will the last sailing journalist turn out the light

[dylanwinter]

Last night I went down to Imperial College in London to give a talk to the members of the Imperial College Yacht Club. I love talking to sailors - especially young intelligent beautiful people fresh into adulthood.

The fact that they turned up in a lecture room on a rainy evening to meet an old windbag was rather flattering. We met at six and started eating pizza and coke before we started.

We chatted a while before the procedings started and it turns out that they do most of their sailing in Sunsail Boats and usually out of season. Twenty of them were out in the Solent over the weekend. They got no wind and sunshine on Saturday. Sunday was overcast, cold and a bit of wind but they all had a great time.

Not one of them owned a boat or a dinghy but their enthusiam put most of my peers to shame. If any of you want some young fit people, fragrant and beautiful, intelligent and enthusiatic as crews PM me and I will pass on the details to their chairman.

In the old days I used to prepare for talks.. Then I discoverd that the best thing to do is to get the person who asked me to come to choose the films they want to show.

They take responsibility for making the technology work and I never want to know ahead of time what their choices are. It makes it more interesting for me and means that the course we take is more unpredictable.It makes every talk different - for me at least.

The charming chairman of the yacht club, Bilal is a diminutive dapper young hydraulics engineer who has been snapped up by BP before he has even finished college.

I was worried that I would the dimmest person in the room but fortunately, my brother who is a quantity surveyor at Imperial had turned up - making me the second dimmest person in the room.

I always use the talks as a way of doing some market research. Scattered among the audience were a few greys heads from the staff who had turned up to the talk. I meet lots of middle aged to old blokes - but not that many youngsters.

We started talking about the way they learn about sailing

blogs, free books and the sailing anarchy website. They asked about financing the journey so we went onto subscriptions, DVDs and magazine journalism.

mentioned PBO - I held up a copy and the grey heads were all aware of it and a couple were subscribers.

I asked the youngsters - not one of them had ever heard of it and here is the most amazing thing, not one of them ever bought any magazines at all. They picked up free ones - but got all their information on line. Only one was a regular buyer of newspapers. "Old news" was their response to newspapers.

Some of them had visited my website - although only Bilal had actually subscribed to KTL - and he said it was the only thing he paid for on-line. They basically regarded journalism, books, music and films as being free at the point of digital demand. All but one said they had ad-blockers on their browsers.

It made me realise I am lucky that I have been able to read some brilliantly written magazines over the years - and even write the odd the item or two

I think there is a sort of fin de siecle feel about magazines now. Just the physical feel of them - the glossy paper and high coloured images.

Sadly they are probably doomed when my/our generation dies or forgets where their glasses are because the magazines will plain run out of readers.

PBO has just asked me to do a couple of pages about the Duck Punt - so that is another couple of hundred quid in the kitty. It is odd going back to print just in time for its sunset.

Sadly getting their generation to pay for journalism, music making or storytelling of any sort is going to be an uphill struggle - not sure where that leaves me and the other sailing hacks.

Blathering away into the ether I reckon

there I feel better now

 

[Bobc]

Knowledge & experience will always be valued and have value.

It's just the media used to distribute it that will change.

Keep the faith old man...

 

[flaming]

Don't entirely agree with that Dylan.

I count myself as one of that generation - as I was at uni at the time the "free" music downloads etc were becoming common, and have a pretty early SA member number from that time.

I certainly wasn't a subscriber to PBO, or any other mag at uni, but I have had subscriptions to various mags on and off since.

What I found is that SA, even YBW, are great for info if you've got the time to delve into it and really get the most out of it. Time that you have as a student, but that you don't have once you have a job. So I value the mags for doing the "what's important" bit for me.

Don't write off the mags just yet...

 

[Lakesailor]

I think at our stage in life drinking Coke before a lecture is a bit risky in the windy-pants department.

 

[neale]

I would imagine much of the 'Free' content on line is subsidised by a company producing a real product, YBW for example. The same with music. If they are not going to get paid, would they bother producing it?

Will the internet be full of useful, interesting, quality stuff when there is no money being injected somewhere along the way or will it be full of free, but poor quality product?

I have no idea, just wondering what the future holds.

BTW my 16 year old son does have a mag subscription and my 13 yo daughter loves flicking through the glossy woman's mags, so not all youngsters are snubbing traditional media.

