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Helium is an online company that describes itself as, "the online spot to learn what you need to know and share what you know." It combines citizen journalism with peer rating in order to provide a plethora of articles on just about any topic.

Helium brings together a system of news and information combined with a place to submit articles. It even has a "marketplace" where publishers can post topics for people to write about - sort of like a publishers à la carte classified space.

It is a place for readers to find articles that interest them, writers to write about topics that they know and understand, publishers to find articles and non-profits to voice their issues.

It is a unique system of sharing content, ideas and knowledge. It will be interesting to see what the future holds for Helium, if the current system will hold up and retain its credibility.

The Editors Weblog interviewed Peter Newton, the VP of business development at Helium.com to get a better idea of how the site works and what their goals are for the future. Newton has worked at Monster.com and The Boston Globe where he was the vice president of advertising.

EW: What is your selection process for articles and writers?

PN: Helium represents the first true meritocracy in the publishing industry. Helium welcomes anyone and everyone to join its community of writers.

We don't select writers; they naturally come to the site and write to areas in which they have an interest (in many cases, a passion) in sharing their knowledge or opinion. Once members join, their work is evaluated by other members though our peer-review rating system.  In essence, Helium brings order to the chaos of user generated content. Its patented peer review rating engine elevates the best quality articles.

After a writer submits an article, he/she is presented with two anonymous articles in the same topic area to rate in an "A versus B" comparison. Through the wisdom of the crowds, the best articles rise to the top, resulting in a rank-ordered list for every topic.

The end result is that the best writers are promoted, recognized and rewarded for their work.

New titles are introduced onto the Helium site through members, partners and directly by Helium staff.

EW: Where do you draw the line between journalist and citizen journalist?  What about between citizen journalist and blogger?

PN: Citizen Journalism is a very awkward term. Quality journalism demands its participants to be objective, ethical and methodical. Research, fact checking and skillful interviewing techniques are critical to the art. It's not obvious that what we are starting to call citizen journalism possesses any of these traits. I'm certain that the Columbia School of Journalism doesn't teach that the art of being a world class journalist is to be in the right place at the right time. Citizen Journalism seems to be migrating to each individual's "15 minutes of fame" and further and further away from journalism. It might be fun to watch - but so were the lions and Christians in the Roman Coliseum.

With that said, Helium is not really concerned with categorizing or labeling different types of writers.  We have created a platform for people to express themselves in writing across a wide variety of topics in a civilized and substantive way, and then have the community sort for quality.

Helium is a site for writers that fills a unique role in the publishing industry. In doing so, we are representing a new classification of online writers.

Our community of members includes professional writers, freelancers, subject matter experts, students and the expert next-door.

We are not attempting to replace investigative journalism or time sensitive reporting. Instead, Helium attracts and produces individuals who have the skill and insight on specific topics that they wish to share with others.

EW: Do you feel that the status of being an "expert" or a "professional journalist" is becoming less important?

PN: No, there will always be a need for professional journalists, especially in covering breaking news or conducting investigative journalism, and Helium is definitely not out to undermine established journalists or copywriters.
Instead, we are trying to expand the ranks of paid writers to include part-time talent that otherwise would be sitting fallow.

Our media solutions product offers newspapers a way for them to supplement what remains of their editorial staff, but is in effect driving down their content-creation costs. We are merely tapping into the notion of "social publishing," in which publishers ask their readership to contribute content.

EW: Do you apply any regulations for topics? style? content? etc...

PN: Yes, Helium has established regulations for topics, style, and acceptable content.

Beyond providing clarity to our members, the community is self moderating. Every new article submitted to Helium is rated by other members. The best content rises to the top. Our members often message each other with advice as to how to improve articles and items that don't fit the standards of the site are removed.

EW: Do you see a shift towards more citizen journalism in news reporting? Both online and print?  How will this affect the future of professional freelancers? Is it going to put a dent in the freelance market?

PN: When you say "news reporting", let's be clear that our focus is not breaking news or conducting investigative journalism.  With that said, there is a growing paradigm shift in content creation; publishers are increasingly sourcing content, not writers. As for how this will impact freelancers no one can say for sure but one thing is for sure-there will always be demand for quality writing.

