What a "deluxe newspaper" means

When he was shoveling tens of millions of Euros in "Adevărul", Dinu Patriciu had the conceit of teaching us how to make money in newspaper publishing, by posting an article on January 7th, 2010, which was called just that: "The press is making money".

While we were living hand to mouth, Patriciu was meeting up with his editorial team in Brazil, for "brain storming", to map out the development of the Holding, and he would also mention in the article that he had done the same thing the year before, in the Blue Mountains of Australia, and in the Caribbean two years before, (I turned green with envy - our editorial meetings happen in my office, every day).

It really made my heart ache - "You get what you pay for" - Patriciu said in the article, and I do admit, I don't spend a penny more than necessary, when I'm holding a meeting, my people don't get there by plane, they each get a chair, and push it along on its casters for about two meters, until they get in my office, which is right next to the editorial room - my office resembles a fish tank with its windows towards the editorial room, in which I'm floating like some whale that everyone can look at.

And it made cringe once again, when he said that he was building a "content factory" -holy mother of mercy!, I look at my team, pretty girls and young boys, it makes my skin crawl, imagining having them in front of a panel with levers and buttons, click!, here comes the article about Farmache, click!, here is the article about Băsescu, click!, Rekkers, Oltchim, Sibex, Boc, market manipulation, public offering, privatization, listing...

Automation.

Content.

Patriciu gives us more lessons: "The press is not undergoing a transformation. It is stimulated by the technological transformations. It is increasingly present.

It is subject to the same imperatives of the post-industrial era: critical mass, flexibility, creativity, the elimination of linear processes, the integration of business models, perception, and the partnership with the readers... It is not dying!"

Content, my man!

Organization.

Postindustrial organization, not ancient stuff!

Good gosh!

The press isn't dying.

Between July and September of 2011, the circulation of Adevărul shrank 63%, to 33,706, from 91,006 copies sold daily, during the same period of 2010.

Between July and September of 2011, "Click", the tabloid owned by the same group, sold 26,459 less copies than in the similar period of 2010.

The Adevărul holding is losing employees every other week, for reasons mostly related to compensation disagreements, caused by the increasing delays in the payment of the wages, sometimes as big as three or four months (at least, according to what the people who decided to leave are saying).

At the end of January, Simona David, head of corporate affairs at Adevărul Holding, left the position she had been holding at Adevărul Holding since June 2010.

Also in the first month of the year, the entire division of the Adevărul newspaper covering events decided to resign. And the other divisions of the paper have shrunk constantly over the past few months.

The press isn't dying.

Patriciu is right.

What is coming apart is "the content factory", not the press.

The press isn't a refinery, nor is it a cold cuts factory.

This article that you are reading, isn't "content", it's revenge, it's bile, it's poison, it's envy, you can call it what you want, but it's not "content", Costache!

Could you tell me, what added value would writing it in the Blue Mountains bring?

How much better would it be, if I was paid ten times what I am paid now?

Let me tell you a little secret, Costache: I'm not thinking about money as I write this article.

I'm writing it for free.

No one is making me do it.

It's just me getting hot and bothered, which may lead to an article which is of interest to the readers, because my opinions echo those of many others - I hope it is the case now.

I am not a "professional", I can't write on command - which is something that applies to all our team, nobody writes on command.

They write what they believe in.

Let me teach you something else, Costache: that's what "quality" means, "spending" passion, not money.

That's what a "deluxe newspaper" means - the paper that dares to say what it believes, regardless of the risk.

The BURSA newspaper can afford the luxury of saying the truth and what it believes.

The BURSA newspaper is a deluxe newspaper.

I'll admit that glossy paper and the image created through the advertising and the full color printing and the snobbery matter- I agree that "you get what you pay for", but in the media it's moral cheapness is the real issue.