Results matching “foreign bureaus 1”

The future of printed media has become a major political issue in countries like the United States or France, even being debated in ad-hoc committees set up by the legislative or the executive powers. Discussions along the Potomac or the Seine rivers have been focusing on the impact of Internet and new technologies, or on the need for state subsidies.

Meanwhile, on the Vltava in Prague, a group of editors and reporters working for PPF Media, the recently created division of insurance and consumer banking group PPF, is already opening new ways of covering a whole country in what may be a newsroom of the future. With other journalists for the moment based in four provincial towns from the Czech Republic, they are launching the so-called "hyperlocal weekly" Nase adresa ("our address"), which combines print and online journalism with particular efforts to sustain high professional standards and get closer to the readers.

"It can only work with well prepared journalists who will be trained in the Futuroom, our central newsroom," explains Roman Gallo, 44, director for PPF's media strategies and conceiver of the project. "We are also opening newscafés in our local bureaus, which will facilitate the contact between Nase adresa's journalists and the public, to enrich the content of our newspaper and of its webpages," adds Matej Husek, 33, director of news operations.
 
The newspoints, combining local newsrooms and Internet cafés in often small, rural towns, may be the most visible originality of this new undertaking. A few weeks before Nase adresa's launch, for instance, PPF Media's already hired staff had the chance to taste two products, the first print prototype of the weekly, and a cake likely to be served in the cafés. "The project represents a special challenge in terms of logistics, of room for storage, as we will be managing dozens of bistrot-Starbucks-like coffee shops in local newsrooms," comments Tomas Chejn, 41, the manager of PPF Media's branded cafés, a food specialist hired for his long time experience in quality catering. Petr Vitasek, 38, the director and chief editor for the Moravia region, based in the eastern Czech city of Olomouc, thinks this effort is worth the investment, because these "well located newspoints will be critical in getting Nase adresa's journalists to work closer to their readers."
 

 
But the whole project is innovative at other, multiple levels. To start with, for the first time a newspaper's birth is tightly associated to the creation of a multi-media training center - with several international partners including Google, Atex and the World Association of Newspapers/ World Editors Forum. The Futuroom will be a newsroom in charge of assisting and training in-house editors, some having no previous reporting experience, as much as a real life teaching field for future journalists. These will include a group of students within another partnership with Brno's Masaryk University, in the second largest Czech town.

Nase adresa's approach could also become a school case due to the organization of the newsroom. "I like how the Futuroom is shaped. Journalists are not confined to one theme, like health or education, but to a way of reporting, and I enjoy changing topics," says Vendula Krizova, reporter in the "Human approach team" and young (25) like many of her new colleagues. Adds Radim Klekner, 50, who joined the "Institutional team" - after working for 10 different newsrooms - to do researches on European Union institutions in particular: "Vertical structures dominate in traditional newspapers, while in Nase adresa it is more horizontal. In my case, for instance, I will be covering many European issues based on the Czech reality."


Klekner had some doubts initially, however, because he has been covering foreign news in the past 15 years.  Why would he join a hyperlocal news project as an international editor, then? "There is a need for benchmarking with other European countries in all aspects of the Czech society, and with Nase adresa I will be able to give a EU presence in the remotest Czech villages", he believes. "Our role is to assess general issues like the lack of general practitioners in the country, compared to others, and connect them to specific cases brought up by the local newsrooms."
 

 
Local journalists with long intensive experience covering their community are also convinced they are working for an innovative project. Vitasek, in Olomouc, even tried a hyperlocal news concept on his own five years ago, called Olomoucky Tydenik. "It was a weekly published on Mondays and strong on local sports, like Nase adresa. We had to stop it after one year, but this time I have with me a 10-people team supported by PPF and by the Futuroom managers and trainers. Our office, in a central strategic area of Olomouc, will be a space for constant direct contact with readers and potential contributors."

Based on her 30 year experience in local journalism, Hana Vojtova, 52, the chief editor of the Teplice newspoint, in the north Bohemian city near the border with east Germany, also believes Nase adresa is a new improvement for community journalism: "We will get nearer to the people from the region, who are tired of politics and want to be informed on human interest stories," explains Vojtova, whose district is dramatically affected by problems like crime and unemployment. "We are going to cover better our readers's activities and their dreams!"
 

