Will Multilingualization Find a way out for struggling newspapers?
This month, The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones announced they plan to establish a joint
venture to launch a WSJ Japanese edition in Japan. The site’s main offerings
are expected to include WSJ articles and columns translated into Japanese,
as well as a complete lineup of the paper’s multimedia content. It will also
set up a mobile service to deliver news through cell phones. WSJ has already
launched Chinese, Spanish and Portuguese editions. Known as the most profitable
newspaper in the United States, The Wall Street Journal seems to be trying to survive the journalism
cataclysm by expanding to become multilingual. This is a smart move, but is this a way all newspapers and media can find a means of survival? Maybe not. I think this
is a strategy only WSJ can adopt. WSJ is selling a commodity that shares a common
global concern, the “economy”. Other newspapers are “local” in a sense, in terms that all the newspapers are mainly focused on domestic issues.
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3 Comments, Comment or Ping
pluyckx
Interestingly, I recently came across a blog post of one of the most popular Belgian politicians, Hendrik Bogaert who suggested providing government support for multilingual versions of Flemish newspapers ((http://www.hendrikbogaert.be/standpunten/p/detail/de-grenzen-van-vlaanderen).
Why? Not so much to support the local newspapers, but to better promote Flanders abroad. But who would want to read Flemish newspapers outside of Belgium, regardless of what language they’re published in?
The WSJ has an international audience, so they could make this work for them. But I agree other newspapers would suffer from a similar problem: multi-lingual versions of newspapers only would work if there’s an audience for it–and one willing to pay for it.
May 17th, 2009
Tracey
I also agree that this is probably a strategy only WS can adapt to. Afterall, their audience is much more global and by turning to multilingual they could even capture a larger crowd that they had before now only done with english.
May 24th, 2009
rubir
As everything is turning global, the newspapers need to catch up with it…
May 29th, 2009
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