IS BILL ON THE MOVE…AGAIN?

Aug 28, 2008 Features / Columnists

Dear Editor, Guyana Times
I notice you now have a vacancy. Please can I apply. You will know my work from the Guyanese media over the last decade or more.

My manifesto for transforming the ‘GT’ from a marginal media presence (As the news vendor told me -‘it sell slowly, very slowly’) to the journal of record for Guyana. Like the real ‘Times’- of London

1. CONTENT CONTENT CONTENT
We live in a world full of information. Most of it free. Much at the click of a button. Journalism, as I tell my students, is about stories, stories and, well, more stories.

People have to need to go to your paper for something special. Warmed up stories several days old do not count nor rewritten press releases.

Original and good content is all in the modern media. Journalism, whether we like it or not, is about the negative.

Dog bites man=no story. Man bites dog=story. “Good” newspapers always fail, apart from in religious sects. Your design is good. The template though is filled with too much fluff.

2. HIRE PLENTY HACKS
Stories are best told by professional hacks. They should know what they are doing in terms of gathering, writing and more. If yours do not then train them up and train them up fast. Good hacks hate offices; they like the street and the people on it.

Hire some proper photographers not somebody who takes a book cover and calls it a news photo. Good photos are worth a thousand words – look at the London Guardian. Double pages each and every day.

3. LOCAL SELLS BEST
It is noble that you have so much regional and international news but do the Guyanese really care? Surely they get that better from the BBC or CNN websites.

They want to read stories about their communities, their lives, people like them. In the UK we call it ‘drilling down’ and it’s the way the press and broadcasting is going pell mell. A few big umbrellas and many many local ‘papers’ under their shade.

4. SORT OUT NEWS AND FEATURES
Bill was confused reading ‘GT’. He often is. There was so much chequerboarding between the news (of which there was nothing like enough) and the features about Girls’ Literature, Kids’ Education and the problems of the urinary tract (any link between them?). It’s called the geography of the paper.

Yours is all over the place. There’s a position for features but remember Bill Clinton and KISS – keep it simple stupid. Every single time.

5. FEEDBACK
Glad to see you have not fallen for the prolix and too often fake letter writers of Guyana and the Diaspora. Perhaps you do not have letters. When you do get them, edit them, cut them to size.

Newspapers should not be ‘flatforms’, as you Guyanese say, for the outpourings of (too often sad) individuals. If you are the journal of record then you have to get the real movers and shakers writing to you about big and bold issues.

6. DESIGN
Leave it. It works. It’s clean – in all senses of the word. Bill does not have to head for the wash basin after reading your organ. Your Berliner size may be a problem on the news-stands. A big one.

Think about that. Bill likes lots about “GT’; The TV guide is clear but why not turn it into a proper horizontal guide by time of programme? That’s how you help the punters choose among the many jewels of Guytelly.

7. HIRE COLUMNISTS
Those of us in TUC (The Columnists Union) -Freddie, Me, Mr. Oasis, Adam, Ian Mac, Fenty -would support new kids on the Opinion Block. So long as they got Opinions worth listening to. Them sort of people are hard to find.

Bill will be worth every penny of the million dollars (Guyana) a month which you can expect to pay him. He will move you out of the Third Division South of Guymedia into the Premier League where the Beacon should be.

Your not so humble servant
William J Cotton

Pip!Pip!