 
The project has attracted several other seasoned editors from all backgrounds, including Jiri Zavozda, 50, Nase adresa's head of the copy editing team. He just finished a seven year experience in major private television "Prima", as news editor-in-chief, after working more than a decade for national newspapers. "The TV experience was good because it teaches you how to write short, but I prefer print because it is less superficial," says Zavozda. There are other reasons why he joined the Futuroom. "I see my in-laws, who live in a little village in Moravia and who have only access to media not specifically targeted to them, national daily Mlada Fronta, newsweekly Tyden and the television. Only Nase adresa will inform them well on the Sunday afternoon firemen team's competitions, which are particularly popular in the Czech republic. We will get spectacular photos of fires being extinguished!"

Adds Peter Sabata, 48, the editor-in-chief responsible for the local newsroom: "I strongly believe in the hyperlocal level of information, with the combination of newspoints, and print, online journalism. The weekly will be a bridge from now to the near future, when everybody in the regions will be connected." Sabata just moved back to the Czech republic after eight years at the head of national Slovak paper Pravda's newsroom.

 
Other Nase adresa team members are particularly enthusiastic because of the new challenges specific to a project combining teaching and praxis, online and print journalism, so far never achieved at such a level. Ondrej Besperat, 31, who manages the photo-video team in a duo with veteran photojournalist Jan Silpoch, is well aware of the differences between shooting for a newspaper or for a website. Before joining the Futuroom, he was a photographer for national daily Hospodarske Noviny and then worked for Aktualne.cz, the successful, Internet-only Czech media outlet. "In printed media, you have to do one or two pictures a day, and you invest all your energy in the best one, while in Internet, you try more different perspectives as you know that several pictures are likely to be released for each story."

Besperat anticipates he is likely to spend two third of his time training reporters from the local newsrooms, at the beginning at least. "One of the main challenges will be to shoot sport with our standard high-end amateur cameras," he says. "The idea is not to have journalists who do everything all the time, but reporters who are multifunctional, able to provide good texts and images."

 
Nase adresa will also represent new challenges beyond the expertise usually expected from  journalists, especially for the local chief editors who will have to look after a coffee shop part of their time. "Ten years ago I had a short experience working for Coca Cola, but this will be new because I am not at all a food and beverage specialist," laughs Vitasek, in Moravia. Krizova, who is glad to cover very diverse topics, is also ready for another type of special assignment as a young reporter. She will be asked to take care of children visiting the Futuroom - turned into a "Junioroom" or "media camp" - to learn how to write an article or produce a video footage.


PPF Media's project will be preparing new generations of journalists and not just showing new forms of getting and providing the news.
 

BACKGROUND
The Czech Republic is a country of 10 million people living in 14 regions subdivided in 75 districts in total. Until 20 years ago, only the government and Communist Party related entities could publish newspapers. This was also the case for the regional dailies, and for more local publications at district or town levels. German group Verlagsgruppe Passau took over most of them in 1990 and after, under its Czech branch Vltava-Labe-Press which currently controls over 10 weeklies and over 70 dailies called Denik ("daily", followed by the name of the concerned locality). Nase adresa will have no direct competitors except in a few cases, because its editions will typically cover areas of 20-30,000 people while Denik and its affiliates are designed for larger groups, of over 100,000 inhabitants on average.

The LA Times and Chicago Tribune have revealed that they will begin to combine their foreign operations. Both publications are owned by the Tribune Co. and according to an LA Times press release, the move is in order "to provide Tribune papers and websites with the enterprising overseas coverage that has brought such distinction to both news organizations".

For the most part the joint operation will be run from Los Angeles where the majority of editorial staff are currently based, but in consultation with editors from the Chicago Tribune and other sister newspapers. The operation's staff will consist of Times and Tribune correspondents "strategically based around the world, who will emphasize original reporting delivered in a unique voice for print and online audiences".

IHT correspondent Anand Giridharadas discussed the interesting development that due to increasing Internet usage, "foreign correspondents no longer cover one place for the exclusive benefit of readers somewhere else." The possibility to access multiple news sources online means that people do not any more just read the news specifically targeted at them, but can read news written for readers on the other side of the world. Hence, a foreign correspondent's audience has changed significantly: they are not just writing for people "somewhere else," rather "the reported-on are among the most avid consumers of what we report."

