25 themes of survival from the World Editors Forum

There was lots to think about at the World Editors Forum in Bangkok, June 2013. Here are my 25 quick take-home sound grabs .

www.wan-ifra.org/bangkok2013

1.       Don’t tweak, rather reinvent

2.       Get buy-in from newspaper owners, or you are wasting your time.

3.       Have a shared vision, across all departments, between editorial and management

4.       Communicate with management, show respect - but keep up the wall

5.       Focus on your role - good journalism: The platform is just the platform, the bottle. Journalism is the wine. It’s the wine that counts, that’s your core business. (credit: Juan Senor)

6.       Encourage management to expand revenue opportunities – the rats & mice all add up as traditional advertising declines

7.       Hire more reporters

8.       Protect reporters, ensure their safety, fight for them, don’t let owners take control of editorial

9.       Hire a digital/data developer/data wrangler (1 developer to 5 journalists)

10      Do what you do best, link to the rest (credit: Jeff Jarvis)

11     Take risks, but learn from the mistakes and successes of countries in a state of advanced crisis – ie the US media

12     Have a presence across as many platforms as possible: print, digital, social media. Right now, mobile is the IT medium.

13     Hire young upstarts, disrupters, with good ideas, different skills that add value and help transformation

14     Train experienced journalists, inspire them to learn new skills, they are invaluable

15     Discard outdated ideas, structures and deadlines

16     Interact with your audience

17     Use simple tools like wordpress and scoopshot

18     Know your audience: Analyse  response and traffic, and respond accordingly

19     Reorganise your newsroom and deadlines accordingly

20     Be quick, but add value, it’s impossible to compete with social media, so first verify

21.   Shake things up, it’s now or never

22.   Visualise stories from early on, not just at production stage

23.   Don’t replicate print content and design, do it differently, make it relevant for digital platforms

24.   Leadership is 20% journalism, 80% ability to inspire others

25.   Don’t despair. Do something radical, innovate.

Looking to score in the USA

BY JANET HEARD AND STEVE PIKE

“Are you showing the World Cup soccer on TV?”

The thump of heavy metal blasts through the gaping doorway of the Cowboy Bar in Pinedale, Wyoming, at 7.50am Pacific time, nine hours behind South Africa.

“Nah,” drawls the cleaner, tattooed and grim-jawed, adjusting his baseball cap as he looks up from washing down the floor with a high pressure hose, “only from 11am.”

Something about the taut line of his minimum wage smile keeps the complaint suppressed: “but the banner outside
says you’re showing all the matches.”

We have woken at dawn to bounce down a dirt road in our 12 cylinder, 25 foot RV with two double beds, a shower, stove and fridge from a remote mountainside campsite called Half Moon Lake. We have hurtled across grizzly bear and moose country into this rough-and-tumble town to score us some soccer.

Former colonial masters England are about to face off against Germany. But Wyoming, famous for gun-toting cowboys and rodeos, has no interest in the beautiful game. (see Stars and Stripes pic at a rodeo in Cody)

Outside the Corral Bar, a revving Ford F-250 bakkie belches smoke while a patron staggers from the saloon to hurl abuse at the driver – the detritus of a hard night’s drinking. Inside, a weathered bar woman looks blank. “You can’t bring kids in here unless you order food. It’s the law.”

“That’s okay, we’ll order food, thanks.”

“We don’t serve food til 3pm.”

“Can we just get toast?”

Her eyes narrow, lips purse and bony fingers tense around the glass she cleans: “We don’t serve food til three.”

The inhabitants of cowboy country are getting on with life, oblivious to the biggest sports event in the world. Two taverns later, the lumbering RV makes one last stop – a low-slung wooden edifice called the Wrangler Café that hunkers down on the edge of town.

