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Daily newspaper launched

The consultancy was commissioned by Nigeria's new national newspaper – the Peoples Daily (no apostrophe!) – to relaunch the title as a daily publication in November 2009.

Since its launch a year earlier, the Peoples Daily had been published weekly, but we assisted the editorial team to redesign the newspaper and successfully switched the title to daily publication within a tight timescale of less than one month.

The paper now publishes Monday to Friday and will eventually move to seven-day publication.
Read more about the relaunch.

This a shortened version of an article which appeared in Nigeria’s Business Day.

Nigeria has a new popular daily newspaper. The Peoples Daily has joined the ranks of the country’s lively and diverse daily newspaper scene after converting from weekly publication.

Published by Peoples Media Ltd., the new daily newspaper is now on sale five days a week (Monday to Friday) after switching from weekly publication at the end of November 2009 with the help of the Charles McGhee Media Consultancy.

The Peoples Daily was originally launched as a weekly newspaper more one year earlier, but the intention had always been to convert to daily publication when the right opportunity arose.

The newspaper will eventually progress to seven-day publication. For the timebeing, however, Malam Wada Abdullahi Maida, the chairman of the publishers, Peoples Media Ltd., said they were delighted with the switch to five days per week as part of their ambitious editorial development plans for the Peoples Daily.

The conversion from weekly to daily publication was achieved with the help of British media consultant, Charles McGhee, who undertook the project under the auspices of the Thomson Foundation – a UK-based organisation which trains journalists and media professionals throughout the world. The project was facilitated locally by www.taijowonukabe.com, a leading media consultancy based in Lagos.

Charles, a former daily newspaper editor and past president of the UK Society of Editors, spent three weeks with the editorial staff at the Peoples Daily, running training workshops and helping the editor, Ahmed Shekarau (pictured above), and his team of journalists prepare for the switch to daily publication. He also helped the team redesign the newspaper to make it more accessible and appealing to a wider readership.

“It was clear from the very first day of my arrival,” said Charles, “that the newspaper faced significant challenges in meeting its ambitious timescale to go daily. The technology and staffing resource were still evolving and the organisational structure needed to change to reflect a daily production cycle.

“There also needed to be a cultural shift from the relatively relaxed style of a weekly newspaper to the more-focused, intense and constant demands of a daily paper,” he added.

What the company did have in place, however, was an enthusiastic and highly-motivated daily editor in Ahmed Shekarau, and a team of journalists with enormous potential. They shared their editor’s and publisher’s desire to break into the daily market and were ready for the challenge even though, at that stage, no-one really appreciated what it would entail.

Apart from the editorial challenges in providing a wider variety of daily content, this assessment revealed that the Peoples Daily faced obstacles on several other levels before it could switch successfully to daily publication. These included:

• Improving the internal computer network system
• Increasing the newspaper’s internet bandwith
• Streamlining and strengthening the page production process
• Improving picture content and reproduction quality

The Peoples Media Ltd Board approved immediate development proposals in all of these areas and, concurrently, work was also started on a basic redesign of the newspaper. There was no time to do a thorough appraisal and provide options as happens with most newspaper redesigns. Given the timescale, it was simply a question of improving on what was there, using available typefaces and examining methods of improving picture quality.

“Ideally, a newspaper’s design should evolve over a period of time,” said Charles. “It’s preferable to experiment with a number of options offline and in live production before settling on a preferred final choice. In this case, however, time was against us so we chose the modern, lateral make-up of a typical middle-market English-language newspaper as our benchmark and adapted the style to suit the Peoples Daily.

“The end result was a much cleaner appearance and presentation with improved reader navigation and picture quality,” added Charles. “There is still further work to do in improving reproduction overall, however, and I’m sure a more settled design will evolve over time.”

Tags: BusinessClubScotland Charles McGhee First Minister

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