LITMIR.BIZ

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those days, the online editor and the desktop-support IT guy were considered the same person by many of the print M&G staff. After I got the job, I remember being called over every now and then to sort out desktop issues on legendary news editor Drew Forrest’s computer. With a smile, I would oblige. I was fixing the legend’s computer and that was good enough for me. For others, I would gently take the opportunity to educate them about the differences between the IT guy and the online editor. In those days, it was hard for many staff members to tell the difference.

      I joined the newspaper during a difficult time for the once great website. There had been a highly publicised falling-out with the then majority shareholder and internet service provider (ISP) MWEB, which had precipitated a walkout by the talented staff who had made the website into the famous entity it had become. The staff who remained were demoralised and had been drifting without management or a strategy for more than a year.

      Traffic on the site was declining. The website was burning cash and there was no discernible revenue model. The site relied heavily on news agency feeds and stories from the paper. Articles were being FTP’ed7 or transferred from our local computers to the M&G site on the internet. This antiquated method was the real-world equivalent of delivering email via a postman. MWEB had a controversial and largely derided paywall block in place, which meant that users outside the ISP could not access M&G Online. This was why Irwin and his staff had walked out. It was nothing short of a disaster, and certainly contributed to the website’s decline.

      At that time, the idea of limiting news that was in the national interest to a small, paying elite was an abhorrent concept for most journalists. From a commercial perspective it wasn’t a bad idea, but it was very badly executed, and far too early, as people then were resistant to paying for content online.

      If I thought I was in for an easy ride, I was to think again. Change was needed. But the staff under me objected to the changes I tried to institute. The website published stories manually with hand-edited code, and was in desperate need of a database and a CMS that allowed faster and easier publishing of content. Moreover, the site was making no revenue and needed an online advertising model in order to sustain itself.

      The staff didn’t like these changes, and unions were brought in. This led to a series of drawn-out grievance, mediation and disciplinary hearings. I spent my first six months in the boardroom and the CEO’s office dealing with staff issues and repairing a fractious shareholder relationship rather than trying to revitalise and run one of South Africa’s iconic news sites.

      The situation did not get any better. Our technical partners, who were the shareholders, understood the ISP hosting game well, but had a tenuous understanding of online publishing. The new, modern site and CMS we created crashed the minute it was launched, unable to withstand the pressures placed on the database by M&G Online’s sizeable audience. I slept at the offices that night, pep-talking the junior developer at the other end of the phone at MWEB in Cape Town.

      It was a low point, so low that I considered leaving the M&G. I’m glad I didn’t, because eventually the winds of change began to sweep through the company’s corridors. A new owner was about to take over the paper – a Zimbabwean newspaperman by the name of Trevor Ncube.

      This was the start of a new commercial focus for the M&G operation. It marked the first time in the paper’s history when rational economics began to apply. Quite logically, the company entered an era of spending only the money it made. It received an injection of investment, focus and energy. Trevor, an ambitious, passionate man, wanted to turn the company into a world-class publishing operation once again.

      I remember Trevor’s first speech in 2002 to M&G staff in those dimly lit, dusty offices emphasising that the greatest threat to press freedom was not meddling governments or advertisers, but a simple lack of revenue and a non-existent business model. This was a fairly elementary calculation for me: no money, no newspaper, no website, no Matthew. Ncube’s arrival marked a change in corporate culture: a company that had essentially been run as an NGO and that relied on donor funding for much of its existence was now being run as a business.

      Ncube worked hard to win over the staff. Over a week’s period, he held private, individual meetings with every single staff member in the company, scribbling frantically on an A4 pad while he listened to every grievance and request, no matter how small or outlandish.

      Initially the NGO struggle culture in the paper did not accept this new, capitalist owner. His shiny-black E-Class Mercedes Benz seemed out of place in the scruffy car park below the newspaper’s offices.

      There were also uncomfortable public clashes in tense staff meetings, with reporters openly challenging Ncube and his management team on the new direction the paper was taking. Employees talked about going to the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA), and there were several labour disputes. The process was uncomfortable and messy, but airing disputes was part of the M&G’s identity: it embodied a democratic, outspoken culture, one which I haven’t seen in many other companies. It took time, but an initially defensive Ncube began to win staff over as he spoke passionately about his vision for the company and as things began to change for the better.

      There was pain, make no mistake. The newspaper got thinner so that its costs more closely matched the bare-bones advertising revenue it was taking in. The online department was slashed from eighteen staffers to three. A strong partnership was formed between Ncube and Hoosain Karjieker, then the newspaper’s financial manager (now managing director), which led to a rapid strengthening in both revenues and readership.

      The newspaper relocated from its warehouse-like headquarters in Milpark to gleaming glass-and-steel offices on Jan Smuts Avenue in Rosebank. It was progress, although there were rumblings from some M&G staff who felt the company was losing its activist soul by moving to these plush offices away from the centre of town.

      Ncube brought not only a strong commercial strategy to the company, but also strong principles of editorial independence. My respect for the man as both an entrepreneur and a media man was sealed when, barely three months into his tenure, I published a column by Rhodes University journalism professor Guy Berger, which was critical of Ncube.

      I wasn’t sure how Ncube would react. I was a young, inexperienced editor, and I didn’t know the new owner very well. Moreover, he hailed from a country where press freedom was not held in particularly high regard. Fearing I would be fired, I sent the article to Ncube, offering a ‘right of reply’. He declined, and then encouraged me to publish without fear or favour. My respect for Ncube grew.

      ‘Buckland, you’ve got balls,’ said the circulations manager Amanda Chetty. I opportunistically basked in the compliment, but knew in my heart that the outcome had little to do with bravery. The story saw the light of day because of a company culture that supported independent journalism, a principled media boss in Ncube and a good journalism degree that I had received from Rhodes University.

      I remember editor Mondli Makhanya sauntering up to Ncube’s office just before the newspaper deadline late on a Thursday. Wearing an irrepressible smile, Makhanya said, ‘Boss, please don’t fire me tomorrow.’ He was referring to an article Ncube would not like. It was a light joke shared between editor and publisher, because Makhanya knew Ncube regarded his editorial independence as sacrosanct. That foundation of editorial independence and excellence has been reinforced by subsequent newspaper editors, including the brilliant Ferial Haffajee, Nic Dawes and the paper’s editors of today.

      The paper was thriving and a wave of optimism swept through the company. A new advertising strategy saw the newspaper fattening up by the week. Sadly, however, this was not the case with M&G Online, which continued to struggle with outdated technology, technical issues, a lack of staff and practically no revenue under an impossible shareholding regime.

      More digital staff members were retrenched, and at one stage I found myself – one of only three remaining M&G Online staffers – trying desperately to feed an insatiable news site. Matthew Burbidge, the long-standing, excessively intelligent and foul-mouthed news editor, insightfully compared it to a ‘hungry beast’ that gorged on wire copy and was never ever satisfied.

      The

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