EW: Can a person make a living from putting material on Helium the same way a freelance gains income?

PN: The short answer is no.  But with that said, there are thousands of Helium members who earn from $40-$100 each month, which is much more than chump change. In fact, some of Helium's highest earning members have made more than $3,000. It really depends on how much members use the site.

Earlier this month, Helium announced upfront payments for all new articles being written by starred writers on Helium.com. This change to Helium's Terms of Service is a move to reward the site's highest quality writers and to promote quality content at Helium.com.  In addition, the company's popular Marketplace product - used by publishers looking for top-notch content for their publications - now offers special access to the site's best writers. The move will improve content for Helium's publishing partners and help ensure that the site's best writers will be seen by those publishers.  

Many web 2.0 companies offer opportunity for incremental income. With these changes at Helium, highly-rated writers will have an opportunity to earn larger sums for sharing their expertise with the Helium community.

"Helium has grown by leaps and bounds these last two years; it has earned the respect of people and writers around the world," said Petra Newman, a 3-star writer on Helium.com "With the sky falling on our economy, Helium has again found a "pièce de résistance" for people who already have a passion for writing. Increasing the earnings for well-written articles is a win-win situation for both Helium and writers."

EW: What newspapers or websites do you work with?    

PN: Currently Helium is working with GateHouse Media's State Journal-Register(SJ-R) in Springfield, Ill. SJ-R recently begun using Helium's "Media Solutions" product to source writers for its op ed section-there are currently over 700 additional papers in the active funnel.

We also provide content for a wide a variety of other newspapers, magazines, online-only sites, etc.

EW: What about your competition? Who are they?

PN: As a producer of content and as a publisher of content, we compete with thousands of companies, yet in most ways, we have no competition.

That said, we really don't see anyone that directly competes with us, in terms of delivering a scalable solution to engage a community to produce high quality content.  

EW: Where do you see yourself in relation to news organizations such as the AP or the New York Times?

PN: The New York Times is the New York Times. Helium is not attempting to create a competitor to breaking news.  

EW: Where does a site like Helium envision itself in the future? How do you grow / expand ?

PN: Helium is rapidly building the world's largest community of writers. We plan to grow and expand the business in a number of ways over the next five years:

• Become the partner of choice to the publishing, non profit and broadcast industries for generating quality content at a low cost, while helping engage their audience in the process.

• Become the content source for any entity needing quality content.

• Expand internationally; international business represents 60% additional market opportunity

• Create a community of micro publishers

Following on from Part 1 of our interview with the Editor-in-Chief of the Christian Science Monitor, John Yemma - where we looked at why the CSM is pursing a digital future and how it prepared its readership base - we now look at what is happening inside the CSM itself. Yemma and his team are restructuring the newsroom, its mindset and the technology powering it. This is the cutting edge of news distribution, and Yemma talks us through how it is preparing itself for uncharted territory.

Restructuring the newsroom - rebuilding the engine

The next big step for this revolutionary new "newspaper" model was in the newsroom itself. How does a traditional daily newspaper restructure its newsroom team to prepare itself for the uncharted digital waters ahead? Yemma is overwhelming positive about undertaking the task of remodelling the newsroom, saying, "We essentially get to sit here and take our car engine apart and put it back together. It was an automobile engine that was built for the print world and now we get to take it apart and rebuild it for the web-first world. That is a tremendously exciting prospect because that means instead of having to serve the print master, which has its own production schedule and arbitrary deadline, we free ourselves, and we are therefore able to be much more immediate and relevant online."

Currently the CSM has one staff orientated to producing the print CSM and a small online staff who repurpose the print content for the online edition. Yemma tells the Weblog that the team is organising itself into a "three pronged operation" with a common editorial model - under the editor, managing editor and includes the national, international and photo editors, and foreign and domestic correspondents, made up of about 70 to 80 people - feeding two smaller divisions. These two smaller divisions are the weekly print desk and the website desk, in each case they will have a small production staff. This differentiation between the magazine and the web is vital, "as print has its own needs to produce a good and valuable product" so it needs a minimal but dedicated staff. In the same way, the web has to have a focused staff to keep the site running and up to date. Yemma reports they will have about 10 people each devoted to the web and weekly. For the weekly this involves a team that will build a coherent weekly magazine - working on articles that will need to have a longer shelf life - and the overall look and feel. Similarly the website staffers will have a dedicated team of technical producers who will work on the entry page to optimise it for web traffic.

