers are biased on the political situation as they always have more positives for that spin doctor kevin rudd and negatives for tony abbott. Even the news.com site always ignores tony abbott who I do not believe is a person who will be galavanting all over the world trying to get himself a position in the United nations instead of being here looking after Australia. Newspapers appear to have a lot of nonsense reports (garbage) and it is a waste of money and I only have the sunday paper delivered now ,which is touch and go, it is getting that way I throw the paper away and keep the Tv mag. The newssites are not much better. I enjoy The Punch site and The Australian sitebut I do seriously believe there is biased reports on the political scene. I am also fed up with seeing kevin rudd always in pics posing or on nightly news being seen just for the public. This guy has done nothing to be admired in the time he has been Pm except get us into big debt andcompletely mismanage money. Of course I realise this won’t be printed because it isn’t in favour of the media or kevin dudd.

      Reply

    • Grumbles says:

      05:20pm | 07/04/10

      If the news paper dies how will we clean the bbq?

      Reply

    • Mojo rising says:

      12:08pm | 08/04/10

      Any investment has to either mean performing different activities from rivals or performing similar activities in different ways. As all media companies are heading (if not relying on) the iPad they will need to differentiate themselves. Whether the iPad technology allows organisations to tdo his is not known and perhaps wont be known for some time. Arguably any differences in the apps they create will be neglible in the bigger scheme of things. And thus the investment in this sense is about diversification not so much diversity. At a time when revenue is down and costs aren’t subsiding the iPad may only serve to increase the rapidness of decline of some newspapers (or increased consolidation of the industry) as they spend more to keep up.

      In a couple of years we may look back and reflect on how few traditional media companies were positioned for the iPad, even with the ramp up time and/or warning of the internet. The only ones who will survive will be those that can leverage their Global strength and bring distributed assets together to provide a distinctive competitive customer-oriented product. But that will require not only investment in technology but organisational shake-ups.

      The race has been on for awhile and the pace just got a bit quicker is all.

      However the bigger global players still remain best placed to run down the smaller geocentred players.

      Reply
 
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