I was rather under the impression that the Times Picayune had come out of Katrina rather well, at least its reputation.
But New Orleans blogger and on the road IHT reader Maitri isn't so sure:
Here's what she said:
"While I braved maelstroms coming off the North Sea, a different storm raged back here - the so-called debate over public housing demolitions - which reached the eyes and ears of those in my Dutch midst thanks to their nation’s and others’ coverage of the situation. Here’s an idea for a demolition: let’s scrap the Times Picayune offices and replace it with the New Orleans business outpost of the International Herald Tribune. I learned more about here and the world from reading the IHT everyday, and missed only the TP’s Living and Obituaries section. A deal which meshes the best bits of the two papers can be arrived at, I am sure."
http://vatul.net/blog/index.php/1568/
Actually, it's not such a fantastical idea.
I remember once floating in some meeting or another the idea of doing local publishing partnerships with American newspapers. But of course that didn't fit with the NYT's then ever-growing expansion into the heartlands beyond Manhattan, as they road-tested - IMHO - an international NYT by first rolling-out the national edition of the NYT. (I think it was always a two step plan for the NYT: get the national edition up and running and then squeeze out the WP from the IHT and the world would fall at their feet.)
The NYT's plans for the IHT rested on hoping to do what the NYT did in the USA, very successfully. The idea in the States had been that if one worked out what type of people read the NYT in NY, it would then just be a question of finding those types of people throughout the USA and selling them the NYT.
So it was no surprise what the NYT then did, on acquiring the other 50% of the IHT.
They spent the best part of a million dollars on market research, hoping to confirm what their strategic planners probably thought. Which was that the NYT brand resonance would be as great internationally as it was in the USA.
Which it wasn't.
This enormously time consuming market research process was one of endless late hours for the commercial managers of the IHT, all of whom knew (because they happened to have worked in international publishing outside Manhattan for some time) that the brand resonance of the NYT, internationally, simply wasn't there in the same way that it was in the USA.
Nor were the lives of IHT employees much enhanced by many of their 'new colleagues' in Manhattan not fully appreciating that 4.oo pm there is the middle of the night in Paris.
Despite being advised of the small but rather important point that many people in Europe associated American media (rightly or wrongly) with crap culture, the NYT insisted on the market research project, asking existing IHT readers, inter alia, if they thought it would be a good idea to rename the paper the International NYT, or words to that affect.
Back came a resounding NO.
Which any number of IHT employees could have told them over a cup of Starbucks coffee, and for a lot less money than $1 million.
Monday, 17 December 2007
Is the International Herald Tribune too puritan?
Roger Cohen's opinion piece in today's International Herald Tribune about Belgium (What crisis in Belgium?; December 17, 2007 http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/12/16/opinion/edcohen.php) state's that the Belgian artist Margritte is famous for his painting of an apple, on which he wrote: 'This not an apple'.
A Belgian reader (who appears to be the very teacher quoted in the article, Gerrit Six) points out that although Margritte did paint apples, there is no such painting as 'This is not an apple'.
In a posting on http://www.sixlog.be/2007/12/ceci-nest-pas-le-herald-tribune/ entitled 'Ceci n’est pas le Herald Tribune' Gerrit Six wrote:
"I am sorry for your journalist writing about the Belgian crisis. Magritte has painted apples but the painting ‘ this is not an apple’ doesn’t exist. He certainly is referring to ‘ ceci n’est pas une pipe’, the painting with a stylish pipe that you of course cannot smoke since it is a painting. Unless American readers have become so puritan that even the slightest reference to pipe (in french it can be usedfor a b-job) is not done. Hope they have not. "
It turns out however (see the comments below) that in fact there IS a painting by Magritte with 'This is not an apple' written on it, and Gerrit is VERY sorry for suggesting Roger Cohen and the IHT got it wrong. Proof positive of the reliability of MSM over bloggers? Even those ones interviewed by Mr. Cohen.
Personally I'm off to check-out Magritte.
A Belgian reader (who appears to be the very teacher quoted in the article, Gerrit Six) points out that although Margritte did paint apples, there is no such painting as 'This is not an apple'.
