OJR: The Online Journalism Review
March 10, 2010
By Robert Niles
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Following
my talk in Singapore last month, I'd like to delve deeper into the question about what newspaper publishers outside the United States can do to avoid the market meltdown that's already claimed a few papers in the U.S.... and endangers the survival of many more.
This advice applies not just to newspaper publishers outside the United States, but to all news publishers, including online start-ups and still-profitable U.S. papers, who haven't yet had to resort to crippling staff or feature cutbacks to remain in the black.
Of course, much of what I'm going to say today is reflex for OJR readers. Consider this, instead, a second source that you can quote to a boss (or print out to show), to, uh, persuade her or him to do what you've been urging her or him for months to try.
My advice will come in two parts, the first today and the second half next Wednesday. So, let's get started.
Step 1: Management should use and consume technology like a starving man at a free buffet
The leaders of any news business must be able to understand new communication technology - not simply as an executive, reading reports from an underling - but as a consumer.
Every success newspaper person I know started learning the business by reading the paper as a child. They all had a passion for the paper, and for news, and started reading their local papers, cover to cover, at an early age.
So when time came that they worked within the industry, the understood - from thousands of hours of reading its products - what a paper was and what the people working there should produce.
Just as every great writer and editor first learned by reading, every great tech developer I know learned by playing with, tinkering with, then hacking and rebuilding technology, from computer programs to entire systems. You learn to become a producer by being a consumer first.
So why should anyone be surprised when newspaper companies led by executives who communicate via printed memos and land-line telephone calls fail to produce digital products that resonate with their local audience?
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More about: management, social media, tools
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March 5, 2010
By Robert Hernandez
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For me, it began with a
snarky tweet: #journchat Bad name, good PR.
Apparently that tweet touched a nerve and prompted Web journalists to come out of the Twitterverse to express agreement.
Before I continue, let me define two things:
- #journchat is a Twitter chat that is “an ongoing conversation between journalists, bloggers and PR folks” held weekly on Twitter. Created by @PRsarahevans, the first Twitter chat was held Monday, November 24, 2008. While it has “journalism” in the name, it skews heavily toward public relations.
- A Twitter chat essentially is a regularly held chat, usually weekly, on a specific topic… tied together through a hashtag. A group of Twitterers gather and talk about whatever… blogging, book editing, etc.
Moments after that snarky tweet went out the hunger for Web journalists to network and learn from each other was apparent.
It makes sense.
We’re a community that is constantly evolving, struggling to find the “right” solution for our unique situations… from inside our newsrooms… often alone. Many of us have met at conferences or through social networking, but never regularly.
It was that passionate need mixed with the DIY-spirit of the web that got @lilgirlbigvoice, @killbutton, @kimbui and myself together to create #wjchat within five hours from meeting each other the first time.
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More about: social media, Twitter
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March 2, 2010
By Robert Niles
7 comments | Archive Link
The following is an edited transcript of remarks I delivered last week at the WAN-IFRA Future of News Media and Journalism Conference in Singapore.Generating original content, or aggregating someone else's? If you're running (or starting up) a news website, which model should you choose?
Actually, this is a trick question... because they're the same thing. In journalism, our "original" content always has been the product of aggregation.
Let's take a look at the newspapers where I've worked over my career, from a small daily in Bloomington, Indiana to the Los Angeles Times. Each paper has published reports from wire services, from feature syndicates, from freelancers... even letters and op-ed articles from readers. That's aggregation. Even the supposedly "original" stories ultimately were works of aggregation. We aggregate interviews from sources; we aggregate documents that we ask find or ask for; we aggregate our observations of people, places and events.
If we weren't publishing aggregation, if we truly were creating original content, we'd be writing fiction, spun from the creativity of our own imaginations. As journalists, we try not to do that.
This is a false choice: creation versus aggregation. The newspaper industry long ago optimized the use of aggregation for its medium. So the choice really becomes: Shall we use aggregation the way that the newspaper industry has always done it, or aggregation the way that it's being employed by a new generation of online start-ups?
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More about: ad sales, management, social media, tools
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February 26, 2010
By Gerry Storch
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Bleacher Report, which calls itself "the Web's largest sports network powered by citizen sportswriters," made a big breakthrough for itself on Feb. 22... and the citizen journalism movement.
The company announced it was beginning a partnership with Hearst to introduce local online editions in the newspaper publisher's four largest markets, including San Francisco Chronicle's SFGate, the Houston's Chronicle's Chron.com, the San Antonio Express-News' MySan Antonio.com, and Seattlepi.com. Essentially, headlines will be pulled into the main sports page, highlighting local content from Bleacher Report's citizen journalists.
For the newspapers involved, the partnership represents an extra stream of advertising revenue and, most importantly, a commitment to increasing coverage of local sports.
In many ways, the success or failure of this partnership will help determine whether citizen journalism is the "integral piece," as cited by many experts, that will help newspapers both survive and prosper in the current media landscape.
Sports pages are a particularly excellent venue for this test. They lure the coveted young and middle-aged demographic who are passionate and vocal about their favorite teams and favorite sports ... and more than willing to provide their written opinions for free.
While citizen journalists such as these might look, think and act like paid, professional journos, they're not - at least in the traditional sense - and not just in the salary department.
Indiana University journalism professor David Weaver doesn't even think citizen journalists should be the correct term in this discussion. "Citizen communicators" would be better, he says, because "without the training and education that most journalists have, most citizens cannot qualify as journalists."
In a project conducted by OurBlook.com, Prof. Weaver and other experts around the country shared their thoughts on the pros and cons of citizen journalism, and its possible role helping newspapers. Here are some comments.
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More about: grassroots journalism, newsroom convergence, social media, sports journalism
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February 23, 2010
By Robert Niles
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Lots of folks have been bashing US broadcast network NBC for its coverage of the Winter Olympics from Vancouver, Canada. But allow me to take some space today to congratulate NBC. Thanks to the network's decision to delay broadcast of many Olympic events - sometimes as much as 10 hours after their completion - I haven't had so much fun watching an Olympics in, well, ever.
Huh? I hear folks asking. People have been roasting NBC's decision. Do I actually support it?
Heck, no! But by denying me the chance to watch the Olympics live (which are taking place in the same time zone where I live, by the way), NBC's pushed me to search the Web for live video and coverage, allowing me to find lively, even wildly entertaining, streams of coverage that I'd never have found if I'd been able to watch the games live on my TV.
That's an important lesson for all news publishers. If you don't provide the information that your audience wants, in the manner that they want it, people not only will they seek alternatives... but they might find ones that they strongly prefer to yours.
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More about: management, social media, sports journalism
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