Speaking out in her trademark direct style, she was frank: “I'm not so concerned with myself. I spend every waking moment of every working day on this problem. It has been a very difficult time. I am still devastated. As a company we are doing all we can to resolve the issue.”
Disciplinary hearings and investigations into the staff involved are ongoing and should be wrapped up within weeks, she reported back. The new Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) audit was also nearly completed on all 66 Media24 magazine titles.
“The bottomline is that I love magazines. I love being in this business. I love the creativity and talent. I have every intention of staying in it and of fixing the problem,” Scholtemeyer said.
She admitted that there were, however, challenges ahead and not just because of current issues. “The MPASA is run by a small team of dedicated people. Funding is difficult. Magazines are evolving and changing rapidly and the digital environment is around the corner. We need research.”
Her expressed hope was that the industry would come out stronger in the end, after all this.
The theme this year – used to promote the revamped magazine publishing PICA Awards – was inspired by Shakespeare and it has been truly a Shakespearean tragedy and comedy of errors in the past few months.
It was on the eve of judging for the PICA publishing and journalism awards that the Media24 circulation scandal broke just over two months ago, leading to the suspension of 12 magazines – among them FairLady, Sarie, Men's Health, Shape, Sports Illustrated, etc, from the ABC and the Magazine Publishers Association of SA (MPASA). The affected titles were also pulled from the PICA Awards, but a ‘dispute' between the PICA Judging committee and the MPASA over whether the journalism entries from the affected titles should remain resulted in no award being given in the journalism ‘News' category last night.
The war of words in the past couple of months between the ABC and Media24 has continued, with publishers such as Caxton and media director heavyweights weighing in with their strong opinions on the Media24 circulation irregularities – with attacks too from the ABC on Bizcommunity.com media and marketing specialist, Chris Moerdyk, for a column he wrote on the integrity of the ABC process.
The Media24 brand has suffered with this onslaught; no doubt about it, its magazine division is the joke of the industry and unfortunately a scandal like this taints the entire brand. If you haven't heard it by now (ie, if you've been on an island), Media24 is now being labeled ‘Media48' in the industry because, as the story goes, when you hold one Media24 magazine in your hands, you are actually holding two… the reference being to Media24 circulation accounting systems. Harsh.
Even last night's MC, comedian John Vlismis harped on that, saying he expected 5000 people, not 500… “that's the last time I let Media24 give me the figures!” Ouch. But it was a good icebreaker and defused some tension at the beginning of the evening's celebrations which were stylish, but hopelessly too long, finishing only at midnight.
For Patricia Scholtemeyer, dubbed ‘Teflon Trish' by Bizcommunity.com readers on our forums (presumably because ‘nothing sticks' – the industry has been calling for her to fall on her sword), it has been ‘the best of times, and the worst of times'. Taking on the chair of the MPASA this year – a crucial year in which the MPASA has upped its game in the industry and merged the Mondi journalism awards with the PICA magazine publishing awards, Scholtemeyer was also crowned Vodacom Media Woman of the Year – just a month before the scandal broke.
It was brave of her to get up before her peers last night and give the speech she did. It couldn't have been easy at all. This is not a forgiving industry, it is cut-throat, bitchy and ruthless. Ego rules, particularly in the consumer publishing domain. And it was a very necessary speech after the non-event ‘Much Ado About Nothing' that was the punted ‘debate' between the ABC and Scholtemeyer at the inaugural MPASA conference held over the past two days, 6 – 7 November 2007.
Insiders told Bizcommunity.com that the ‘debate' did immeasurable harm in opinion within Media24 and the publishing industry by ignoring the issue completely on Tuesday. It was more a brief presentation by the ABC on its processes in a ‘death by Powerpoint' format, followed by Scholtemeyer with a 10-minute weak attempt at telling the audience to use the ABC as it is intended (one of the gems: “ask for clarity if you need it”) in which neither the ABC nor Scholtemeyer actually said anything.
Hopefully, after last night, the industry can move on. A serious PR job needs to be done by both the MPASA and the ABC going forward.
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