In a posting on http://www.sixlog.be/2007/12/ceci-nest-pas-le-herald-tribune/ entitled 'Ceci n’est pas le Herald Tribune' Gerrit Six wrote:
"I am sorry for your journalist writing about the Belgian crisis. Magritte has painted apples but the painting ‘ this is not an apple’ doesn’t exist. He certainly is referring to ‘ ceci n’est pas une pipe’, the painting with a stylish pipe that you of course cannot smoke since it is a painting. Unless American readers have become so puritan that even the slightest reference to pipe (in french it can be usedfor a b-job) is not done. Hope they have not. "
It turns out however (see the comments below) that in fact there IS a painting by Magritte with 'This is not an apple' written on it, and Gerrit is VERY sorry for suggesting Roger Cohen and the IHT got it wrong. Proof positive of the reliability of MSM over bloggers? Even those ones interviewed by Mr. Cohen.
Personally I'm off to check-out Magritte.
Sunday, 16 December 2007
International Herald Tribune and T in Asia
After a recent post on this blog about T magazine (Curating the Culture of Style) I received a comment from a reader in Asia asking why the International Herald Tribune magazine is not available for its Asian readers: was it just him who wasn't getting the mag, or if it was official policy for the whole of Asia?
I did some digging around, and it seems that it is indeed official policy not to distribute International T in Asia, at least for now.
It would appear that the impetus for the magazine is coming from IHT HQ in Paris and the NYT in New York. Whether it comes to Asia will depend upon the ability to make it make sense financially.
Why it doesn't make sense financially at the moment I don't know, but I imagine it is largely to do with the following factors:
But, I gather, if T is distributed in Asia, it will be an overall strategic decision.
I did some digging around, and it seems that it is indeed official policy not to distribute International T in Asia, at least for now.
It would appear that the impetus for the magazine is coming from IHT HQ in Paris and the NYT in New York. Whether it comes to Asia will depend upon the ability to make it make sense financially.
Why it doesn't make sense financially at the moment I don't know, but I imagine it is largely to do with the following factors:
- cost of distribution in Asia;
- T's advertisers not sufficiently interested in the IHT's Asian readership, at least for now.
But, I gather, if T is distributed in Asia, it will be an overall strategic decision.
Saturday, 15 December 2007
ihtreaders@gmail.com and the International Herald Tribune
It took a while longer than I had planned, but there is now an email address where you can contact www.ihtreaders.blogspot.com , the blog about all matters concerning the International Herald Tribune.
ihtreaders@gmail.com
Please make clear in your email if your comments are for publication or not, and if so whether I can quote your full name and position, or whether you would prefer to remain anonymous. I do fully understand the journalistic principal of speaking 'off the record' and I can't wait to use that great NYT line, "according to a highly placed IHT employee, who cannot be named because he is not authorised to speak on the company's behalf' (or words to that effect).
If you are just a reader and have no fear of being fired for emailing remarks or comments to this blog (and there is no reason why any IHT employee should be fired for having dealings with or just reading this blog - at least that I am aware of) but you would still like to remain anonymous, I would love to know at least your age, occupation (title), business sector, nationality and country of location.
ihtreaders@gmail.com
If you work for the IHT and have something you would like to share with me, please do so, provided it is accurate. Major story; of small consequence but interesting; business or editorial; inside scoop, funny anecdote, company gossip, I'm not fussy.
ihtreaders@gmail.com
What I can guarantee you is your complete anonymity, once I have established who you are. My rules on the protection of sources, and making sure you can't be identified, will be as robust as those of the NYT.
I know Judith Millar 'got permission' to dob in her source after how ever many days it was she spent in jail salvaging her reputation - having misreported the biggest story of perhaps America's entire history - but I hope to do even better than her on source confidentiality.
I'm thin skinned so if a lot of your emails are rude and critical about my blog, I may well stop.
So email me away if that's what you would like to achieve.
ihtreaders@gmail.com
ihtreaders@gmail.com
Please make clear in your email if your comments are for publication or not, and if so whether I can quote your full name and position, or whether you would prefer to remain anonymous. I do fully understand the journalistic principal of speaking 'off the record' and I can't wait to use that great NYT line, "according to a highly placed IHT employee, who cannot be named because he is not authorised to speak on the company's behalf' (or words to that effect).
If you are just a reader and have no fear of being fired for emailing remarks or comments to this blog (and there is no reason why any IHT employee should be fired for having dealings with or just reading this blog - at least that I am aware of) but you would still like to remain anonymous, I would love to know at least your age, occupation (title), business sector, nationality and country of location.
ihtreaders@gmail.com
If you work for the IHT and have something you would like to share with me, please do so, provided it is accurate. Major story; of small consequence but interesting; business or editorial; inside scoop, funny anecdote, company gossip, I'm not fussy.
ihtreaders@gmail.com
What I can guarantee you is your complete anonymity, once I have established who you are. My rules on the protection of sources, and making sure you can't be identified, will be as robust as those of the NYT.