 

[the_branflake]

I also think that the mags still have some life in them. I guess I'm still a young un for a little while longer, but at Uni i didn't subscribe or buy mags often, i guess it went on other things like beer.

The online world does have its advantages for example this forum. You can ask a specific question and get some feedback from a number of people very quickly, or you can read one mans answer in a book.

However i do agree about the funding on the net.

 

[OGITD]

Dylan ..... I don’t agree.

I am reaching a point where people are confiding in me the basic fact that they don’t understand technology, resulting in a serious lack of use on their parts.
And I consider myself to be at the bottom of the heap when it comes to techno, geek, gizmo, latest hardware / software and the use of …. anywhere! ….. hmmmm! ….. maybe that's not the case anymore.
Even people years younger than myself still ask for advice because they just don’t know what’s out there or how to approach & use it, and I do know that it could be a 24/7/365 job just to keep up with the leading edge….. if at all possible.

These people I am referring to still use and apparently need hard-copies, so in conclusion I will say that the printed market has at least twenty plus years to consider its position and make the move into total digital online supply and presentation.

It’s just amazing why people are (what I can only assume is being) afraid of admitting to not knowing something and needing help or just good advice. Or maybe it’s thought of as a weakness which people don’t want to show?

Nope! ….. there is definitely still a market for the printed word for at least a couple of decades, if not for me, then for many others in the 40 – 70+ bracket. So maybe it’s unbelievably fortuitous you coming back into writing for the media at this point in time.

Keep up the good works & looking forward to hitting the Malt when you eventually reach the Clyde.

OG

 

[idpnd]

I think you, with your very own attempts in the new media department - advertising/membership funded, or bridging the bandwith gap by selling high-quality DVDs - are living proof that there will always be a need for quality written or audiovisual content. Even if it might not be on slices of dead tree for much longer..

 

[prv]

not one of them had ever heard of it and here is the most amazing thing, not one of them ever bought any magazines at all. They picked up free ones - but got all their information on line. Only one was a regular buyer of newspapers. "Old news" was their response to newspapers.

Some of them had visited my website - although only Bilal had actually subscribed to KTL - and he said it was the only thing he paid for on-line. They basically regarded journalism, books, music and films as being free at the point of digital demand.

That applied to me as well when I was a student. Paying for bytes was pretty much an alien concept.

Nowadays I do pay for some things online - particularly music and the odd film from iTunes. I subscribe to KTL (unless it's lapsed again?), I maintain some hosting, a shell account, and paid email service, and I buy software where there isn't a good free version. I also donate money to a couple of online causes (eg the Open Rights Group).

This isn't some ideological difference that's come with growing older, it's simply that I now have a reasonable if not spectacular salary and a bit of money in my pocket, compared to when I was a student.

I still don't generally buy newspapers though.

Pete

 

[Phoenix of Hamble]

Things will change over time....

Go back 20 years, and people moaned about the BBC license fee and expected or wanted broadcast TV to be free at receipt... now 20 years on, Sky seem to making a decent fist of charging people £60 a month...

Right now, the mood is that content is free. People ARE however paying for quality material, and over time, the perception of value will change... its cyclical.

However, I do think that paper has had its day... but i'm OK with that if its replaced with good quality journalism online. The online experience can be so much richer if done properly. IPC is IMHO building up to be the perfect case study of a company that hasn't yet made the transition, and still looks like an off line company that think's its going online by publishing some of its content digitally. One day (perhaps) it will wake up to the need to manage and develop the whole consumer experience and relationship, rather than just throw material at them.

 

[Seajet]

Dylan,

magazines & books will always have a really big factor going for them, which may take a bit of sailing experience to appreciate; they don't require electricity to work !

Yours, luddite with no intention of buying a kindle and not bothered about having a laptop on board ( though space invaders would be nice I suppose )...

 

[DanTribe]

Oi!

quote
"I was worried that I would the dimmest person in the room but fortunately, my brother who is a quantity surveyor at Imperial had turned up - making me the second dimmest person in the room."

I perhaps accept that you are correct in everything else, but can't accept that QSs are lower down the food chain than Journos.

 

[dylanwinter]

undervcover filming

Oi!

quote
"I was worried that I would the dimmest person in the room but fortunately, my brother who is a quantity surveyor at Imperial had turned up - making me the second dimmest person in the room."

