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| | "LOBI", Weekly in Albanian
1. Publisher / Board of Editors
Publisher: Drustvo za novinsko izdavacka dejnost “LOBI,
Kim i dr., doo" Skopje
President of the Board: Kim Mehmeti
Date of establishment: March – April 2000
Legal registration: May 2000
Address: Skopje, Nikola Tesla 18, 2-8.
Tel./Fax number: ++ 389 91 130407
e-mail: semi@mt.net.mk
2. Publication details
Title: "Lobi"
Editor in chief: Iso Rusi
Editors, principal journalists, correspondents: Selajdin Xhezairi,
Salajdin Salihu (Skopje, editors)
Correspondents: Remzi Lani, Albania, Shkelzen Maliqi, Prishtina, Kosova
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Background, history and aims:
The means of public information with their non-objective
informing caused a great part of the turbulence in the Balkans. The biased
informing in the service of the daily political games was and still is a
characteristic of journalism in Macedonia. Taking into account the fact that a
lot of entities live in Macedonia, this kind of orientation of the informative
media does not contribute to the relaxing of the interethnic tension.
After the country gained its
independence in 1991, a few media appeared in Macedonia. These were especially
the electronic ones, which reached the figure of more than 100 in the first few
years. Unlike these, the printed media fell behind until their expansion in
1995. In Macedonia today there are about 2-3 radio and 1-2 TV stations in every
town. Generally speaking, they mostly lack professionalism, since they engage
immature or hardly educated journalists who only wish to belong to this
profession.
This can also be seen from the
program scheme of these electronic media, which have a minimum of production and
a maximum of commercial contents. Of course, among the electronic media there
are also those, which achieved considerable results and contributed to the
enrichment of the informative space.
During the past decade it was a
low level of invested capital and the absence of ability to exist at the free
market that resulted in a low quality (from a professional and technical point
of view) of broadcast or published material. Lately, the situation has become
more complex due to more obvious trends of political party influence on the
media, which converts them into propagandistic means for the politicians.
Media that exists mostly thanks
to governmental support – systems like Macedonian Radio Television and “Nova
Makedonija” – remain under the direct influence of the governmental
coalition as they have since they were established. It is the old method of
“party-line” which remained unchanged regarding the editing policy, and this
is the case even on a local level.
While there is an existing
possibility in Macedonian media for expressing an alternative opinion, this
space is even narrower in the Albanian language media. There are two TV and one
radio stations in Macedonian language that are broadcast on the whole territory
of the Republic of Macedonia; in addition there are some thirty private radio
and TV stations, as well as three private daily newspapers. There is an obvious
influence of political parties in most of them, and this is mostly because of
the fact that they cooperate with the opposition, but it offers a possibility
for broadcasting information from a non-governmental point of view, which may,
but not necessary is offering an alternative opinion.
The phenomenon of
“self-censure” is also apparent in the media of Albanian language, which is
mostly the result of an Albanian intellectuals’ (including journalists’)
historical, overwhelming state of suppression throughout the Macedonian
statehood.
The first motive (aim) of Lobi
is easily located, on the one hand, in the possibility of professionally-made
weekly influence on the overall situation of Albanian media, and on the other
hand in the creation of a specific space for publishing information, analyses
and different personal views about a certain event inside the country. It will
involve breaking up stereotypes of the “us” and “them” by communication
bridges for the objective capturing of events in the neighborhood and by
establishing cooperation with eminent assistance from the closer and wider
region. By combining the experience of the editing team and the talent of young
journalists, it will also become possible to create a specific school of
journalism.
The concept of the magazine will
be classically grounded on some local specifications-research reporting, which
is necessary in a society that is easily corrupted, as well as on the
affirmation of new values in culture and art that have been minimized.
“LOBI” will be open to every
professional journalistic cooperation, but special emphasis will be put on those
high quality reports and analyses that will refer to the Stability Pact
including the different countries of the region, always aiming at breaking the
stereotypes and ideological walls.