He cites Google Trends statistics which show that the phrases "new york times India" and "Washington post India" are searched eight times as much in India, proportionally, as they are in the US. He contrasts this with the situation just 25 years ago when correspondents' work would just appear in the country it was commissioned from, while the populations in question remained "for the most part oblivious to what was being said about them."

The Tribune Co. is considering buying its foreign and international coverage from the Washington Post, reported the Wall Street Journal, in a deal that could mean the closure of dozens of Tribune bureaus.  

According to the WSJ, talks between Tribune and the Post Co. have been under way for more than a month but no agreement has been reached.  The move could save the Tribune Co. millions of dollars a year.  As the company is currently operating under bankruptcy protection, this sounds particularly appealing.  

Other papers are also looking at cost-saving measures for the coverage of news outside their territories.  The New York Daily News has decided to use new international news website GlobalPost for its foreign news coverage, and according to the Gannett Blog, the company is testing a service to replace some Associated Press news stories on websites of its 84 US community newspapers.  The idea is that the AP stories would be replaced by stories from Gannett-owned USA Today, saving up to a million dollars a year.

Source: Wall Street Journal, Gannett Blog

The Chinese government announced plans to aggressively expand its presence in the international media.  The government plans to spend $6.6 billion to "improve China's image with foreign viewers," according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Each of China's three state-run media giants Central China Television, Xinhua News Agency and the People's Daily, will receive $2.2 billion.  Propaganda chief Liu Yunshan stated, "It has become an urgent strategic task for us to make our communication capability match our international status".

McClatchy Co. and the Christian Science Monitor will start sharing stories by their foreign correspondents for a three-month trial period.  The agreement allows both parties to share for both print and online.

According to a statement released by McClatchy, "the agreement will run for three months, at which time both parties will evaluate it and decide whether to continue the sharing agreement, to terminate it or to expand it."

Nicolas Kristof, of the New York Times, recently posted in his On the Ground blog, "Here at The New York Times, we still have all of our foreign bureaus -- partly because our strategy is to compete for readers who seek international news and analysis -- but most newspapers and TV networks have been pulling back. Only four American newspapers now have foreign desks."

Demotix, a new citizen journalism site, has been launched to fill the gap created when the vast majority of news outlets rely on press releases and wire services.

The site, somewhat uniquely, is trying to position itself as an intermediary for photojournalists, a source bank where media outlets can select images, buy them (for between $80-$1,600) and the site splits the revenue from the photo with the citizen photographer who uploaded it.

Source: On the Ground, New York Times blog

After Zoriah Miller was "disembedded" from his Marine unit in Iraq, following the publication of graphic photos of a suicide bombing, the New York Times questions "what some journalists say is a growing effort by the American military to control graphic images from the war."

Miller, in fact, was surprised by the attention the image received, noting that his were not photographs of exceptional circumstances. They were, "photographs of something that happens every day all across the country." Miller continued, "the fact that these photos have been so incredibly shocking to people, says that whatever they are doing to limit this type of photo getting out, it is working."
 
"If the conflict in Vietnam was notable for open access given to journalists -- too much, many critics said, as the war played out nightly in bloody newscasts -- the Iraq war may mark an opposite extreme," notes NYT. "After five years and more than 4,000 American combat deaths, searches and interviews turned up fewer than a half-dozen graphic photographs of dead American soldiers."

By a recent count, just six Western photographers are covering the war in which 150,000 American troops are engaged.

When the War in Iraq reached its fifth anniversary in March - it didn't make the front page in many American papers. The decreased coverage, of course, is in response to a range of issues - a public weary of the war, costs of maintaining foreign bureaus for economically ailing papers, journalists' safety - but increasingly, embed restrictions - or retribution even against photographs abiding by the rules - is an issue.

According to NYT, "New embed rules were adopted in the spring of 2007 that required written permission from wounded soldiers before their image could be used, a near impossibility in the case of badly wounded soldiers... While embed restrictions do permit photographs of dead soldiers... in practice, photographers say, the military has exacted retribution on the rare occasions that such images have appeared. In four out of five cases that The New York Times was able to document, the photographer was immediately kicked out of his or her embed following publication of such photos."

