Trust: A journey of 20 years and beyond
How do you know a newspaper will survive? If you were asking yourself this question in 1998, your answer might be, because there’s room on the newsstand. Really?
The Concord stable, comprising over half a dozen titles, had reached its peak. PUNCH was resurgent, while The Guardian and Vanguard were strong brands. ThisDay was three, while Nation and Sun were only a dream.
The New Nigerian was in the last stages of its existential crisis, and the deficiency in the northern market at the time was compounded by the demise of a few promising newsmagazines in the region – a complete contrast to the influence and prosperity of magazines in the south.
But how do you know that a newspaper will survive in 1998, especially when the history of the press in the north at the time was littered with the graves of once-vibrant publications run by damn good journalists who were bad businessmen?
Survival was not just a matter of finding a room on the newsstand. It was also about finding a business model that will secure the room.
In hindsight, it might seem an easy decision, especially since the northern market was apparently underserved. But a notional market was only a part of the story. And no one knew this more than Kabiru Yusuf, a journalist of many years; and co-founder of Trust Media, Isiaq Ajibola, an economist who had worked in the business departments of three northern based publications.
The political climate at the time was hostile. Nearly five years of war between the press and the military authorities over the annulment of the June 12 election result had brought the country to its knees. The tetchy military authorities closed down newspapers arbitrarily and agents of the regime haunted down human rights activists and journalists.
If a new entrant was determined to risk the threat to press freedom, there were other obstacles in the way, mostly related to the business culture in the industry and poor infrastructure.
In a paper I delivered at the Conference of the Nigerian Guild of Editors in Port Harcourt in September 2017, I listed a few of the demons confronting the business of journalism:
• The
Lack
West of transparency: African Pilot of Thursday, May 19, 1938, Vol. 1, No 148, had on its front left ear, the net circulation for the previous week: 8,264 copies. Eighty years later, this year, newspapers are hiding their print figures under the table, and advertisers, weary of pressing for an Audit Bureau of Circulations, are happy to play off the newspapers against one another in a bargain for cheaper rates.
• Sharp practices amongst a number of owners and journalists undermine the credibility and, ultimately, the viability of a number of platforms.
• A newspaper startup had to own its own printing press (notwithstanding the risk of idle capacity), fleet of distribution vehicles and have offices in as many states of the country as possible to “prove” its bona fides as a “national” brand.
•
Ethics: Wastage:
Poor human development and motivation
capital low
These obstacles, including an inherently poor culture of measuring things in the industry; middlemen and agents who dictated price while contributing next to nothing to the value chain; not to mention the treacherously high cost of doing business, were other challenges that the promoters had to deal with, if Trust was to survive.
I remember my first visit to Trust in Abuja in those early days, when the newspaper comprised 48 pages, with more smudge than colour in the few colour pages inside. After years of running battles with Heritage press, they had acquired a printing press of their own, an American made two-colour-tower Webpress, but support would prove a major challenge in future.
I was, however, impressed by how quickly they had made progress. But beyond web, machines and their sparsely furnished rented warehouse office, I was also struck, unmistakably, by the energy among the staff that I met, to make Trust work.
Ajibola’s book, My newspaper odyssey, captured how Trust survived these past 20 years: Personal discipline, hard work and sacrifice, pushing the frontiers and damning the myths, the spirit of innovation and investing in staff, the serendipity of finding a good partner and a guiding hand, as well as just being in Abuja when they were in Abuja, have helped to make the story the success that it is today.
“We kept our costs very, very low from the beginning and kept ourselves under discipline,” Jibola said in an interview with me the week before the 20th anniversary. “We built the paper, little by little, one step at a time. We didn’t have moneybags throwing cash at us.”
Timing and location also played in Trust’s favour. The socalled Lagos-Ibadan press had almost completely taken over the market, framing policy, politics and business and leading the conversation about culture and entertainment. The north appeared to have lost its voice and northerners who had anything worthwhile to say had to borrow or depend on the trumpet of the LagosIbadan press.
If regional patronage helped, among other things, to give Trust a lift at the early stages, such patronage alone could not have sustained it for two decades, bringing its circulation from a few thousand to over 35,000 copies daily, roughly one-eight of the combined figure of seven of the major titles today.
The newspaper ranks among one of the most professionally and competently run in the country. Among a few of the standout stories it has published include the earliest expose on the activities of the Boko Haram leader, Muhammad Yusuf; the Abuja land grab by senior government officials and military officers; and the scandalously incomparable pay received by national lawmakers, stories that not only captured the imagination of the public, but also ignited public debate and calls for greater transparency.
In the last three or four years, Trust has published, at least twice a week, exclusively investigated stories researched to leave the reader in no doubt about the quality of work done, and illustrated with infographics that complement story-telling.
I think it has come to the point, though, when more attention should be paid not just to the sometimes dizzying data used in the stories, but also to their meaning and relevance.
The newspaper’s colour repro quality has improved remarkably, far from the sticky smudge of the early days. With riveting commentaries on the back page, better compartmentalisation and deeper coverage of specialised subjects, the newspaper has become more authoritative and opened itself up for wider revenue streams from classifieds.
From being a mono-product publisher (Trust Media Company actually started as Weekly Trust), the company has grown remarkably, with an iconic head office, multi-site commercial printing capacity, eight other publications, a strong online brand and still expanding.
But the years have also taken a toll on the vision and the visioners and competition from other newspapers in the north such as LEADERSHIP, People’s Daily and Blueprint – not to mention the surfeit of northern-biased online publications – has forced Trust to move more to the right, creating a perception of a paper for the conservative Muslim north.
A new newspaper in the north today will not find it as easy as Trust did. Niche game and smart use of technology might help; but the playground is smaller and more complex.
How does a newspaper survive the next two decades?
The chronicling of the death of the newspaper industry started around 2006, even before Trust was ten. It does appear that the death has been slightly exaggerated. Or maybe it will be a very, very slow and painful death?
Whatever it is, the industry has been forewarned. Surviving – and even thriving – in the next two decades and beyond will be more about content than form.
Data will continue to matter but how it is used will matter even more. The power to create the news – real or fake – will continue to devolve more and more to citizens and journalism will increasingly be about context, relevance and community.
With greater access to cheaper and more efficient broadband, visual news will challenge grey matter and those who want to win will have to find a creative mix of the two media (with other storytelling tools) delivered on agnostic platforms.
Artificial intelligence will expand the frontier of the news and tax the creative genius of journalists, but the human element, the ability to sift through the chaff to find and present the news in a meaningful way, will continue to make the difference, as the consumption of digital news continues to rise.
How will Trust survive the next 20 years? Kabiru Yusuf first replied with a joke, “Honestly, I don’t even know how we got here, and that’s true. I think it is grace above everything else.”
Then he added, “The future is digital and we’re investing heavily in that area. We’re preparing for it.”
I hope that Trust will be here not only to tell the story, but also to be on the cutting edge of how it is told.
Ishiekwene is the Managing Director/Editor-In-Chief of The Interview and member of the board of the Global Editors Network. He wrote this piece to commemorate Daily Trust at 20