There are three main subjects
covered by the magazine:
1. Domestic politics and economy (information,
analyses and opinions about the current and previous situations in Macedonia,
interviews, investigation journalism etc.)
2. Neighborhood, region, world (correspondence
from within as well as outside our network about the situation in the
neighboring countries, regions and the world, interviews with respective
politicians and public persons, reports, investigations, analyses of different
institutions who deal with the events of the region, opinions and political
essays from famous persons throughout the world for a given event, press digest,
etc.)
3. Culture, Life (overviews of events and
problems in the field of culture and art of Albanian people in the region,
reviews, interviews, short stories and essay selections, film, etc.)
All Albanian readers in
Macedonia, Kosova, Albania and Diaspora. This is going to be realized through a
distribution network. As there is a lack of promotion of the objective opinion
among Albanians there is a big hope that the number of readers will satisfy our
expectations.
Frequency of appearance: weekly
Print run: 3,000 copies (first 3-6 months)
Number of printed pages per issue: 4 (color) + 48 (black and white)
Number of advertisement pages per issue: 3-5 (for 3-6 months)
Number of copies sold: 2,500 is our expectation (in first 3-6 months)
Details on how the paper is distributed: We have seriously thought about
developing a network of colporteurs, small markets and existing private
distribution companies. Also existing companies.
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Having in mind the
experience of all successful and unsuccessful attempts for printing
newspapers in our country during the past ten years, the founders and the
group of people gathered around Lobi came to the conclusion that the key
moment in the working strategy of the weekly magazine should be the
provision of funds for covering the expenses for the printing of Lobi during
a one-year period. This is owing to the fact that the practice has
demonstrated that those who tried to publish a weekly magazine and those who
supported them, in most cases provided funds for space, computer equipment,
as well as for paying the administrative and technical staff. The least
funds were provided for covering the printing costs. Taking into
consideration the time needed for the selling of the newspaper until
actually earning money from it, which takes about 45-90 days, as well as the
frequent problems concerning the payment, this turned out to be fatal for
most of the newspapers. It is not a rare case in Macedonia that there is
computer equipment, paid space, and even administrative and technical staff
for a newspaper that is not being printed.
Our decision is not to start Lobi until we have provided funds for at least
6 months of covering the printing expenses and strong guarantees that the
funds will continue to come forward over a one-year period.
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Our initial estimation
concerning the sold circulation of Lobi after the first 6 months is 3,500
sold copies per issue, i.e. 7,000 copies of stabilized sale after one year
of publishing. In the first 6 months we planned a sale of 2,500 copies in
Macedonia and 1,000 in Kosovo. For the period of 12 months we planned an
increase of the sale in Macedonia to 3,000 copies, the same number of copies
to be sold in Kosovo and 3,000 copies to be sold abroad.
In the meantime we have contacted distributors specialized in distributing
Balkan newspapers on the European market. During the talks with Skenderbeg
Co Ltd. of London we came to a realistic estimation that after a test period
of 3 months at the most it will be possible for them to sell to a few
European countries a guaranteed number of 2,000 copies per issue. An amount
of GBP 1 will be paid per copy. Lobi will cover the air ticket expenses.
Skenderbeg will cover the distribution to clubs and other organizations of
Albanians who live in European countries, as well as the expenses for
publishing the 8 page-long supplement containing information regarding
activities and advertisements of local firms, which are their potential
customers. On the one hand, this has a drastic influence on the income raise
and on covering the expenses for the first year of publishing Lobi as well
as for its further publishing under market conditions.
Moreover, we contacted a successful specialized distributor for Europe (it
distributed 20,000 copies of Koha Ditore throughout the European countries).
The problem for Lobi cannot be solved from the start: reaching the sale of
at least 3,000 copies per issue as a minimum to cover the main selling
locations without guaranteeing the number of sold copies. We are able to
cope with such an investment only in the second 6 months of publishing Lobi.
