BookyMedia

Observations of two disillusioned old-media churnalists

Aug 20, 2009 Comments

Goodbye to thelondonpaper

: Image by blech via Flickr

As one of the lucky few to work on the launch of thelondonpaper a few years ago I have to admit I’m gutted, and probably more shocked by today’s announcement of its closure than I should be.

I say more shocked, because like so many seemingly Black Swan events (low predictability, high impact) it turns out in reality to be nothing but a boring old White Swan that was obvious to all around, and not just in retrospect.

Even before News Corp announced record debts and a plan to paywall certain types of online content – a move that clearly put its free London paper at odds with the rest of the company’s portfolio – it was likely the paper wouldn’t last too long.

In fact, even before the paper was launched, the signs that Murdoch didn’t truly buy into his first newspaper launch were worringly evident. Apparently when the dummy copy was presented to Murdoch by the paper’s editor, his response was that you could charge 10p for it – an anecdote that was repeated with an ‘oh Dad, what are you like, you silly old codger?’ tone. So if he didn’t get ‘free’ then, it’s no surprise he dropped the paper when times were tough.

True, thelondonpaper was losing Murdoch millions, but if every unprofitable newspaper was shut down we wouldn’t be left with many papers. And, as one member of staff apparently asked NI exec Clive Milner whether they’d also be closing the Times – which has lost far more money than the freesheet – it clearly isn’t believed as the only reason internally (thanks to @natts who replaced me at tlp for the story).

According to one headline about the paper’s demise, Murdoch has ‘lost faith’ in free. I’d suggest they should have used the word patience instead of one indicating a belief he’d have to have held in order to have lost it. The only upside is that the paper had a lot of very talented staff, who will hopefully spread their experience across more titles.