Trevor Ncube, the Zimbabwean publisher of South Africa's successful weekly, the Mail & Guardian, launched a daily newspaper, NewsDay, in his own country three weeks ago.
As David Smith reported for The Guardian, Ncube's paper is now head to head with the state-owned Herald, cheerleader for Zimbabwe's president Robert Mugabe.
Ncube knows he is taking risks. Over the years, despite leaving Zimbabwe, he was a thorn in Mugabe's side with his two weekly newspapers theZimbabwe Independent and the Sunday Standard.
So why has he decided to publish a daily in a country with a wrecked economy? Ncube has been explaining his strategy to Gill Moodie on the Cape Town-based bizcommunity site.
Here are some highlights... first, on the difficulty of building an audience:
Readers are hungry for independent news but it is important to realise that the majority of Zimbabweans are in the rural areas. The urban population is between 25% and what could now be as high as 40% of the population. That's a challenge that any publisher who wishes to achieve economies of scale faces. How do you penetrate that other 60%?
Moodie: "Excuse my ignorance - which is probably the ignorance of the average South African - but I thought all the independent newspapers were run out of town by the Mugabe regime."
My newspapers have been around for 15 years and, if you know me, you'll know I wouldn't run a newspaper that is censored by the government. These are very independent newspapers.
At the moment, one of my editors is facing a 20-year jail term and that is the kind of thing we've endured: publish and be damned; publish and be imprisoned...
My two newspapers performed the role of the opposition. It was a small weekly voice in a market crowded with government propaganda.
Moodie: "Were are you finding journalists, as there's been such a brain drain from Zimbabwe?"
One or two people have come from the diaspora, which is very interesting. This is another thing people don't realise: Zimbabweans are coming back home. They are tired of being treated like second-class citizens in South Africa and everywhere else...
People are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I'm getting Twitter, Facebook and email enquiries from people who are wanting to come back. We also poached from existing establishments and there are journalists in Zimbabwe who have been on the streets...
On NewsDay's stance, in terms of politics and the news agenda:
It's certainly not going to be down-market but we want to be able to talk to the serious reader in the township... It's for your blue-collar and executive workers who want a daily record of what took place yesterday but who are also interested in analysis and independent reportage.
The one commodity that Zimbabwe lacks right now is hope. We want NewsDay to help Zimbabweans get that hope back again... We also see NewsDay's duty as participating in national healing and nation building...
Right now Zimbabwe is split into two: those that are pro-Zanu PF and those that are anti-Zanu PF. There are high intolerance levels on both sides and we can't move as a nation with this kind of paralysis.
We want NewsDay to be the paper that sits in the middle and is seen as a mirror via which both sides look at each other.
Source: bizcommunity