Yemma says that it has not been necessary to radically change the shape and layout of the newsroom to push through this change as the common editorial pool will be driving content and this remain largely intact. There will likely be some moving of desks to put the weekly staff together and so forth, but nothing radically different.

New technology to aid the change - democratising the web

The CSM is introducing new content management systems to facilitate this move, a print CMS and a new web CMS. This new system will allow the common editorial pool to directly feed both operations and allow the editorial staff to have much more influence over the website. CSM are using K4 CMS for the print edition and is currently closing the deal for a new CMS for the web edition. The new web system according to Yemma will, "democratises the whole operation of the web so non-technical assignment editors with the common editorial pool can update the website directly." Therefore, the majority of the content will feed from the editorial pool but the focused web team will work on the homepage itself.

Retraining for the digital future

This new business model will not only result in a rebuilding of the newsroom, but a rebuilding of staffers. The CSM has already trained its team for multi-media publications and now it is undertaking a programme for its new future. The team are being trained for the new CMS platforms; however, the new system does not require extensive training, as it is a very user-friendly system. CSM is continually training staffers for the web, as "the future is the web. Everybody knows that."  On the weekly, the assignment editors will have to rethink content to make it move "evergreen" and thus hold up for much longer on the shop shelf, and the content will have to be prepared multiple weeks in advance. The CSM is an analytical newspaper so it is already somewhat prepared for this new style of content, but Yemma says, "it is more rethinking than retraining, a magazine mindset is different to a daily mindset."

Managing staffers through uncertain times

It is exciting times at the CSM, but how do you manage staff through these uncertain times. Yemma says, "Be as open as possible about what you are doing. While things are still being developed and you don't want staff to prematurely publicise, you must be careful about you say, as anything you say in a newsroom can get outside of the newsroom. In fact, I would be disappointed if it didn't; being good gossips is part of their job. I would sometimes say things like "If theoretically we were going to have a weekly and no more daily....", the team would laugh, but I can't really say it as I do not want it to show up on a blog or something. I also tried to give them all the information. I tell you, it is much easier to remember your story when you are honest than when you make things up!"

Yemma reports that he worked with the University of Southern California and the Knight Media Digital Centre, and they performed an anonymous survey of staff. As a result, the staff were able to freely express their opinions about the changes without fear of it damaging their career. The team at USC and Knight compiled all the results and gave this to management, so they could see exactly how their staff were feeling. Yemma reports that the feedback was, "appropriately sceptical, but not overly. Again, I would be disappointed in journalists if they weren't sceptical. I would not expect everyone to be completely on board, but they appear to be largely on board."

Yemma says that that the combination of the town hall meetings, sitting down and talking with the different departments, and the anonymous survey are all necessary when managing a team through change.

Staff sackings

Yemma admits that, like many US newspapers, the CSM will be forced to let staff go. Yemma expects to reduce staffing levels by between 10% and 15%, which translates to 10 to 15 people.

Yemma told the Weblog that the staff cuts will take place in summer of next year and the time between now and then Yemma is publicising these staff cuts to the team so that hopefully levels may be reduced organically with people naturally looking for other jobs on hearing this news. Yemma admits that this will only get them part of the way there with the economy being what it is currently. Yemma is also working closely with the Human Resources department and they plan to offer a redundancy package, outplacement assistance and counselling.

The future

Looking at the radical change that the CSM is pursuing, one cannot help but feel that this type of radical restructuring is exactly the type of thinking what will pull the news industry out of its current slump. The media needs newspapers like the CSM to pursue these new strategies, as the industry has evolved very little in the past 100 years and it needs to start taking some radical risks to ready itself for a radically different future. Whether this model will prove successful, time and the market will only tell; but it is undoubtedly a brave and exciting undertaking.
 