We strike gold – a thin vein in a corner of “them thar hills”. The soccer is on, tucked away in a back room, the audio a faint murmur. A round table of six elderly locals, one sporting a white cowboy hat, tuck into pancakes and coffee under a tiny TV. (See pic left). Germany 2: England 0. We sit. England scores, and minutes later scores again, this time off the crossbar. But the ref and his assistant don’t see it. Neither do the patrons of the Wrangler Café. We groan. We finish our fry-up and leave. Score: 4-1.

This frantic hunt for games has been our routine for two weeks. Unable to return home after air ticket complications following a university fellowship in Cambridge, we have been stuck in the non-soccer loving US of A where soccer star Landon Donovan is not exactly a household name.

We had drained our credit account and flew to Vegas to pick up a rented RV for a road trip adventure out West – four excitable South Africans, aged 8 to 46, let loose in a stuffy metal cabin on wheels cruising small town USA during the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

What was the first thing we did in Vegas? Gamble? Hell no. We hunted down a sports bar in a giant casino to watch diving divas Uruguay thrash Bafana 3-0. It was unnerving to watch The Boys gored with such inglorious repetition on 10 TV screens. The other 12 screens were dedicated to horse racing at Belmont Park. Rows of punters glued to private PC screens couldn’t give a hoot about our result, or pain. (see tv screen pic)

Yet countrywide, ABC aired all US World Cup games, and cable channel ESPN has pushed a national campaign. Their generic banner, emblazoned with the South Africa 2010 logo, advertise coverage at numerous sports bars scattered across America. Most small-town newspapers have wire agency coverage, and the New York Times dedicates up to two pages per day. Even Vanity Fair magazine featured a glossy cover of topless soccer heroes.

And yet we were the only people at a venue in Rock Springs, Wyoming, to watch last African hope Ghana defeat the US. Hauling the 25 foot bus around in a desperate bid to find a friendly screen, we walked into Mexican restaurant La Bamba, where the owner was watching solo on a small TV. The kindest of hosts, he switched from his Hispanic channel to English-speaking ABC, and lost interest.

Patrons meandered in, but were more interested in enchiladas and quesadillas. At 1-1, three minutes into extra time, we roared as Ghana scored. A group of fire-fighters glanced up at the TV, and recoiled with shock when they realized our cheers were for the Black Stars. Dagger eyes shot at us. It took a treasonous act to interrupt their disinterest.

AP journalist Nancy Armour commented that the US was “flat and uninspired”. Add to this mix, supporters who lacked the mojo to elevate them from the second tier. Not even Bill Clinton and LA Lakers basketball star Kobe Bryant at the Royal Bafokeng Stadium could wake the slumbering giant to the magic of the World Cup. Their sanctuary is all American sports where professional teams play in “World Series” inside the USA.

But the four of us in our RV have felt the energy emanating from home, bolstered by sporadic pockets of passion in small town America.

We watched England draw with Algeria at Sticks & Steaks, Sedona, a tourist town in Arizona nestling in the famous Red Rock Canyon. The now familiar ESPN banner hung at the entrance, and a board mapped out the path to the finals. At the Carver Brewing Company in Durango, Colorado, over an early-morning breakfast, Bafana scored against France, and did it again. We bellowed, then looked around demurely. But the waiter said we were welcome to shout loud as we liked. We didn’t get that chance. “Bad luck,” he said as we left with heavy stomachs and even heavier hearts.

There was a vibrant collection of expat fans and tourists – interspersed with bemused Americans – when Mexico faced Argentina at the Sidewinder tavern in Jackson, Wyoming. Patrons watched from a dozen screens lining the walls. We shared a giant Nachos for 10 bucks, chuckling at Diego Maradona’s quirky hubris as his team thrashed Mexico 3-1.

As we enter the finals stage, we will continue to knock on small-town saloon doors. When asked where we were for 2010, we’ll always say, we were there … kinda.
* This article first appeared in the Weekend Argus, http://www.weekendargus.co.za/

WEST THUMB GEYSER SITE, YELLOWSTONE

Life without Mandela in SA? it's like Wonderland without Alice.

