- Chapter 5 -

That the newspaper industry currently faces one of its biggest structural challenges as of yet is hardly a secret. That its potential salvation will result from the industry's effective adaptation to the digital news environment has also become conventional wisdom. But in these times of rapid change, when the online advertising dollar struggles to compensate for the decline in print revenues, how are news organisations to harness the power of the Web?

Brazil's sports news: a cultural phenomenon : Sports news is a convenient niche for most newspaper audiences around the world. But in Brazil, where football is king, some newspapers have thrived on sports news alone, thanks to their young readership and newsroom integration. Sports daily LANCE! reaches over 12 million people monthly. The newspaper's audience is generally young, said Walter de Mattos, Editor-in-Chief of LANCE!, with 50% of readers aged under 25. The paper's newsrooms are based in Rio and Sao Paolo and are fully multimedia, integrated operations. Integration is a "key success factor" for the paper, said de Mattos. Everyone works in the same environment, and the production team produces content for every platform.

Un-niching: WSJ becoming general news daily ? Ever since Rupert Murdoch's acquisition of Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal, reports have observed changes in the editorial direction of the WSJ. The Journal unveiled a weekly arts-and-culture section focused on New York City in early 2010. Coupled with the introduction of daily sports coverage in March 2009, it seems the financial paper is looking to move more into the general interest sphere, in an effort to compete with the New York Times. Murdoch commented explicitly that a culture section could pluck readers from the Times. One unnamed WSJ staffer, quoted by the Observer, commented otherwise: "I don't think of it being an anti-Times thing. They want this to be a general-interest paper as well as a business paper."

Roman Gallo, PPF Media CEO, explains the concept behind the Czech Republic's new "News Cafés."