The 100-year old Pulitzer prize winning Christian Science Monitor has bravely announced that it is ending its daily print format and going fully digital: it will now only print a weekly "magazine" edition. The Editors Weblog caught up with the Editor-in-Chief of the Christian Science Monitor, John Yemma, and we discussed the thinking behind this move and how on earth a nationally distributed newspaper completely restructures itself for a digital future.

This story has been broken down into two parts. Part 1 focuses on why the CSM took this step and its initial steps down this path. Part 2 looks at the nuts and bolts: restructuring the newsroom, retraining, and managing staff through change.

The CSM's decision has sparked the inevitable debate about whether this is the beginning of the end for daily printed newspapers, a debate which will run and run in the years to come. However, the peculiar nature of the CSM's subsidised business model, its relatively small print distribution run and international readership base, make it difficult to draw any firm conclusions on industry trends from this move. Nevertheless, many in the industry will be watching closely to see how the CSM manages this move and whether it proves successful or not. If the CSM is successful, then this may lead to other newspapers pursuing this business model, but these papers will have to have a distinctive and loyal readership like the CSM if they have any hope of being successful.

Why the move away from print?

Yemma (left) states that there are two main reasons behind the CSM's controversial decision to move away from the daily print model. Firstly, the CSM's publishers, "saw the writing on the wall, they knew that the Internet user patterns and reader preferences and so forth were changing the business model of print. Print was becoming increasingly untenable, especially for the Monitor, which has an international audience. We just don't have enough reach with our print product, but we have great reach with our web product. That's not uncommon in the world of publishing right now to come to that conclusion, but for the Monitor we were able to make the change a little faster, because the Christian Science church wanted to move away from subsidising the Monitor within about three to five years."

The CSM is subsidised by the Christian Science church, with the church contributing approximately 50% ($13 million) of the newspapers revenue.  The newspaper itself makes about $12.5 million in terms of print advertising, circulation, web revenue and syndication. Therefore, the publishers of the CSM felt that, secondly, this level of subsidisation could not continue forever, so the team decided to look at the newspapers various options.

How the move to digital began - where to begin?

Two years ago the CSM convened a task force to look at the possibility of dropping its daily print edition. The newspaper worked at it from all angles; from prototyping to financial analysis, and working with a consultant (newspaper consultant Chris Urban), marketing group (Kadence Associates - who organised focus groups and surveys), and a PR company (Shift Communications - who handled assisted the company in communicating this move). A former editor of the Christian Science Monitor, John Hughes, and newspaper consultant, Chris Urban, headed up this task force.

Surveying the core readership base - will they buy it?

Given the nature of the CSM and its relatively small daily print run, international appeal as a Christian newspaper and its worldwide reputation, the reasoning behind this move - no matter the financial calculations and industry trends - is sound. However, if the core CSM readership did not largely support the change, then all bets would be off. The CSM surveyed its core loyal readership base, taking sample groups to sound out their response. Yemma states that the CSM was most concerned with converting this core group as quickly as possible to reading the newspaper in a new way. Its focus groups revealed that 50% welcomed the idea of decreasing the frequency of the CSM and that of the 50% who were "on the fence" only half of these wanted to preserve it as it is now.

Once the decision to drop the daily print edition was announced, the CSM had a customer service team field all calls and emails about the decision from readers, which Yemma receives a daily report on. The accumulative report of this over the past few weeks is consistently running at just 14% negative. 35% are asking questions about this new model will work, such as price and so forth, with the rest being positive. Yemma feels the CSM has got a, "pretty good response. We expected worse."

Yemma is clear that the most important thing for them to find out is how many people will convert from buying the daily newspaper to the weekly magazine. This will not be known until the new format is marketed in the spring, and they begin selling the weekly in April. The CSM's marketing estimate is that they can covert about 80% of the people currently buying the daily to take up the weekly model. On this, Yemma says, "that is the best we can do at the moment without having perfect knowledge of the future."

Communicating with your reader

On the CSM website currently there is a web cast featuring John Yemma and the Managing Publishing, John Wells. Here they talk over the various changes and why they have come about for their reader. The site also has an in depth editorial on the changes ahead for the venerated newspaper.

