Beyond print: The future of news media

Focus and a sharply defined target audience help in separating the wheat from the chaff

Earlier this year, Justin Smith co-founded Semafor with Ben Smith, former columnist for The New York Times. Semafor, launching this October, will talk to an estimated 250 million English-speaking people across the world. It will offer text, video and events across Africa, Asia and the US among other regions. Mr Smith, who was the chief executive officer of Bloomberg Media till January this year, reckons that the global English audience is still being served by brands like The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post or The Economist that were created in the 19th century and get the bulk of their