I know Judith Millar 'got permission' to dob in her source after how ever many days it was she spent in jail salvaging her reputation - having misreported the biggest story of perhaps America's entire history - but I hope to do even better than her on source confidentiality.
I'm thin skinned so if a lot of your emails are rude and critical about my blog, I may well stop.
So email me away if that's what you would like to achieve.
ihtreaders@gmail.com
Murdoch and (not) the International Herald Tribune
An article in yesterday's International Herald Tribune (Murdoch takes helm as owners of Dow Jones; Friday December 14, 2007) reported, in the last paragraph, that Murdoch has 'publicly taken aim at The New York Times, hoping to win readers, advertisers and influence'.
A few things spring to mind:
My guess is that there are more IHT readers who need to be told the IHT is a NYT property, than IHT readers who need to be told that Singapore Airlines is an Asian carrier (see previous post).
Who knows what Murdoch has in mind for Dow Jones but while everyone is looking at how he might use it to take on the NYT in the USA, perhaps he is thinking more about how he could use the WSJ and The Times of London, and some of his Australian broadsheet content providers, to take on the IHT internationally.
One thing is probably for sure: Murdoch and the executive board of News Corp know one hell of a lot more about international English-language publishing than Pinch and the executive board of the NYT, company or newspaper.
In fact I'd go further than that and say Murdoch and his people probably know a hell of a lot more about life and business outside of Manhattan than the NYT gang.
We'll know if he's up to something if he seduces a couple of current senior IHT editors or business executives away from the IHT, but for all their woes, he has already got his hands on the distribution and international advertising expertise of the WSJ Europe and Asia.
Furthermore he has considerable experience of distributing The Times of London internationally, even if to a predominantly British audience.
The Times of London could serve as that core domestic audience in Europe (that the IHT hasn't got), combined with the WSJ in the USA, to be put together as an advertising package like the NYT has with the IHT and its Euroreach partners - a package that that could be a seriously compelling proposition to advertisers.
Please email you thoughts to ihtreaders@gmail.com
A few things spring to mind:
- Can anyone send me an accurate report of Murdoch 'publicily taking aim at the NYT'? I am sure he may well have, but I haven't had time to look for a reliable source on this. I would love to know his actual words.
- Did this public statement say he was 'hoping to win readers, advertisers and influence' OR is that 'opinion' rather than fact?
- Why has the IHT not mentioned in this story that it is owned by the NYT? I think most IHT readers know this, but it always used to the case that, whenever a business story was published concerning the NYT (or back in the day, the WP), IHT copy editors would dutifully remind its readers of this fact, as part of the full-disclosure in the news piece in order to maintain its credibility.
My guess is that there are more IHT readers who need to be told the IHT is a NYT property, than IHT readers who need to be told that Singapore Airlines is an Asian carrier (see previous post).
Who knows what Murdoch has in mind for Dow Jones but while everyone is looking at how he might use it to take on the NYT in the USA, perhaps he is thinking more about how he could use the WSJ and The Times of London, and some of his Australian broadsheet content providers, to take on the IHT internationally.
One thing is probably for sure: Murdoch and the executive board of News Corp know one hell of a lot more about international English-language publishing than Pinch and the executive board of the NYT, company or newspaper.
In fact I'd go further than that and say Murdoch and his people probably know a hell of a lot more about life and business outside of Manhattan than the NYT gang.
We'll know if he's up to something if he seduces a couple of current senior IHT editors or business executives away from the IHT, but for all their woes, he has already got his hands on the distribution and international advertising expertise of the WSJ Europe and Asia.
Furthermore he has considerable experience of distributing The Times of London internationally, even if to a predominantly British audience.
The Times of London could serve as that core domestic audience in Europe (that the IHT hasn't got), combined with the WSJ in the USA, to be put together as an advertising package like the NYT has with the IHT and its Euroreach partners - a package that that could be a seriously compelling proposition to advertisers.
Please email you thoughts to ihtreaders@gmail.com
Opinion vs. News at the International Herald Tribune
As I have written before, one of the main reasons I am such a fan of the International Herald Tribune is its policy to separate news from news analysis and the two of them from opinion.
