Digital First, for newspapers, means prioritising what you put on the web and letting print trail in behind. If you believe in fast-track transition from page to screen, this is probably your road to the future. And now the Financial Times has made digital its first response. Editor Lionel Barber has been to Silicon Valley and seen what must be done: "Our competitors are harnessing technology to revolutionise the news business through aggregation, personalisation and social media. Mobile alone now accounts for 25% of all the FT's traffic. It would be reckless to stand still."
So 35 print jobs will go while 10 IT experts are hauled on board. FT editions will be thinner and fewer. The cutting edge of editorial effort will pass into cyberspace. And don't, of course, expect to see print sales ever recover. Only 45,000 full-cost copies circulate in the UK and Ireland these days. The paper triumphantly claims more digital subscribers than newsstand customers. Next stop: 50% traffic on the mobile run. The future is very close indeed.
Yet if print is withering and dying what will the new FT amount to? A 24-hour news and comment service wherever you and your smartphone are in the world. Correspondents in every financial capital. Political and economic analysts who'll tell you which way is up. And, of course, you will pay for the privilege. Just as you pay Thomson Reuters and Bloomberg.
So why should either of those giants be interested in buying the FT? And why should Rupert Murdoch still be pouring cash into the Wall Street Journal, whose circulation remains uncannily steady? The Financial Times can see a post-print future as clearly as a bright mobile screen in a City trader's pocket. But how will it be different or distinctive without the morning pinkness of the thud on the mat?
Dear old friend hangs up his bat
Frank Keating, the Guardian and Observer sports writer, had a wonderful turn of phrase and a wonderful memory. He was Mr Nostalgia, but that was his special gift, clothing anecdotes in lilting, roseate remembrance. He was a warm, lovely, very funny man.
"And he stares on now across his famous field where he would sport with his chums. 'Dear old friends,' he whispers … and touchingly, gulpingly, sips long at his drink. Still a hero."
That was Frank 20 years ago on Denis Compton. Yet it could be Frank on Frank. He died last week at 75. But he lives on with those dear old friends.
Print's looking perky in Norway