"The Web is not just a paperless publishing medium, it is a totally new way of telling stories"

The move to a web focused future will, "unshackle the newsroom from print."  Yemma says "We will get to see what we can do online in a way that we have never been able to do before. I really believe that journalism in is the infancy of story telling online and that online story telling is about interactivity. I expect us to look more at intelligently moderated user generated content, crowd sourcing, and expanding the reach of CSM journalism.  We can look more at speaking to our readers, and asking them to send us their images and stories of the events hitting the headlines, and thus expand our eyes and ears. There is a non-linear way of telling stories on the web that I think has to be developed by journalists who want their stories to be told in the most appropriate way for the medium."

Yemma goes on to say, "The Web is not just a paperless publishing medium: it is a totally new way of telling stories. We can really start using the web for what it is really all about, which is this three dimensional medium getting information and providing it at whatever level you can convey it."

Part 2 - In our next article on the CSM, the Weblog talks to Yemma about reorganising the team and the newsroom for a weekly magazine and web future, retraining, and staff cuts.

Last week the Financial Times relaunched its website with a new homepage, along with five other resdesigned pages and a new Middle East section. This is the first stage of its redesign and more changes will be rolled out over 2009. Reviews about the new design have been mixed; some call it a success, some say it's a failure. The FT has been applauded for finally redesigning and "clearing up the clutter" but the criticisms go further than the redesign, some critics have called their entire business model into question.

The new design aims to make the site look more like the print version through colour and layout. The homepage is now pink, just like the newspaper, and the design of the masthead reflects the print version as well. The website has also been renamed Financial Times, no longer FT.com.

The editorial integrity of journalism is "threatened" by traditional and citizen journalists using the Internet to "distort" information, Reuters' global editor of multimedia for news Chris Cramer said last night.

In an address at Nottingham Trent University, Cramer emphasized that news organizations must work to separate themselves from the nascent 'electronic mob rule' of online journalists who seek to strengthen their own messages.

Forbes has begun the process of integrating their print and online sections by combining the two ad sales groups.  The complete merging of the two editorial sides will be completed by early 2009, according to PaidContent.

According to Forbes, the move is due to a "changing marketplace."  

In addition to the merging of the two sections, on Friday Forbes announced that it was discontinuing ForbesAuto.com.

Sources: PaidContent, Valleywag

The Dispatch of Lexington, North Carolina has a new look and a narrower format.  The redesign of the print edition follows a makeover of the website that took place in August.  According to the papers website, the redesign was intended as a means to "freshen up the look but not make any drastic changes."

The paper has decided to reduce its size in order to cut costs.  It also stopped printing a Monday edition in September.  Because of the reduction in size the paper announced that as far as content, it will be cutting back in the amount of syndicated material from wire services, but not local content.

Unlike those he decries as "misguided cynics," global media mogul Rupert Murdoch believes that newspapers will reach "new heights" in the 21st century.

Although the print newspaper is going to face changes, "it will always be around," Murdoch said, in one version or another.

Three Birmingham newspapers, the Birmingham Post and Mail, Sunday Mercury and Trinity Mirror have now relocated to outside of the city. The three titles will now he housed in the famous Fort Dunlop building overlooking the M6 Motorway in the UK.

The Birmingham Post and Mail and Sunday Mercury have moved into a large newsroom that has been completely redesigned in order to reflect its status as a multimedia hub.

See also:

Turning the newsroom on its head - Interview with Trinity Mirror's Neil Benson

Journalists are facing serious problems in the print industry, but are also faced with a new opportunity--switching platforms so they can work everywhere.

"Newspapers are finding video skills at television stations, and stations are finding interactive thinking at newspapers," says Regina McCombs of Poynter Online.  The way in which news organizations produce content is similar across all platforms, so diversifying the staff makes sense.

The American Press Institute's exclusive "crisis summit" concluded Thursday, establishing that the print news industry is in the "phase" of a crisis right before dissolution, Editor and Publisher reports.

James Shein, a "turnaround specialist" and professor at Northwestern University, explained that newspapers are "blinded," and the biggest issue facing the industry's progress is senior leadership.