I perhaps accept that you are correct in everything else, but can't accept that QSs are lower down the food chain than Journos.

at one point in my life I did some undercover filming

when people asked me what I did my cover story was that I was a Quantity surveyor

there was never a follow up question

tell them you are a butcher or a van driver and they ask extra questions

saying you are a QS was the perfect cover

so Dan - what exactly does a QS do apart from send old oppie rigs to strange men

That aside....I am very reassured to hear such faith expressed in sailing journalism

both in print and on the web

but all I can see is declining incomes for paper magazines due to falling advertising revenues

As for on-line..... I just can't see the mechanism.

Here I am giving stuff away on youtube - for them to make money from the advertising - and going back to the printed word along with sticking DVDs in jiffy bags. I shall be bashing away on a manual typewriter if things continue this way

D

 

[Blueboatman]

When I was young we never bought the mags ( but we read them). I always sensed that they were bought by those short on time in order to 'keep the faith', keep the sailing dream alive whislt pursuing busy careers and raising families and mortgages..

I am not sure that has really changed has it?

In case you missed it, you should have a look at the Bumfuzzle site- Internet savvy younger-ish saiiors out there doing it, they have self published and have a 'buy us a pizza' winsome attitude to squeezing some pennies out of their online readership-which is directly related to the size of the audience.

If one tries to find hard specific facts about, say, the best oil for an old widget thingummy gearbox, the internet is hopelessly inaccurate and uncorrected and full of angry adjectives. I would question whether it really is more useful as a tool than a stack of advert laden yachting magazines sometimes..

I bet the lectures are a hoot btw. great idea

 

[prv]

When I was young we never bought the mags ( but we read them). I always sensed that they were bought by those short on time in order to 'keep the faith', keep the sailing dream alive whislt pursuing busy careers and raising families and mortgages..

I am not sure that has really changed has it?

As in, "Practically a Boat Owner"?

Pete

 

[Boomshanka]

As for on-line..... I just can't see the mechanism.

Here I am giving stuff away on youtube - for them to make money from the advertising - and going back to the printed word along with sticking DVDs in jiffy bags. I shall be bashing away on a manual typewriter if things continue this way

D

The folk who made the *real* money in the 1850s Californian Gold Rush were not those who did all the hard prospecting and sieving 12 hours a day... but the people who supplied all the picks, shovels and sieves to all those thinking they could get rich quick... Move forward 160 years or so and we see the same thing happening perhaps... it's better to be a content provider (Google for instance) than a content producer (KTL for example)

 

[AntarcticPilot]

I haven't bought a newspaper for over 20 years. The reason is simple: I object to getting late news larded with someone else's opinions about what I should think. Factual stuff I can find out faster and better on the web; if I need more depth I'll buy a book - after researching it on the web. News is a 24/7 commodity available free on the web; why should I pay for stuff that is probably 24 hours old, probably wrong and presented with someone else's prejudices and opinions? If all newspapers were free I MIGHT take one - but probably wouldn't.

I must admit I am also pretty jaundiced about the accuracy of newspaper journalism. In my own area of expertise, it is pretty common to see a perfectly good story wrecked by one of two things - misguided journalistic "balance" (which shouldn't exist for science stories) and plain laziness or ignorance.

It isn't something new - I can illustrate the laziness/ignorance one by reference to the reporting of my entrance to Cambridge. At that time, the local rag (no names; after this time it wouldn't be fair) reported on those who gained places at Oxbridge. My subject was (correctly) given as Petrology. Sadly, the journalist then decided to help the readers by telling them what Petrology is. The article said it is the study of Petroleum! Of course, it is the study of the characteristics of rocks. 5 minutes - or less - with a dictionary would have given that information; there was NO excuse for the mistake.

 

[Sandy]

Some of the best writing I've read is on the net. Who needs paper any more?

 

[neale]

Some of the best writing I've read is on the net. Who needs paper any more?

But equally, and possibly more importantly, the very worst writing can also be found on the net.

 

[LePacha]

Well is it really a question of paper vs internet, or more a question of "how much are you willing to pay for this"?

Don't get me wrong, but sailing magazines are one page of article for two pages of advertisement, and most of the time, the content is the same, every year (how to prepare your boat for winter, where to go in the summer etc.).