Raising The Standard
- 香港總商會會員編號 :
- HKS0833
Raising The Standard
Mark Clifford is a man who means business. Since taking over the reins of The Standard in January 2004, he has expanded the English-daily's editorial staff by about one-third, boosted circulation by 18%, and collected nine journalism awards for his efforts.
By world standards, the paper has made extraordinary gains, especially in circulation, but the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief wants more. His goal is to make The Standard Hong Kong's business daily of choice, with a circulation to match. To deliver this message, the paper has embarked on an above-the-line "Tells it like it is" advertising campaign featuring images of Hong Kong's movers and shakers alongside a succinctly posed question asking Who, What, Where, Why, When, or How.
"The campaign captures what we are about, a tabloid with stories that tend to be very analytical and that don't pull any punches, whether in business coverage, or in political coverage. We ask the questions that are on everyone's minds," the former BusinessWeek Editor explained. "We want to get simple, cold journalistic values across to the public encapsulated succinctly and compellingly in our tabloid format."
The Standard, which was established in 1949 by Aw Boon Haw, founder of the Tiger Balm empire, as The Hong Kong Tiger Standard, is today owned by the Sing Tao News Corporation. The paper has gone through a few transformations in the past few years, most notably changing its name to iMail, and then back to The Standard in 2004.
The changes are partly to provide readers with what they want and to make the paper stand out in what Mr Clifford calls the world's most dynamic newspaper market, with seven English-dailies alone competing for subscribers and advertising revenue.
"Any media needs to change with the times and the last couple of years have been very challenging for the newspaper business. Because Hong Kong is a really competitive market, I'd say we are one of the world's greatest newspaper cities, so much so that we even influence the industry in other countries. Just look at how Apple has defined the newspaper business around the region," he said.
The flood of free newspapers being handed out on the streets is another trend that Hong Kong is driving. The free tabloids have not had much of an impact on The Standard's business, according to Mr Clifford, and he says he doesn't expect to see a free English-daily being handed out any time soon!
Hong Kong's leading business daily?
Despite the incredible selection of newspapers sold and handed out in Hong Kong, Mr Clifford feels the SAR has yet to produce a business daily to match the city's "Asian financial center" status -- a shortcoming that he says The Standard has the talent and capability to correct.
"We break a lot of news, so our business coverage and capital markets coverage is quite extraordinary to the extent that we often beat the likes of AP, Reuters and Bloomberg," he said. "I think that although we are in one of the great financial centers of the world, and we are growing into a world city, we are a financial center without a financial newspaper to match. That is our goal, and achieving that means having sources that trust us more than the other papers."
He has hired some of the cream of Hong Kong reporters. Many of these are naturally from the Chinese press and their willingness to switch from a mass circulation Chinese daily to a niche English daily is a reflection of The Standard's reputation among the industry, he said.
Unfortunately for Mr Clifford, while reporters are happy to move to another paper, readers tend to be staunch devotees. Habit is a very important factor in newspaper circulation, and old habits die hard. If someone is used to getting their news from a certain paper, TV channel, or magazine, then after a few years that habit calcifies. Mr Clifford said Hong Kong's workforce is quite fluid so it is easier to break newspaper reading habits than in other cities.
"That said, this has never been the dominant newspaper, and I never would expect it to be. Its role is to dominate a particular niche, and that is business," he explained. "I tell people we try to do the best and fairest reporting and uphold the highest standards of journalism. That may sound very simplistic, but cold, simplistic journalistic values are what make good newspapers great newspapers."
