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Always wanted to be a media mogul? Wondering how to go about it? There is no secret recipe but read on and you may pick up a trick or two.

The news media can be a strange beast and one any aspiring mogul needs to understand to be able to tame it. To add a degree of difficulty, it is also a creature of many colours that modifies its wants and needs based on the time of the month and what is happening nationally and internationally.

We can broadly define the content of media into three categories: entertainment, information and spam. As for media moguls, they come in a few different shapes and sizes: editorialist, entertainer, infoman and populist.

News entertainment.

Perhaps the most successful form of news publication is the one for the purpose of entertaining us. It can be as simple as a single picture or even a few letters or it can be as rich and complex as the author can imagine it. The key to entertainment news is that it must strike a chord. Those single picture articles or ones with next to no content usually work because they translate the mood of the people reading them or makes them laugh in appreciation. Votes in these cases are like a pat on the back saying well played.



Some of the most popular articles recently have been the beauty contests because let’s be honest, a pretty face always works. That isn’t to say that all articles should now have images of beautiful women and suddenly we will all be media moguls. Like all things in entertainment, if you are the first to capture the audience everyone else will just appear as pale copies and interest will diminish. The exception is if you take a concept that has been proven to work and somehow manage to make it better.

News information.

This is the second broad category that includes all government announcement, political announcements and organization updates. It also includes articles such as these that hope to inform and increase the knowledge base of its readers. Finally it is also the umbrella under which all editorial articles, analysis and commentary fall in.

Newspapers that provide important information can build huge followings. This is because of the obvious benefits of subscribing to publications that keep citizens informed of any and all battle orders for example. The president of each of our respective countries can be seen as first amongst equals and as the most visible of elected officials, you may want to keep track of what he is writing. Like entertainment, whoever does it first and best is often the one who goes home with the greatest slice of the pie.

News spam.

Everything else! Some spam has a role to play as they can bring attention to certain articles. Often however, this category includes summary of events not relevant to eRepublik or the New World, awkward attempts at blogging and plagiarizing or duplicating news that has already been disseminated and is widely known.

If your information entertains, or your entertainment informs, it is a bonus. Sometimes spam entertains and informs as well. All three categories are necessary and play a role in the media. Moguls usually understand this and they have achieved their status by combining all three kinds of articles.

Editorialist mogul.

This is the most challenging way to achieve the media mogul designation. Editorialists and commentators do not reach as big of an audience as other types of writers. This is due to many reasons; their subjects tend to be narrower, denser and the articles longer. Even more of a factor can be that they tend to write for a national audience.

Luckily for those that choose this side of the profession, editorialists and commentators tend to attract a loyal fan base that often provide useful feedback. Also if you have the inclination, you can write for an international audience. Be aware that the international crowd can be a lot more opinionated and cutting as they often do not have any vested interest in your writing.

Entertainer mogul.

The good entertainers will find the amusing side of any situation and express it in a way that readers will appreciate most. It is also one of the most effective styles as a tool for propaganda. Lampooning your opponent raises morale and attempts to set the sympathetic reader above the intended target. This makes the reader feel good about his position and a happy reader is one that tends to vote and subscribe.

The main strength of the entertainer mogul is that this brand of journalism cares little for borders. Your audience therefore is always potentially the New World.

Infoman mogul.

Each nation has a duty to inform its citizens. This is especially true in times of conflict where a well run media campaign can be the difference between losing or gaining a particular region. Good communicator Presidents also use this to greatest effect. Some, Hungarians come to mind first, have articulated and disseminated whole nationalist projects through their media with detailed instruction on how to achieve each enumerated goal.

With the duty to inform comes the desire to know what is going on. Citizens will appreciate the link to the articles that matter most in the day to day lives of their nation. The most populated countries of the New World have newspapers who have achieved multiple mogul awards solely based on their informative/directive content.