Further, in many cases, the military has simply restricted access to combat. When Franco Pagetti tried to cover heavy figting in Baghdad's Sadr City in April 2008, "The commander there refused to let me in... He said it was unsafe. I know it's unsafe, there's a war going on. It was unsafe when I got to Iraq in 2003, but the military did not stop us from working. Now, they are stopping us from working."

Sources: Editor & Publisher, The New York Times

Following the Wall Street Journal's Wednesday announcement that 50 staff positions would be eliminated, mostly in copyediting and page production, Jim Pensiero, the Journal's Deputy Managing Editor, sent a note to staffers outlining details of the new desk structure. The changes are calendared to take place in mid-August.

Below follows an excerpted version of Pensiero's note:

The key changes include:

·  Daily news operations will be run by four deputy managing editors: National, International, Page One and Features.

· News-editing and news-production duties are divided into four broad areas: News and Page One desks, and Personal Journal and Weekend Journal.

· All reporting bureaus report to one of the top editors

·  Four shared support groups-Design, Photo, Infographics and Prepress-will serve all desks and sections.

Key managment positions for the restructuring:

· Senior Deputy Managing Editor - Features: Senior deputy to the managing editor; responsible for features sections, including Personal Journal, Weekend Journal, Journal Reports and the WSJ magazine.

Works with: National, International and Page One editors.
Controls: Personal and Weekend Journal, Journal Reports and the magazine.
Reports to: Managing editor.

· Deputy Managing Editor - National: Together with DME/International, jointly manages the News Desk hub. Directs corporate, political and general news coverage in North America for all channels. Responsible for all U.S. news bureaus.

Works with: International, Markets and Page One desks, and Features operations.
Controls: Domestic bureaus, Corporate and National desks, News Desk hub.
Reports to: Managing editor.

· Deputy Managing Editor - International: Together with DME/National, jointly manages the News Desk hub. Directs international corporate, markets, political and general news coverage for all channels. Manages foreign news bureaus and Money team.

Works with: National and Page One desks, and with Features operations.
Controls: Foreign bureaus, Money reporters and Markets desk, and News Desk hub.
Reports to: Managing editor.

· Deputy Managing Editor - Page One: Responsible for feature and investigative articles for all channels.

Works with: News and Features desks.
Controls: Investigative bureaus, including in DC, and the Page One desk.
Reports to: Managing editor.

Shared Desks:

· Design Desk: A Design Desk will ensure design integrity across the Journal, help in load leveling as well as perform pagination and layout functions for the overseas editions, pages for partner papers and some Barron's pages. The team includes headcut illustrators as well as the color lab for processing images.

· Picture Desk: Perform photo research and assignment tasks for all desks. It also manages the Journal's photo contracts.

· Information Graphics Desk: The team researches and builds interactive and print graphics for all sections of the Journal, including databases and other stand-alone projects.

· Prepress: Perform final quality control on Journal and Barron's pages and ensure they arrive at print sites.

Source: Editor & Publisher

Part 1 discussed how the planned changes at The New York Times and International Herald Tribune will help the NYT's continuous news offerings, and how these changes could affect the organization and interaction between both newsrooms.

Part 2 examines how The New York Times intends to:
- Further compete against the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal internationally, and ways in which newspapers can reinforce their international reach.
- Use the strength of its online brand while safeguarding the IHT's popular print brand name.

The Weblog spoke to Jim Roberts, Digital Editor at The New York Times, and Martin Gottlieb, who was appointed to the newly created position of Editor, Global Edition.

How newspapers can become international brands, the NYT joins the race

Until now, the Times hasn't specifically catered to overseas advertisers and readers.

"We need to be agile," said IHT publisher Stephen Dunbar-Johnson, "to compete much more aggressively, nose to nose, with The Financial Times, Wall Street Journal and anybody else who is competing for our readers and advertisers."

No doubt that the Times actually borrowed the continuous news outpost idea from the aforementioned competitors, which have been relying on their foreign bureaus to provide round the clock coverage.

The staff memo reaffirmed the NYT's "ambitious plans to expand in the region (Asia), particularly in India." In June, the IHT announced a partnership with the India-based Deccan Chronicle to print the Tribune's world business section in the Financial Chronicle.