According to the practice and experience of some newspapers it is realistic
to expect that 1,500 copies per issue can be sold in this way. Together with
the agencies that sell most of the air tickets to Albanians flying on the
destination Europe-Macedonia, we are trying to find a way to cover the
deficit of such an investment. However, we should normally expect that
better effects would be achieved in the second half of the year and further
on.
By realizing these plans it is possible to accept other kinds of donations
and support which have already been agreed on. These are: covering the costs
for 10 issues with DM 1,500 per issue, paying one Editor-in-Chief for a
period of one year, engaging 6 young journalists who have the duty of
writing 1 text per week over a period of one year, covering travel and daily
costs for the more expensive traveling, providing free business space with a
free telephone line, etc. Even though this does not seem to be a lot, such a
support will help a great deal in reducing the costs.
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Part of the problem derives
from specifying the locations where Lobi will be sold, i.e. its target group.
At the moment there is no weekly newsmagazine in the Albanian language in
Macedonia. The last attempt of Epoka ended after the printing of several
issues (May-June) and the publisher’s decision to try printing it again in
autumn (if funds are approved). For the time being in Kosovo there are 7-8
daily newspapers published, and only one weekly newsmagazine.
According to the statistics, there are thousands of intellectual members of
the middle class in Macedonian and Kosovo (teachers, doctors, lawyers,
businessmen). They and their families – wives (most often intellectuals)
and children (high school students or university students) are Lobi’s
target group. It is also worth remembering that there are many Albanians who
live in European countries and to whom the buying of newspapers, especially
those containing information about the events in the region, is an
inevitable part of their everyday living standard.
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A detailed plan has been
made regarding the promotion of Lobi. It should be mentioned that a small
number of newspapers (among them hardly any in Albanian language) care about
their promotion. Together with 6 TV and 10 radio stations Lobi has agreed to
have a 6-week intensive promotion campaign and a 3-day advertising of every
issue. The advertisement of Lobi is free whereas the compensation to the
electronic media consists of printing their programs in the magazine as well
as a joint co-production of certain types of programs (from political to
computer ones). This would actually be something like a radio and TV edition
of certain segments of Lobi for which radio and TV lack a quality journalism
staff.
By deliberating the positive and the negative effects from the idea of free
distribution of the first issues of Lobi, or for giving the whole sale’s
income of the first 5 issues of the magazine to the distributors, we
estimated that for the time being we can allow ourselves only free
distribution of the rest of the unsold copies from the previous issue of the
newsmagazine.
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The one-year strategy is a
strategy of survival by using every opportunity for reducing the costs.
However, we are aware that at the end every service should be paid for and
that the best thing is to be able to survive under local market conditions.
Nonetheless, in order to achieve this it is necessary to at least cover the
one-year printing costs.
Concerning the distribution and the advertising, we plan to cooperate with
the already existing nets of colporteurs and mini markets sale. We also plan
to engage the existing effective firms that deal with the advertising
campaigns of the local, successful companies, political parties’ campaigns
or state marketing, etc.
After one year we envisage:
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A rise of the sale of the newspaper in Macedonia, Kosovo
and abroad (to 8,000 copies) as well as business cooperation with the
airline companies and agencies for buying a certain number of copies that
will be distributed to the passengers (most often Albanians who live outside
Macedonia). For a start we agreed on free advertising of the air companies
in exchange for free transport of 2,000 copies of Lobi to certain
destinations.
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To try to develop the system of subscription (3-, 6-,
12-month subscriptions and subscription to the issues with supplements)
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To organize other known forms for raising the circulation
(participation in ecology actions, support of NGOs, etc.)
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To increase the number of color pages for advertisement
to at least 4 pages (DM 2,000 additional income per issue from the
advertisement)
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Providing grants that would cover the costs for
publishing supplements for women, children, and young people as well as a
bulletin for the NGO activities (once a month). This will increase the
attractiveness of the contents of the weekly newsmagazine as well as the
chances for additional incomes from the advertisements.
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Concerning the possible small deficits in the course of
the second and the third year we count on certain grants (for some actions
of the newsmagazine or help such as the possible three-year British support)
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Investments of the founders of Lobi
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