Multimedia newspapers will transform the news process, promote transparency and improve democracy

Journalists: "I had an experience not long ago with a reporter coming back from a foreign assignment and was planning to do a big project that involved a trip she had taken. And I said wouldn't it have been cool to take a videocamera with you or a tape recorder on the journey and file 500-word daily reports?" Quoted on Online Journalism Review, NYT executive editor Bill Keller describes a revelation he once had, one that is certain to translate into a standard practice of all journalists. Two options can be taken from his idea: 1. Instead of simply being trained to interview, research and write, journalists will be cross-trained, mastering video, still images and audio, capable of transferring all to the web, or; 2. Journalists specifically trained in one medium or another will work in teams to produce a packaged news item for the web.

Whichever option is chosen, all journalists will be eventually trained in simple web functions such as adding links to other sources, including citizen journalists, in their articles. Jeff Jarvis suggests in an article in The Guardian that all reporters keep a weblog where they write "what they know... when they know it." In this way, their readers will be able to browse their notes and respond, letting journalists know what their audience wants to hear. Conversely, journalists will turn to readers, who will inevitably discover problems with the story, in order to improve their work. Jarvis says that allowing readers an eye into the article writing process will "fulfill the open-source era's highest ethic - transparency."

Editors: In a similar way to journalists, editors will also be cross-trained. The Times has stated that it will no longer distinguish between print and online editors: "Now we're saying the desk heads are going to be looking in the direction of the Web as well. So when something gets conceived, it's not just conceived as a print project but as a Web project as well." Multimedia editors will consult journalists' weblogs and be easily able to contact the individual or team of reporters with suggestions, ideas and findings while a project is underway. They will decide if any citizen contributions fit into the report. Picking out certain aspects of a story that might be more efficiently portrayed in one medium or another could be another new job for editors; for example, sending a journalist out to follow up a story with pictures or having a reporter record a podcast as part of a total report. Multimedia editors will be adept at packaging stories for the web so that each medium's report brings the reader further towards a complete understanding of an event.

Advertisers: Advertising agencies will have to work with their clients to produce ads that fit each medium. Separate contracts for TV, radio and print will eventually disappear, being integrated into the same advertising project and sold as a package. The pay-per-click model that so many herald as the standard business model for the future (apart from Nisenholtz, see previous posting) would be bolstered by catchy campaigns that lead a reader from image to audio to video, ultimately producing more clicks and thus revenue for newspapers. "Advergames," as described here, are an entertaining start to this evolution, and will logically be followed by even more creative interactive promotional features that drive sales.

Publishers: At the level of multimedia news, publishers will be left with the most crucial decision: which business model to choose. A publisher could feasibly render all of the above talk of cross-trained editors and journalists null and void by deciding that it would be better for his/her organization to focus on one medium, purchasing multimedia compliments from agencies or selling its own product to others. But this places a brand name in a precarious situation. Nisenholtz and Keller talk of adding a news aggregating aspect to the New York Times, a response to the success of GoogleNews, whose computers link to articles, pictures and video from 4,500 sources creating a package for each story. The problem with such aggregators for publishers is that when their product is mixed in with numerous banners, it causes an erosion of brand names. This is why papers such as London's The Guardian and the Los Angeles Times have implemented their own branded RSS reader that will theoretically keep their readers loyal while simultaneously giving them exposure to other sources. A parallel problem is that most publishers don't have the resources to cross-train their staff while simultaneously keeping shareholders satisfied. The multimedia broadband future will force publishers to determine, amongst discussions with their staff, advertisers and shareholders, if they should continue down the same path, negotiating for supplemental information with agencies hoping that their content doesn't slip into obscurity, or if they can make the financial and man-hour sacrifices in the meantime, adapting their newsrooms to create the multimedia packaged news their readers will crave.

Audience: The news consumer reaps the ultimate benefits of the multimedia news process Pressed for time and barraged by noise in print, on television and radio, news hounds of past decades began straying from sources that didn't necessarily give them what they wanted to hear. The multimedia broadband age is one of personalized news; individual members of the audience will consume what they want, when they want it. As noted above, newspaper readers are now also viewers, listeners and most revolutionarily, participators in the news process, a revolution that will not reverse itself. Journalists, editors, advertisers and publishers are now at the behest of the public, and the public wants a comprehensive, enriching yet entertaining story. If one news organization doesn't supply it, they audience will go elsewhere or create the news itself.

But the race doesn't stop there.

The checkered flag?: Considering the above, here's a hypothetical as to what the final stages of the multimedia news process may look like.

After the news is packaged, complete with images, sound, text graphics, citizen contributions and advertising, and posted, the publication part of the multimedia news process will be complete. But the discussion will have just begun, a discussion through which democracy and humanity in general, not just the audience, will reap the ultimate benefits. Imagine that for each packaged article from each source a blog forum is started where readers/viewers/listeners can post their own opinions, comments and additional studies into the topic. Comments link to various other visual, audio and text sources including library references, books and academic works (currently being scanned by Google, although the plan has temporarily stalled). During the conversation, the issue becomes more transparent as more and more people question and add information. As the debate unfolds, the final draft of the historical event is begun in Wiki form. The Wiki is constantly altered to adhere to new developments and links to the various sources contributors read abound. Translation tools help those in other lands to contribute, assuring a well-rounded debate. Theoretically, as the conversation winds down and the topic fades into memory, the world will have a very comprehensive account of the history and facts of an event, which will be on permanent display on the internet for anyone to see or modify if history suddenly changes, which it sometimes has a tendency to do. The last stages of this hypothetical broadband/multimedia/communual/international news process would contribute to a greater understanding among all peoples and help us not to forget our mistakes or achievements, which we has humans have a tendency to do. It would also open up a world of knowledge to billions who previously did not have access to it. After all, knowledge is power. Why is it today in the hands of so few?

Thoughts anyone? Where is the media revolution going to take us?

Source: Online Journalism Review, The Guardian