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Big media companies are - surprise - just like big companies in any other sector. Job one for every CEO is to maximize shareholder value. More to the point, It’s the only job. In the best of circumstances, this is a good thing; strengthening the enterprise so it can pursue its chosen market-place arena.
Big Scandinavian publisher Schibsted ASA announced this week (September 18) it would split in two. There will be the publishing company, Schibsted, and a new company tentatively called MPI (Marketplaces International) consisting of the array of e-commerce and advertising portals the company has developed in several countries. Schibsted ASA will own a “majority” of MPI, said the company statement (September 18). The rest will be offered to other investors through an initial public offering (IPO), likely next year.
Schibsted was an early entrant in online ad and marketing platforms, which operate in 17 countries. Company shares traded on the Oslo Exchange jumped 10% on the initial news, reported Reuters (September 18), then settling considerably in the next 24 hours. The media house publishes leading newspapers and related websites in Norway, Sweden and Finland.
There is a history of big media houses splitting off faster growing business segments into separate companies. Institutional investors call it reducing the conglomerate discount; diverse portfolios tend to trade lower. News Corporation - the Murdoch family - saw this several years ago and split off its faster growing entertainment businesses into 21st Century Fox. The big pay-day comes from being an acquisition target; hence, Disney or Comcast bidding furiously for the lions-share of 21st Century Fox.
Publishers in Italy are facing a new and unwelcome threat from the radical coalition populist government. Deputy prime minister Luigi Di Maio suggested the possibility of withdrawing state agency advertising. Italian newspaper editors, across the political spectrum, have become more critical of the new government’s decisions as gaffs by its leaders increase.
“Newspapers are contaminating public debate every day and the worst thing is that they do it with money from the community," he said, quoted by daily Il Sole 24 Ore (September 10). "It is not journalism, it is only propaganda aimed at defending the interests of a small elite that thinks it can continue raining and shining.” State agency advertising, he offered, “is keeping alive many editorial groups that without that advertising would not even exist.”
Sr Di Maio is leader of the populist, anti-establishment Five Star Movement, which entered the coalition government after March 2018 parliamentary elections. It holds a plurality, 227 seats, in the Chamber of Deputies, short of a ruling majority. The other significant coalition member, La Lega, is described as right-wing populist, anti-immigrant and nationalist. Its leader, deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini, has turned his attention to public broadcaster RAI, attempting to install a right-wing idealogue as general director. (See more about media in Italy here)
"In Italy there is a hostile climate, even increasing, towards the press,” said Italian National Press Federation (FNSI) general secretary Raffaele Lorusso, quoted by formiche.net (September 15), “not only for advertising and veiled threats of new legislation to regulate the media, but also for the large number of reporters who live under guard for the intimidation of the mafia. It will certainly not be the edicts of some provincial governor(federaletto di provincia) to prevent Italian journalists from carrying out their duties every day.”
Turkey’s media sector has long been cacophony of views and indulgences. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in recent years, has sought to smooth out those rough edges by encouraging publishers and broadcasters to fall in line behind his Justice and Development (AK) party’s socially conservative, pro-islamist and authoritarian agenda. Those favoring the secular democracy with secure press and speech freedoms foreseen a century ago by modern Turkey’s founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk have, largely, changed their minds or left the business.
A stand-out has long been the center-left daily newspaper Cumhuriyet, also founded nearly a century ago. In 2015, under editor-in-chief Can Dundar, it published investigations of government support of Islamic militants in Syria. President Erdogan was incensed, saying Mr. Dundar “will pay a heavy price.” He did, arrested with Ankara bureau chief Erdem Gül, charged with espionage. Released from pre-trial detention, Mr. Dundar fled to Germany. More than half of the newspaper’s editorial staff were arrested in the wake of wide-spread purges. The newspaper won international accolades for its defiant news coverage. (See more about media in Turkey here)
Cumhuriyet Foundation, the newspaper’s publisher since 2001, recently (September 7) made several changes to its board, which in turn made several changes to the newspaper’s editorial staff. Alev Coskun was named board president. He then fired editor-in-chief Murat Sabuncu, managing editor Faruk Eren and editor Bülent Özdogan. Reportedly, 27 columnists and reporters resigned, noted bianet.org (September 10). Mr. Coskun had given testimony for the prosecution at the aforementioned trial of the newspaper’s editors and writers.
“How did an informer take over my newspaper?” wrote Mr. Dundar in an op-ed in German daily Die Zeit (September 12). “After Cumhuriyet had been able to withstand all pressure and gained international recognition for its fight for freedom, unfortunately it fell victim to the power of greed. The history of authoritarian regimes is also the story of collaborators and informers. After all, you remember these people for their misdeeds. What remains are the heroes who fight against repression.”
Mr. Coskun and other board members filed suit claiming the 2013 board elections, in which they was ejected, were unlawful. A court agreed, the Turkish Court of Appeals affirmed. The newspaper’s future direction is unclear except that its particular voice will be quieted.
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