Sometimes this can be a subjective call, and one that copy editors are presumably charged with being alert to.
Elaine Sciolino, writing in yesterday's IHT on Qaddafi's visit to France (Rocky time for Qaddafi during visit to France; Friday, December 14, 2007) stated that the Libyan leader 'insulted his host' by denying the subject of human rights had come up in his discussions with Sarko, Sarko having stated that they had.
That was certainly the opinion of one of her 'sources', a senior Socialist, speaking on RTL radio (that's known as riffing off other MSM content providers btw) who was of the opinion that Qaddafi calling Sarko a liar was an affront to France, a humiliation.
But was Sciolino right to report as 'news' (i.e fact) that Qaddafi had insulted his host?
Sarko, the insulted one, wasn't consulted by Sciolino, and if indeed Qaddafi was telling the truth - and we don't know he wasn't - could it be correctly termed an insult?
This style of news reporting smacked of opinion, not news.
An interesting comparison from yesterday's paper was a story by Nicola Clark in the business section about the sale of the Italian government's stake in Alitalia. (Mysterious approach for Alitalia vanishes; Friday, December 14, 2007)
According to Clark, Alitalia claimed it had received an approach from a group that included Singapore Airlines - 'a claim the Asian carrier swiftly denied' (btw: thanks to Clark for informing the IHT's infamously well-travelled readers that Singapore Airlines is indeed an Asian carrier).
Unlike Sciolino, Clark felt unable to offer as fact that Singapore Airlines had been insulted by this Alitalia claim.
Sometimes this can be a subjective call, and one that copy editors are presumably charged with being alert to.
Elaine Sciolino, writing in yesterday's IHT on Qaddafi's visit to France (Rocky time for Qaddafi during visit to France; Friday, December 14, 2007) stated that the Libyan leader 'insulted his host' by denying the subject of human rights had come up in his discussions with Sarko, Sarko having stated that they had.
That was certainly the opinion of one of her 'sources', a senior Socialist, speaking on RTL radio (that's known as riffing off other MSM content providers btw) who was of the opinion that Qaddafi calling Sarko a liar was an affront to France, a humiliation.
But was Sciolino right to report as 'news' (i.e fact) that Qaddafi had insulted his host?
Sarko, the insulted one, wasn't consulted by Sciolino, and if indeed Qaddafi was telling the truth - and we don't know he wasn't - could it be correctly termed an insult?
This style of news reporting smacked of opinion, not news.
An interesting comparison from yesterday's paper was a story by Nicola Clark in the business section about the sale of the Italian government's stake in Alitalia. (Mysterious approach for Alitalia vanishes; Friday, December 14, 2007)
According to Clark, Alitalia claimed it had received an approach from a group that included Singapore Airlines - 'a claim the Asian carrier swiftly denied' (btw: thanks to Clark for informing the IHT's infamously well-travelled readers that Singapore Airlines is indeed an Asian carrier).
Unlike Sciolino, Clark felt unable to offer as fact that Singapore Airlines had been insulted by this Alitalia claim.
Istanballs-ups at the International Herald Tribune
There are many International Herald Tribune offices (not as many as there were, but that's another story), each with many little birds within them, often spread over one or more floors. One little bird let http://www.ihtreaders.blogspot.com/ know that this blog has come to the attention of at least some members of the IHT's Paris newsroom.
The discussion overheard about this blog was not very flattering I am afraid to report, plus quite a bit of surprise that anyone should write such a blog ('they', the newsroom do write about 'us', the rest of the world for a living, so why the surprise I don't know. I found a photo of Gordon Brown's empty place setting, at the EU treaty signing in Lisbon, on the front page of yesterday's IHT a surprise, so I guess we can all be surprised).
Naturally my grammar, typos, split infinitives et al received a well-deserved bashing from copy editors, many who spend their entire careers sorting these things out (many had perhaps hoped to win a Pulitzer, some still do but let's not forget that most of the Paris newsroom is made up of shift-working copy editors, as opposed to what one might call 'journalists'.)
The main concern, as reported to me by my little bird, was that this blog should be 'accurate', and that's certainly a goal I share with the IHtwittering class in Neuilly.
To my knowledge, thus far, I have made only one factual error, having mistakenly identified a current IHT employee as an 'ex-employee', a mistake I immediately corrected as soon as it was brought to my attention by a posting on this blog.
