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Other articles in the RAP 21 Newsletter n° 14/2003:
The Business of Newspapers
Personnel management: How to manage a newsroom
Newsletter n° 14
THE BUSINESS OF NEWSPAPERS CONTENT & ETHICS

Strategy/Organisation: Events abroad brings out Cameroonian magazine

Salihou Soule is the publication director of Horizon Magazine Plus of Cameroon (circulation 6,000). The bimonthly magazine received the Foreign News Prize of the Cameroonian Editors Meeting in November 2002 for its initiative to publish information about all kind of events taking place outside the country.

"The Cameroonians love to travel and are very interested in everything going on abroad. We tell them about different events - conferences, seminars, film & music festivals and art expos - taking place abroad. Besides taking part in the event, it might also be an opportunity to create professional contacts for the Cameroonian participant."

Horizon Magazine Plus, which has been facing hard times since its founding in 1987, chose this new approach to attract readers at its relaunch in September 2001. Twenty percent of the content is news from abroad and, more specifically, information about upcoming social, cultural and political events around the world. The rest of the magazine is dedicated to domestic politics and features about divers subjects.

"It is true that the international media available in Cameroon also publish information about events abroad, but the difference is that they do it when the event is already taking place. This means that it is too late for someone from Cameroon to go there. We publish the information so much in advance that people have the time to plan the trip and take care of practical aspects like applying for visas and buying plane tickets," said Mr Soule.

He also points out that international media seldom give practical details such as contact information, costs and how to get there. Furthermore, international media tend to give priority to political and financial news on the international arena, giving less space to events. This on the other hand gives Horizon Magazine Plus yet another reason to publish material as a way to differentiate itself and attract upscale readers.

It is mainly thanks to the internet that Horizon Magazine Plus has been able to specialise in events taking place abroad. Soule says that eighty percent of the information they publish comes from the web while the rest comes from the magazine’s correspondents abroad and other publications.

For other African newspapers and magazines who would be interested in including the same kind of material on their pages, Soule gives the advice to always be in advance: the selling argument when offering this kind of information is that you are the first to publish it.

The Foreign News Prize has allowed Horizon Magazine Plus to pursue its activities and hopefully increase its circulation so that even more people can take part in the publication. However, it has not increased the number of advertisements in the magazine: the Cameroonian market is in the hands of people with the right contacts and unless you have them, you don’t have any advertisements either, said Soule.
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