SNEAKING A SHOT: Janet and Mandela in Lavender Hill, Cape Town, about 10 years ago. Picture: Richard Shorey

I want to get sentimental today and talk about a very old man close to my heart, and presumably yours too - Nelson Mandela.


Like America’s freedom fighter Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela had a dream. Unlike Martin Luther King, Mandela lived to see his dream realized. In so doing, he inspired the world.

Mandela is the glue that holds the new SA together.

So the question I want to tackle today is the following: How can South Africa forge ahead without Mandela?

How do we build on the ideals of peace and unity that he helped to carve out of a country shattered by apartheid?

Mandela was released from 27 years in jail exactly 20 years ago today – on February 11, 1990.

That day, I reported the euphoria from the streets of Johannesburg as a journalist for the local newspaper. I feel privileged to have been witness to such an extraordinary event.

Many of you will have seen that seminal freedom clip – Mandela walking out of the prison gates, his fist in the air, his wife Winnie at his side. Some of you have seen it being re-enacted in the film, Invictus. And for those who haven’t, it is worth checking it out on YouTube. I watched it again this morning. Once again, it brought tears to my eyes.

Today, Mandela is frail, fragile and forgetful. In July, he will have 92 candles on his birthday cake. Rumours of his poor health circulate constantly, his office frequently putting out statements reassuring the public that Mandela is still very much with us. On this special day today, he made a rare public appearance in Cape Town just a few hours ago.

But the clock is ticking. The country can no longer rely on his influence to keep everything together.

Although South Africa has made progress in its freedom years, the signs of juvenile decay are a real threat if left unchecked.

So what does the country need to do to ensure that his legacy endures after he is gone?

Mandela’s party, the ANC, needs to get back to its core values – the values that Mandela is so famous for – justice, equality, unity, forgiveness and the fight against poverty.

After 16 years in power, there is an arrogance and complacency that has crept in to the ruling elite and which has led to corruption and abuses of power.

The party also needs to nurture credible leaders in its kindergarten, the ANC Youth League.

At the moment, the only name that keeps cropping up publicly is Julius Malema. He is a controversial hothead whose rantings have alienated many groupings, including women and whites. His comments are not helpful when rebuilding a deeply fractured country, which is one of the reasons why he is dressed in nappies in newspaper cartoons. The ANC may be nurturing other talent, but it should throw the names of other young rising stars into the public ring.

But it would be foolish to leave it up the ANC to be the torchbearers of Mandela’s legacy.

Opposition parties, civic society, business, trade unions, sports and artists groupings also have a responsibility to keep Mandela’s dream alive. Fortunately, we have a glut of talented leaders in many fields.

My profession cannot rest on its laurels. The media has a responsibility to challenge authority and defend the media freedoms we gained in 1994. Again, robust leadership is vital. Disillusionment will get us nowhere. We need bulldog reporters, independent editors and media owners prepared to invest in journalism that encourages debate, exposes corruption and highlights issues such as HIV-Aids, human rights abuses and poverty.

Mandela is a symbol of South Africa’s freedom. But he is also a symbol of reconciliation and forgiveness for the globe. He led the country to democracy at a time when horrendous human rights atrocities by one grouping over another were taking place in other parts of the world such as Bosnia-Herzegovina and Rwanda.

Mandela’s leadership – often expressed with humour and a smile - provided a ray of hope even among hardened cynics that peace is possible in the most trying of circumstances.

To many, the idea of a new South Africa is like Wonderland without Alice.

But we better get used to life without Tata, the father of the nation. He has passed on the torch, and it is up to all South Africans to keep the flame alive.

* This speech was presented by Janet to a Kennedy School of Government section class run by Professor Tim McCarthy on February 11, 2010..