With the rise of digital publishing, many news organizations are seeking to grow a previously inaccessible international readership by:

- launching a print edition abroad: several papers have rolled out editions away from home this past year, such as the FT's recently launched Middle East edition in Abu Dhabi, WSJ's partnership with business paper Mint in India, the Daily Mail's partnership with India Today to publish the Mail Today, or The Times of London's Polish edition.

- investing in an online international section: In Germany, referential weekly Der Spiegel launched an English-language International edition on its website in 2004. Five fulltime staffers are dedicated to translating Der Spiegel's content and rewriting it with an international perspective, as well as doing their own international-minded original reporting (the full case study is featured in Trends in Newsrooms 2008). The Guardian adopted a different approach, by launching a separate, foreign-based, US website, Guardian America. The Guardian is reportedly considering similar ventures in other regions.

- simply reinforcing their focus on international news in their regular coverage: the Daily Telegraph's website in the UK, which was neck to neck with the Guardian in terms of traffic in April, claims nearly two thirds of its visitors are from overseas. A well-indexed website helps to brings in a significant number of 'light' international users through search engines.

Merging "co-branded" websites but not print: a branding issue

The NYT's approach is a combination of the first two strategies: the print IHT now serves as The Times' 'global edition' (see picture), while maintaining its trademark brand name. With the proposed online merger, the NYT could also follow the second route, by hosting an international edition online, without having to extensively change its workflows (see Part 1).

The rationale to merge the websites is clearly explained in the memo: according to WebTrends, NYT's website boasts a strong international audience and 58 million global users, compared to iht.com's seven million.

"The global landscape for online news is highly competitive, making scale, speed and resources essential to success. Therefore we have determined that the best future online for the IHT and the NYT globally is through a joint international presence," said the memo.

However, the memo doesn't explicitly say why this won't be the case in print:

"The IHT should become the international print edition of the NYT, whether it is formally branded that way or not."

The main issue at stake is one of branding. "In print, there have been at least a couple of studies that show that among Tribune newspaper readers there is a great identification with the brand, that the brand means something to readers," said Gottlieb.

"More than the name, what accompanies the name, an international perspective, a sense of calling the best stories from The Times and augmenting them with unique reporting," was a combination that many readers liked.

As news organizations seek to grow their international reach, this consideration probably holds true for many that have established a reputable brand name on a local or national scale. However strong the brand name, its association with a particular place or country can potentially play against that news outlet on the international scene.

Source: New York Times - Media Bistro - Jim Roberts, Digital Editor The New York Times - Martin Gottlieb, Editor, Global Edition

Newspapers have always tended to follow an assembly-line model for news in which information traveled from sources, through more hands, and eventually to the readers. But Washington Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie and Managing Editor Philip Bennett  are implementing changes in their editing model so that it resembles more of a network, "responding to how journalism is actually created, distributed and discovered by audiences in print and online."

On March 14, they sent out a memo outlining innovations in the editing process for the A section, which will eventually spread across the newsroom:

Goals:
- Remove layers of editing by providing more flexibility of when and by whom a story is edited
- Create a truer alignment between print and web articles by recognizing that deadlines for many pieces are defined at the earliest moment they can be edited and published online
- Strengthen collaboration among editors to change how a story, graphic, or photograph goes in the paper

Plan:
- New assistant editors moved from National and Foreign copy desks to take on new roles to begin earlier in the day. They will move early copy to the web and for the next day's paper, provide the first read on some stories and the final edit on others, compose working headlines, collaborate with the News Desk to assign stories to pages earlier than our current practices allow, amd copy edit projects and non-breaking enterprise stories.
 
- A new night desk, comprised of the copy desks of National and Foreign, that will copy edit breaking news, write or refine headlines and captions, and proofing, and edit fewer columns than is currently the case, since more stories will receive final editing during the day.
 
- New copy flows by shifting the editing of feature stories, non-breaking enterprise pieces and projects to daylight hours and having assistant editors and assignment editors work together to ensure that non-breaking enterprise stories are edited by early afternoon. Deadlines for non-breaking foreign stories from bureaus across the world will no longer be 6 p.m. Washington time.

