Computer Weekly lays off more Journalists

The defintion of insanity is continuing to do the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result. News today that RBI owned Computer Weekly is laying off more editorial staff. This is part of wider plan to have intergated teams working across platforms. Nothing wrong with that of course, but if you employ fewer and fewer journalists and do nothing to change the print model the only ting that is certain is that the print title will die a little more.

Has the B2B industry given up on print? Does the growth of online mean that there is no future at all for using a dead tree to distribute information? Isn't this just a publishing problem waiting to be solved? If B2B really thinks there is no future for print then wouldn't it be better to close the print titles now and pursue the digital model with full vigour?

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RBI and Computing Week

Update: Story now corrected on PG website.

Press Gazette reports on the same story from the FT we comment on below. Cuts digging deep we fear at PG towers, They begin their piece,
"The sale of Computing Week publisher Reed Business Information by parent company Reed Elsevier ...."

There is a mag called Computing and there is a mag called Computer Weekly - but there aint no such thing as a Computing Week.

Thats what you get with no subs and no regular coverage (knowledge) of what goes on in B2B. The first is a generic problem with online journalism and the second a weary jibe at the mainstream media media.

Time for a nap.

Farming Online Quits Original Journalism

Online isn't so easy. Farming online has replaced copy written by journalists with an automated feed and claims,

"no subscribers had complained about the change and that while IFBN gave stories “a certain focus and helped expand it” he wondered if that “added value” was noticeable."

This is certainly grounded in financial necessity, but is a grim warning about the future of business journalism. In days gone by the national press and the broadcast media would use trade publications as expert sources of specialist news. Just as local newspapers would have hacks tracking down stories that nationals could not possibly identify and resource, so trade journalists dug out the truth in their specialist areas of interest. There have been many occasions when national newspapers have lifted whole stories from trade papers with little change or fillow up. Only this morning Computer Weeklys Executive Editor, Tony Collins was interviewed in the Today programme about transparency of government IT projects.

As business mags die, the fourth estate will be ever more dependent on news from the web. If the farming online intiative is a the start of a trend, rather than a curiosity, the days of business media being influential are numbered.