I think that given my in-house capacity here to research, write and edit, and given the many more column-inches (is that with a hyphen? I don't know and I haven't the time to check) published by the IHT, that my goal will be to be at least as accurate as the IHT.
How accurate is that? My guideline is going to be how many corrections the IHT is obliged to publish every day.
For example, an article last Tuesday about the sentencing of Conrad Black 'misstated the proximity of the federal prison', where Black will probably serve his sentence, to his Palm Beach home. The IHT was forced to concede yesterday in its Corrections section that a prison that is 500 miles away from his home could not be described as 'near'.
Better (or worse) still was the embarrassing correction, also published yesterday, which reminded IHT journalists and copy editors (and probably not that many of its readers) that the capital of Turkey is not Istanbul but Ankara.
Things went downhill from there (actually northeast) in the original article last Monday on ethnic tensions in northern Iraq's oil city of Kirkuk.
The original article stated that the area of Turkey where most Kurds live as being in the northeast of Turkey. It is in fact in the southeast.
And the ethnic background of a member of the Kirkuk Provincial Council who was quoted in the article is in fact Turkmen (sic?), not Arab.
That's pretty good going, given the subject matter.
So I'm going to call my accuracy measure for this blog the 'Istanbul Test'.
If any reader spots any inaccuracies in this blog please let me know immediately, but please could you spare me copy editing corrections on grammar, spelling and typos.
Istanballs-ups only please.
(For American IHT copy editors, a 'balls-up' is with a hyphen and is British vulgar slang for a bungled task or action.)
I'm also interested in any inaccuracies published in the IHT which are NOT corrected.
You can write to me on either subject at ihtreaders@gmail.com
The discussion overheard about this blog was not very flattering I am afraid to report, plus quite a bit of surprise that anyone should write such a blog ('they', the newsroom do write about 'us', the rest of the world for a living, so why the surprise I don't know. I found a photo of Gordon Brown's empty place setting, at the EU treaty signing in Lisbon, on the front page of yesterday's IHT a surprise, so I guess we can all be surprised).
Naturally my grammar, typos, split infinitives et al received a well-deserved bashing from copy editors, many who spend their entire careers sorting these things out (many had perhaps hoped to win a Pulitzer, some still do but let's not forget that most of the Paris newsroom is made up of shift-working copy editors, as opposed to what one might call 'journalists'.)
The main concern, as reported to me by my little bird, was that this blog should be 'accurate', and that's certainly a goal I share with the IHtwittering class in Neuilly.
To my knowledge, thus far, I have made only one factual error, having mistakenly identified a current IHT employee as an 'ex-employee', a mistake I immediately corrected as soon as it was brought to my attention by a posting on this blog.
I think that given my in-house capacity here to research, write and edit, and given the many more column-inches (is that with a hyphen? I don't know and I haven't the time to check) published by the IHT, that my goal will be to be at least as accurate as the IHT.
How accurate is that? My guideline is going to be how many corrections the IHT is obliged to publish every day.
For example, an article last Tuesday about the sentencing of Conrad Black 'misstated the proximity of the federal prison', where Black will probably serve his sentence, to his Palm Beach home. The IHT was forced to concede yesterday in its Corrections section that a prison that is 500 miles away from his home could not be described as 'near'.
Better (or worse) still was the embarrassing correction, also published yesterday, which reminded IHT journalists and copy editors (and probably not that many of its readers) that the capital of Turkey is not Istanbul but Ankara.
Things went downhill from there (actually northeast) in the original article last Monday on ethnic tensions in northern Iraq's oil city of Kirkuk.
The original article stated that the area of Turkey where most Kurds live as being in the northeast of Turkey. It is in fact in the southeast.
And the ethnic background of a member of the Kirkuk Provincial Council who was quoted in the article is in fact Turkmen (sic?), not Arab.
That's pretty good going, given the subject matter.
So I'm going to call my accuracy measure for this blog the 'Istanbul Test'.
If any reader spots any inaccuracies in this blog please let me know immediately, but please could you spare me copy editing corrections on grammar, spelling and typos.
Istanballs-ups only please.
(For American IHT copy editors, a 'balls-up' is with a hyphen and is British vulgar slang for a bungled task or action.)
I'm also interested in any inaccuracies published in the IHT which are NOT corrected.
You can write to me on either subject at ihtreaders@gmail.com
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