Anybody who believes this memo from Alan Rusbridger was intended for 'internal purposes only' is surely kidding themselves. Nobody gets as high up the newspaper industry ladder as Rusbridger without knowing how effective a 'strictly confidential', 'internal memo' can be in getting key messages to wider audiences. And in this case the key messages include a no-holds-barred treatise on the relative health of key rivals:
...The Times managed to report with a straight face that [Guardian chief exec] Carolyn [McCall] was leaving a company "in turmoil." This is the paper which, together with The Sunday Times, has just declared losses of more than £87m; which has scrapped its G2 equivalent; slashed its news run and has a staff deeply divided over Murdoch's gamble on pay walls. The Times's print circulation is falling at exactly the same rate as the Guardian's – but the Times's web traffic is down seven per cent year on year while the Guardian's rose by 22 per cent.
That doesn't make it a paper "in turmoil." But it does give you a realistic measure by which to judge how newspapers in our market are performing in the face of recession and digital disruption.
...The Independent – in the week in which the owners had to pay an ex-KGB Russian oligarch £9m to take it off their hands – showed a similar lack of self-awareness. The paper which started the "format wars" with the expectation of catapulting over its rivals, now sells just 90,000 copies a day at full price... and has never made any secret about not really believing in the internet.
The Indie has struggled on pretty amazingly over the years – in the face of precisely the same forces bearing down on us all. Can that pot recognize a kettle when it sees one?
Strong stuff. Guido Fawkes has got the whole thing.
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