- Earlier decisions to end the practice of assigning and laying out every page on our late night deadlines. The News Desk will assign early pages shortly after noon to accommodate edited pieces. A1 decision-making to be advanced by selecting at least one non-breaking story by 3 p.m, and A1 features and enterprises stories will be planned days in advance,

- Fewer "touches" on some stories. Many stories will be handled under a "two touch" rule; they will have a first editor and a second editor instead of 6 editors. Read more here.

- New tools for assignment editors. By collaborating with assistant editors during the day, assignment editors will have greater flexibility in determining their daily editing schedules, avoiding bottlenecks and late edits on routine stories. In addition to supervising their reporters, assignment editors will advance the editing process by doing more fact-checking, and (along with assistant editors) composing working headlines for pieces. Working headlines will also be welcome from reporters when they file.

The editing changes is slated to coincide with the launch of the redesign of the A section pages, which will coordinate new design elements and templated pages with the copy flow and consultative process the plan introduces for editing.

"In the long run, changing the editing structure of the newsroom means transforming some long-held newsroom practices and parts of our culture," the memo concludes. "Most importantly, it calls on us to communicate even more openly and directly with one another as stories are assigned, reported and written."
 
Read the full memo here.

Source: Slate

While delivering this year's Hugo Young memorial lecture, Bill Keller, the executive editor of The New York Times gave a stern warning that the supply of reliable news is severely declining, despite the increase of information on the Web.

Seven ABC newsroom journalists have taken on posts in Nairobi; Jakarta, Indonesia; Mumbai and New Delhi, India; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Seoul, South Korea; and Dubai, United Arab Emirates this fall. These seven reporters have become one-man foreign bureaus.

Many US news organizations have taken a major step back from the international scene, deciding to become more local in their content. The Associated Press, however, has been expanding its international reach, providing vital reports.

The House of Lords Select Committee on Communications traveled to New York to interview New York Daily News publisher, Mort Zuckerman as part of their inquiry for media ownership.  Zuckerman told the committee that he is trying to develop new online business models for his newspaper but is just “substituting pennies for dollars.”

The Miami Sun-Sentinel killed its National / Foreign department. The few editors and single reporter will be reassigned to other positions, to “"emphasize local, useful, and helpful content across the newsroom," said the paper in an announcement. Will this improve editorial quality though?

ABC News is creating one-person foreign bureaus to boost its coverage in Africa and India, among other places. The foreign reporter-producer will be equipped with the latest in hand-held digital technology, which will supposedly enable the staffer to run all the bureau’s operations.

In a move to fully integrate print and online news operations, unify international news coverage and put the feature sections under one editor, Dow Jones & Co. is shuffling editors at the Wall Street Journal. The newly assigned roles are to take effect in July and editors will report to Marcus W. Brauchli, new managing editor of the Wall Street Journal and the one responsible for the changes.

Politico founder Jim VandeHei says that the future of journalism lies in niche content, not large general interest papers. He does not, however, reject print: Politico itself makes almost all its revenue from its print edition.

The 4th State of the News Media report, presented yesterday, found that the journalism business is entering a new phase, one of “more limited ambition.” Newspapers have come to realize the changing implications of this new era, but in the absence of clear solutions, may need a visionary industry savior.

As newspapers’ foreign bureaus are dismantled and foreign correspondents dismissed, Gelf Magazine considers the misleading messages that can result from foreign coverage. Especially as newspapers often rely on local reporters and translators, with little oversee of their activity.

As US newspapers shut down their foreign bureaus to concentrate on local issues and cut costs, one may worry about the consequences on foreign coverage and the future of foreign correspondents’ role. There are alternatives though, and quality foreign journalism is as possible as it is important.

Stephen G. Smith, former head of the Houston Chronicle’s Washington Bureau, is leaving in order to become editor for the Washington Examiner, a two-year-old freesheet. Just why?

The Boston Globe announced that it is closing its three foreign bureaus in order to cut costs, after over 30 years of international and overseas reporting. Things are starting to go too far.

Following cuts equally one third of the newsroom staff over the past six years by owner Tribune, over 100 editorial staff have written an open letter to the company chairman, Dennis Fitzsimmons.  They claim the profit first strategy has backfired financially and has had serious editorial consequences for Newsday.