Tuesday, February 9, 2010 Previous editions
Friday, November 27, 2009
THERE’S so much talk of the economy contracting, of jobs being lost, of incomes falling and of taxes rising that I’ve decided to recall a positive story this morning. A story of a business being started 20 years ago that nobody said could succeed but which has created jobs for its employees, wealth for various owners and a product that has provided a useful service to the public.
It was 20 years ago this week that The Sunday Business Post appeared on the newsstands for the first time. It was a venture that nobody in the media expected to succeed – and which nobody outside of media circles really cared about.
Who would want to read a newspaper about business and financial matters on a Sunday, with the promise of political coverage (that was always an important element of the mix) excluded by the title’s name, especially when the paper’s promoters boldly proclaimed it would not include any sports coverage, not even the Saturday results?
Surely anyone involved in business – and there were nowhere near as many people 20 years ago – played golf on a Sunday or rested or wanted to get away from things related to work. As the wags put it, nobody got post on a Sunday, so why would they take this Post? Twenty years later more than 50,000 people every Sunday purchase this niche newspaper, owned now by Thomas Crosbie Holdings, publisher of this newspaper, after a series of ownership changes. It is living proof that entrepreneurial ideas can prosper.
I’ve been remembering it over the past week because much of the negativity prevalent in Irish society today was very evident 20 years ago. Admittedly, things were picking up in 1989 – courtesy of the benefit to the economy caused by the major cutbacks in public spending enforced by Fianna Fáil-led governments since 1987 – but slowly. Unemployment was still very high, tens of thousands of people emigrated every year, money was tight and spent carefully and there was still a lack of a "can-do" mentality when it came to new things.
It was in the summer of 1989 that the four journalists who were to set up the newspaper – Frank Fitzgibbon, Damien Kiberd, James Morrissey and Aileen O’Toole – told me secretly about their plans. The four had no difficulty in selling their ideas to me and persuading me to become one of their first employees.
The amount of business news in the daily newspapers extended to no more than a page each day and even then was aimed at a limited audience, often written in an arcane language that confused more than elucidated. As a commerce student at UCC I had been frustrated by the language used on the business pages of the newspapers. Having graduated and spent a year learning journalism at Dublin City University I was lucky enough to get a job at Business & Finance magazine to learn the ropes – and how to put it into readable form.
Now here was the chance to do it in a potentially better format, learning from some of the best people in the business.
News of the impending launch leaked to a Sunday newspaper in September, requiring all of us involved to quit our jobs the following day.
As an aside, I remember making an uncomfortable visit to the office of my old boss to tell him the rumours of a new newspaper were indeed true and that, as had been reported, I would be one of the small number of staff joining it.
Whatever about the small chance that I took by quitting a job to join something that might not even get started, the experience for the four promoters had the potential to be a nightmare. All of them were in their 30s, with homes and families, and if the venture failed they could have been left with large debts and limited employment opportunities.
Banks were reluctant to lend money and investors with cash – who would put up money as equity – were hard to find. A newspaper like The Sunday Business Post needed a premises from which to operate and had to hire journalists and advertising staff, meaning that payments had to be made even before any money was taken in from sales of the paper itself or advertising in it. Landlords sought guarantees over long leases, even if the newspaper was to fail, and banks sought personal guarantees. Then there was the issue of finding a printer. The one who had agreed to do the job withdrew days before first publication. Fortunately, the Irish Times generously agreed to print the first edition, giving the four a few days to find a printer for subsequent editions.
I remember being shocked at the time at how others derided Kiberd, O’Toole, Morrissey and Fitzgibbon for having the chutzpah to want to be owners rather than being content to be employees. On the Friday before publication of the very first edition – as the lack of a printer meant it looked as if the venture would be stillborn – I went to a press conference where one veteran reporter – a long-time friend of one of the four – mocked my stupidity at giving up a full-time job to join something that wasn’t even going to happen.
All of us involved worked a full 24-hour shift to get the first paper out and then went home to sleep in the middle of the Saturday before getting up for a party that night. As a 23-year-old, the pride of being involved in the creation of something new and, we hoped, worthwhile was enormous. Others may be cynical about journalists and journalism, sometimes with good reason, but I believe most of us are imbued with good intentions, to bring information into the public domain that otherwise wouldn’t be known because it is better that people do know.
Those of us who were reporters had a wonderful few years writing stories and helping the paper develop into something even more worthwhile. Meanwhile, however, the stresses for the four promoters were enormous. Sales of the paper did not cover costs and advertising was slow to come in, as conservative agencies wanted proof as to who the paper was reaching before committing money.
FORTUNATELY, the presence of a new French investor meant the company never missed a payment to staff; the four were always most honourable in meeting their obligations to the people who worked for them.
It was only afterwards I realised the enormous pressure under which they must have worked, which explains why there were the occasional rows.
I recall all of this now for a few reasons. It is useful to realise that new business ventures can be started up, even in difficult economic conditions, if there are people with enough ambition to try it, if there is the potential to open up a market that others haven’t seen and if there is money available somewhere to finance the venture.
But there is another important point. Much is being made at the moment of a failure to tax "the rich" sufficiently. While some business owners are benefiting from ridiculous and inequitable tax breaks, especially when it comes to pensions, we have to find a balance whereby people are not punished for their successes, where the incentive to take chances is diminished by the possibility that the State would take a disproportionate amount of the rewards in tax. The Sunday Business Post’s original owners sold eventually for a good, but not exorbitant, profit. They had earned it.
The Last Word with Matt Cooper is broadcast on 100-102 Today FM, Monday to Friday, 4.30pm to 7pm. He is the author of the bestselling Who Really Runs Ireland?
© Examiner Publications (Cork) Limited, City Quarter, Lapps Quay, Cork. Registered in Ireland: 73385.