Government does not have a monopoly on this category, there is also very successful private citizens that have made it their goal to keep citizens up to date on the numbers of the New World; whether that be the time and cost needed to achieve certain awards, the industrial distribution across countries or any topic of interest to all of us. This subset also includes the spokespersons, those that represent international groups like the big alliances (ATLANTIS in the past, PEACE until recently and Eden) who have a much bigger pool of readers and therefore often achieve media mogul status.

Populist mogul.

All of the above will have achieved media mogul because of their content. The populist mogul will have gone another route. They have often benefited from successful "media mogul" campaigns, these are exercises whose only goal is to subscribe to multiple papers, robot-like, with the goal of pushing subscriptions past the 1,000 mark. It is also the group of editors who have purchased or bribed their way to the top. The most common occurrence being to offer free guns, monetary compensation or various material goods in return for a subscription. Lastly it could have been the result of consistent (or persistent) spamming of most media markets. Be aware though that this particular brand of spam must at least be clever. Spam for spam's sake will not receive much attention in the long run, clever spam (which is often entertaining as well) will do better.

With perhaps the exception of those benefitting from media mogul campaigns, all moguls have one thing in common and that is hard work. Again it is important to reiterate that there is no magic bullets, you have to dedicate yourself to achieving the medal. It takes considerable effort to gather the information people will want to read, or craft commentary that is relevant, or spam each nation with your particular brand of humour. Even buying your way to the top requires effort and resources that are built up over time.

And then there is Hungary.

There are intangibles, not all media markets are created equal. In some cases, and the Hungarians are again the best example, it became a national point of pride to systematically subscribe to as many newspaper as they could. Five gold is not much on the scale of the New World... but do that one hundred times and the accumulated wealth starts making a difference. Do it a thousand times and you could change the outcome of entire campaigns.

Length of articles can also be an issue. There is immediacy to a lot of the more successful articles and longer ones need stronger content to carry their reader to the end. That is the beauty of a single well placed image, it can be worth a thousand words.

Publishing times also affect the success of your efforts. A time like now, where people start announcing their intention to run for Congress, is a lot more challenging media environment. Articles need to be visible to be voted. The majority of readers look at the top five articles nationally first. If they have time, they may look at the whole list of most popular articles. Those same readers may then also look at the top five newest articles. But drop off that first page and your exposure can virtually disappear. This is especially true in smaller markets. So if you want to maximize each of your writing projects, pick your times smartly. Push those articles hard when they are new so that you establish a big enough voting base to carry you past that first day and continue getting support.

Lastly, know your audience. If you publish an attack article against the US in the American media, chances are you will not get a positive response and the effort may go largely ignored. Post a propaganda piece praising your country while attacking your number one enemy and the odds are you will be rewarded with decent amounts of patriotic votes. Articles on party presidencies would disappear or be tagged irrelevant right now while well thought out pieces analysing upcoming Congress elections may be better received.

One last thing...

So many readers may go through this article, look at the subscription number and ask, "If you are so clever, why aren't you a media mogul yet?"

The answer to that is a very simple one, choices. I have published almost exclusively in Canada (though that has changed lately) which is a smaller market. I tend to write articles that are lengthier and although I firmly believe they are justified, many readers have shorter attention spans. I know this because as a reader myself I will gravitate to the more pointed articles. However, again as a reader, I know that I appreciate most the well fleshed out informative editorial or analysis. So I'm trying to deliver to others what I look for myself in the media.

I have tried the entertainment route with limited success and never had the resources to effectively bribe a large enough segment of the population. Write to your strengths and that keeps the motivation up.

So to resume:
-Work hard (this is good advice in any endeavour in the New World whether it is media, business or politics).
-Be topical, the New World has a lot of good stories to be told.
-Write to your strengths.
-Know your audience.

After all is said and done... remember to never get discouraged. You may be just one defining article away from achieving that media mogul medal.


*The above was an article from a Member Paper of the Writers' Guild of Canada*