PANPA prizes go to Asia as local papers lose out

Simon Enticknap reports from the Gold Coast where Melbourne's Herald Sun was the bright spot in an almost total whitewash by the big Asian dailies.  APN and Fairfax shared the local prizes but the big newspaper awards for the best of the dailies went offshore.

Both APN News & Media and Fairfax Media picked up technical excellence awards in the single width and double width categories at the PANPA 2008 awards. However, the prizes for newspapers with circulations over 50,000 went overseas with the Apple Daily picking up the prize for best single width newspaper and the South China Morning Post scooping the double width category. The Canberra Times was the best of the local titles, winning in both the double-width category (20-50,000 circulation) and best pre-print or supplement.

Melbourne’s Herald Sun took out the top award of the evening for Newspaper of the Year (50,000+ circulation) which last year also went to Melbourne when it was won by The Age.
The glittering awards ceremony topped off three days of conference sessions and forums held at the Gold Coast at which the mood was generally sombre. Falling circulations, recent upheavals at Fairfax Media and the ever-present threat of rival online technologies cast a shadow over the proceedings as delegates wrestled with the implications of the shifting media landscape.

 

 

Caption: Bob Lockley, (left), Fairfax Media, receives the PANPA award for technical excellence on behalf of the Canberra Times from Ian Johns of DIC Graphics.

Middle-class, middle-aged Ruddsters

The mood of the annual newspaper talk fest was set by the opening speech of Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, who revealed in response to a question that he was the only member of his family to read a newspaper, his wife and children preferring to access their news online. And while it may be the case that middle-class, middle-aged white males such as the PM seem content to continue buying and reading well-written, well-printed paper products, there are no longer any guarantees that this readership will be sufficient to ensure the survival of printed news.

The conference continued its recent emphasis on the editorial and commercial aspects of newspapers with little regard for the production and printing technical processes. There were few technical exhibitors at the accompanying Pantech exhibition with only the prepress system vendors showing their wares.
Many of the conference sessions, split into sales and marketing, editorial and technical as well as digital streams, revolved around issues relating to improving the printed product in order to make newspapers more relevant to readers. At the same time there is the recognition that newspapers must incorporate new digital and online technologies to build more diversified media business models.

Ideas for making newspapers more accessible, desirable, profitable and readable ranged from the proven  – stick with what you know and do it better – to the wacky, such as include a plastic sheet overlay with the paper which, when moved across the surface of the page, makes the ads ‘move’.

Attendance at the technical sessions which focused on print production was generally sparse with the most popular proving to be the presentation by Océ on developments in digital newspaper production. Interest in the Océ JetStream inkjet printing system was high with the expectation that a unit will be installed in Australia within the next few months.