MEETING MADIBA: My coy daughter Ella (coaxed on by her dad Steve Pike) meets Mandela in his home in Cape Town, about four years ago. In the bottom photo, my son Tyler presents a picture that he drew of Mandela being released from prison on 11 February 1990. The two excitable ushers are my father Tony Heard, and his brother Ray.

"Spring" in Boston

The "Spring" semester gets under way at Harvard tomorrow. Why it is called Spring is anyone's guess. You see, tomorrow it will be in minus degrees Celcius, so hold on to your thermals for the next "winter" in Boston. In fact, we are still right in winter, but it is called spring, to entice people into the new year. Few people will have a spring in their step at 8am tomorrow when the snow is still wrapped around the fire hyrdants outside of people's homes, and you get frost bite if you go outside without your thermals, your inner gloves, outer gloves, neck warmers, parka jacket, snow boots..... that's life in spring in Boston. Wrap up.
Somehow, life goes on... people actually go jogging here, dressed up like they are going to climb the North Face. They go cycling, wearing balaclavas that make them look like bank robbers. My face is so pale that my mother saw me on Skype the other day, and said to me: "Janet, you are so white." Duh!!! Like she hadn't noticed before. But I guess i have gone a lighter shade of pale.

On board at last ...

Today is Friday, 22 January, and I have finally climbed on board the blogosphere. Friends back home in South Africa have no doubt been wondering what I have been up to for the past five months as a Nieman fellow at Harvard. This is what I got up to last night:

I crossed the Charles River from Cambridge to attend a special screening of a film about Robert Kennedy's visit to South Africa in the 1960s. The film, RFK IN THE LAND OF APARTHEID: A RIPPLE OF HOPE was screened at the Kennedy Library Forum, a grand, imposing structure in honour of president John F Kennedy.

The film documented the Senator and his wife Ethel's unofficial trip to South Africa during the height of apartheid at the invitation of the National Union of SA Students. The filmmaker took a number of years to collect rare and grainy footage from that time - quite a feat, bearing in mind that there was no national television in SA (though it is likely there would have been a blackout of his visit anyway).
It is interspersed with footage from South Africa today, and includes interviews with NUSAS leaders - Ian Robertson, John Daniels and Margaret Marshall. It also includes interviews with Albertina Luthuli, the daughter of the late Chief Albert Luthuli.

Kennedy, with the help of his speechmaker Adam Walinsky, had a way with words. His "ripple of hope" speech had a big impact on the students whom he addressed during his visit. On his trip, he visited the universities of Stellenbosch, Cape Town and Wits. Kennedy also trekked secretly to a village in kwa-Zulu-Natal to visit the banned Albert Luthuli, who was under banning order and could not be in the company of more than two people at a time. Their meeting was held under the trees.

What was so special about the screening last night was that there was a panel discussion that included two of the key "stars" of the film: Margaret Marshall, who left South Africa a few years after Kennedy's visit and who is now the celebrated Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court; and Albertina Luthuli, now an MP in SA. The other two members of the panel were the filmmaker Larry Shore and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Robert Kennedy's eldest child.

The film also shows the struggle for human rights and equality being waged by African americans back home at the same time. (NUSAS had invited civil rights leader Martin Luther King to SA the year before, but the apartheid government had declined his visa).

After the debate, my husband Steve and myself were invited to a small dinner hosted by the Chief Justice, Margaret Marshall, who in the Kennedy film is a rather naive-looking petite blonde student activist who had the honour of escorting the Kennedys around SOuth Africa during their trip. She remains as passionate about South Africa today as she was then, back in the 1960s. The chief justice is one of the most respected leaders in the judiciary in the state, and she has continued to champion human rights since being exiled from South Africa in the 1960s. I can't help thinking that she could play such a big role in the rebuilding of South Africa if she returned home....
The filmmaker hopes the film will be screened on SABC next year. The film captures a relatively unknown moment in SA history, and is definitely worth seeing.