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Spanish Magazine Publisher Bets Against the Crisis

MADRID — Andrés Rodríguez, the publisher and founder of SpainMedia, has the most at stake in the debut this month of a Spanish-language edition of Forbes, the U.S. business magazine, in crisis-hit Spain.

For Forbes Inc., the New York-based publisher of Forbes Magazine and his partner in the Spanish licensing venture, “their only risk is if the magazine really proves a failure, because that could hurt their image,” Mr. Rodríguez said Thursday during an interview in his office, inside what had been an abandoned printing-equipment plant. “I’m also betting my image, as well as my money and my work.”

SpainMedia is swimming against a tide that has driven many other Spanish media entrepreneurs out of business amid a recession and credit squeeze. Since the start of the financial crisis, dozens of Spanish publications have shut down and more than 8,000 journalists have lost their jobs, according to the Federation of Spanish Journalist Associations.

In this climate, SpainMedia is adding its incarnation of Forbes to a roster that includes Spanish editions of three other well-known periodicals: Esquire and Harper’s Bazaar — both owned by Hearst — and Robb Report, which is owned by CurtCo Media Labs in Malibu, California. SpainMedia also publishes its own travel magazine, Orizon.

Mr. Rodríguez’s outlook on the future of magazines in Spain goes beyond being merely optimistic. “I’m a publisher who believes that paper as a product is more alive than ever,” he said.

He also sees the sector returning to its “golden era” of 50 years ago when advertising mushroomed and magazines set the benchmark for photojournalism.

“Magazines have their own language and we need to return to the origins of that language,” he added. “It’s also about walking into a bar and sending a very clear message by the way you’re holding the magazine under your arm – and that’s an experience that anything digital will never give you.”

Yet no matter how much Mr. Rodríguez values paper, the transition from print to digital magazines “is now happening, even if it is slower than for daily newspapers,” according to the journalist Pedro Cifuentes, director of a master’s degree program in digital journalism at the IE Business School in Madrid. Mr. Cifuentes said early estimates suggested that circulation for digital magazines had risen 15 percent in Spain last year, compared with a 5 percent decline in printed copies, in line with what happened in markets like Britain. Meanwhile, advertising has fallen about 40 percent overall since the start of the global economic crisis in 2008.

Forbes already published 26 other licensed editions of its magazine, including several in East European countries like Poland and Romania. Spain is the first foray by the family-controlled Forbes into Western Europe.

Asked about the timing of its Spanish entry, Miguel Forbes, a family member who is in charge of the publisher’s worldwide development, said by telephone recently that “the time to launch is when a market is in the process of recovery.”

The Spanish edition of Forbes, a monthly released March 6, had a print run of 65,000 copies. Neither Mr. Forbes nor Mr. Rodríguez would disclose financial details about their venture, which involves SpainMedia paying a licensing fee to Forbes based on its magazine sales and advertising revenues.

“Andrés has shown that he’s able to put out very strong titles with a very lean staff,” Mr. Forbes said of Mr. Rodríguez. “A lot of publishers have a big staff, but it’s hard to make money when you have a large headcount.”

SpainMedia, which has annual sales of about €10 million, or $13 million, operates out of the former printing facility, which Mr. Rodríguez bought two years ago “in the midst of the property collapse” and then renovated. The company has only 30 employees, with an average age of 28. Half the staff members are journalists.

In Crisis, Public Officials Embrace Social Media

It is usually Mr. Cuomo’s aides, not the governor, typing the messages. But he and his staff recognize that social media “is a highly effective method of communicating information in a time of crisis,” said Joshua Vlasto, Mr. Cuomo’s deputy communications director. The governor’s followers have increased to 50,000 from 20,000 last Friday

Although phone service has been spotty in some places across the Northeast, people with working signals have been reliant on texting and social networking to a degree not seen during previous disasters.

In turn, governors, mayors and emergency workers from North Carolina to Maine have fully embraced Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, knowing that constituents unable to watch television can still receive texts and Twitter messages.

Political leaders are still having “Voice of God” news conferences, of course, but aides now tend to post their words on Twitter at the same time, trying to spread accurate information and convey a sense of control amid the chaos and confusion.

“Twitter makes it possible for a public official to create a round-the-clock press conference, simultaneously informing their staff, the public and the press,” said Andrew Rasiej, the founder of the Personal Democracy Forum. Praising the effectiveness of the Web during the recovery from the storm, he said, “We can now separate public officials’ embrace of social media as either pre- or post-Sandy.”

Even before the storm, states showed newfound creativity in getting the word out. Maryland’s emergency management office promoted a Pinterest page with resources and photos of past floods to prod people to get ready. On the Outer Banks of North Carolina, a county manager posted videos to YouTube about preparations before the storm passed by, and videos of damage afterward.

Political campaigns big and small started realizing the effectiveness of these tools several years ago — and now the lessons learned are being applied by the winning candidates.

“Social media is an integral part of an emergency communication plan,” said J. Tucker Martin, the director of communications for Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia, who was elected in 2009. “I think a few years ago, it would have been considered a nicety, where it is now considered essential.”

Shortly after Connecticut’s governor, Dannel P. Malloy, was inaugurated in 2011, a couple of big snowstorms quickly showed how useful social media could be in delivering emergency information, said David Bednarz, a deputy communications manager who operates Mr. Malloy’s Twitter account.

Then came Hurricane Irene in August of last year, followed by a freakish October snowstorm. As more and more citizens lost power, the number of Mr. Malloy’s Twitter followers soared.

“Perhaps a sign of the times, we have found that many people do not own battery-operated radios anymore and can’t listen to the governor’s live news briefings,” Mr. Bednarz said. “Using their cellphones, Twitter was the last resource they had available to them to find out what was happening while they were stuck in their homes with no power.”

Across Manhattan’s powerless areas this week, people with smartphones tended to huddle around the few remaining Wi-Fi hot spots rather than battery-operated televisions or radios.

Some agencies have also used the Web to correct news outlets that provided misleading information. On Wednesday, when The New York Post reported on its Web site that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg planned to ban all passenger cars in Manhattan, the mayor’s press secretary posted a Twitter response in capital letters, “NOT CORRECT.”

The Post deleted the story, which overstated the car restrictions that were announced an hour later.

Social media styles vary. Power utilities tend to be matter-of-fact, keeping emotion to a minimum. Mr. Cuomo is data-driven; Mr. Vlasto said the staff treats his Twitter page “very much like a news operation.”

Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, on the other hand, is oftentimes personal. (“The rides I took my kids on this summer are in the Atlantic Ocean,” he wrote Tuesday night.)

Mayor Cory Booker of Newark, a pioneer of Twitter politicking, replies to more people than most public officials. When a woman who lives around the corner from Mr. Booker asked on Thursday morning, “Why don’t we have our power back?” he replied that he did not know.

But he added that anyone in the neighborhood “can come to my house” to warm up and charge their cellphones. A few hours later, the woman said on Twitter, she was at his home, charging her phone and watching the movie “Happy Feet.”