Results matching “europe font col”

Instructions on Webinar usage                     Webinars Archives                     Back to Main Menu

France's Le Figaro is to launch the New York Times supplement the Times International Weekly, taking over from national daily Le Monde, which recently cut the liftout in order to save costs.

Le Monde intitated the agreement with the Times out of a desire to have more international information following the September 11 attacks and has published the supplement every Saturday in English since April 2002.

Two German entrepreneurs are setting up a new kind of home delivered newspaper among worldwide news print failures. On November 16^th the brave young businessmen are venturing into the industry with an innovative newspaper service - the first of its kind in Europe - at arguably the worst time, and for a limited Berlin-only market. But its very unorthodoxy, the essence Wanja Oberhof's and Hendrik Tiedmann's Niiu personalized newspaper, could be its saving grace.

Niiu Beginnings

The Niiu started with an idea, two and a half years ago, ultimately about information convenience. Having grown up in a newspaper-reading household, Mr. Oberhof became used to reading multiple papers to pursue the news and information he was interested in.  Having to juggle multiple national, local, and international papers to find one's interests would inevitably become a chore, especially vis-à-vis the speed and convenience of internet news. The same behavioral phenomenon is in fact the very reason why the internet seems to be ruining traditional newspapers; people, especially young adults and students, are tending find their news and information from a variety of sources on the internet rather than a single source that marked the newspaper's monopoly and success in the 20^th century. 

Oberhof's resulting idea was simple and clear: an individualized newspaper, composed of selected pages and sections from papers, delivered each morning to one's door just like a regular paper. This combination of paper format and internet convenience and accessibility found Oberhof a business partner in Hendrik Tiedmann, who shared the same idea. Together they founded InterTi GmbH, Niuu's parent company, funded out of their own pockets, and began doing their homework.

"The whole idea was based on our own behavior research and experience; [as young people] we're used to very different information sources. The main idea was to combine all the varying sources of news and information, because it is normal for young people who have grown up with the internet to have not one source of information but many," Mr. Obherof said in a telephone interview with The Editor's Weblog. But why a newspaper format? Surely a less risky and lower-cost alternative would be setting up a personal news aggregator.

Oberhof disagrees. "We asked this target group which is the most comfortable and which is the best distribution channel; is it an e-paper, is it only on mobile, is it printed or online? The feedback was that for now, paper is still the best distribution channel." Hence the simple combination of the internet and printed paper that is the essence of Niiu.

Interestingly, the founders have no particular allegiance to print, it just happens to be the currently favored distribution channel. "The vision that we offer is all the information that is relevant for the reader. As a next step it is the reader's choice which distribution channel they will use, whether it's a mobile phone, e-paper, the internet, or whatever else." Their focus is information amalgamation and distribution, the particular channel being largely irrelevant and ultimately the client's choice. This is quite an unusual position for a company entering the print industry, which these days seems to require a great deal of faith.

What Niiu is and How it Works (The Technical Bit)

On the client's side the process is very simple. After signing up for a short-term subscription (more on that later), they have until 2 p.m. to choose their news sources for the following morning's paper. On Niiu's website they can select from a wide variety of publications and online sources; from national, local or international newspapers like the New York Times, or internet news sources and blogs. A 24-page personalized paper, researched from and composed of their choices, then appears on the subscriber's doorstep the next morning.

"At this first step, for the reader it is only possible to select whole pages or sections," says Oberhof. From newspapers the readers can select pages or sections, from the internet providers they choose from over 600 very diverse rss feeds, from "Women's tennis blogs to local garden pages, we have lots of special interest content available." Clients currently cannot access their personalized paper online, as this would basically defeat the purpose of the delivered print format.

On Oberhof and Tiedmann's side, however, things are a bit more complicated. It is no easy feat to compile, print, and distribute thousands of individual papers. Over the past two years, InterTi GmbH has had to create a specialized software for compiling sources and setting the layout, arrange digital printing deals, close licensing contracts with news sources, attract advertisers, create a new business model and work out delivery schedules. So how did they do all that?

"We outsource everything," says Oberhof. "We don't have an editorial team, we don't have the printing machines, we don't have a delivery structure; we have partners. First we had to create software, so we got a partner with a Swiss web and print specialist service. They produced our software that combines all the pages and articles and news for each reader into a print-ready .pdf that is sent to the digital printing machines from the Netherlands, and a German copy house takes care of the actual printing. Then we have an agreement with a Berlin delivery service that delivers all the international newspapers that will also now deliver Niiu." Given all this outsourcing and subcontracting, one wonders whether circulation revenue will cover the costs.

Luckily there is another revenue source, the very one that is ruining traditional papers, and where the Niiu shines most brightly: it offers a space for highly targeted advertising, something already optimistic advertisers will pay dearly for. At first, during the 'trial phase' of the first few months, advertising will be more general because the Niiu is new and won't have a large circulation. But with an expanded subscriber base ads will become more targeted, focusing on neighborhoods their corresponding socio-economic groups.

Oberhof is confident of his advertising model. "We have had large amounts of positive feedback from advertising clients, and they have several different ideas such as at first only distinguishing between male and female readers, then differentiating by neighborhood and age in Berlin. Some big German car players are interested and have said 'different cars for different people' based on the interests of the readers, like the family man being interested in the new X5 or the young student being shown the BMW 1." Who the people are and more particularly what their interests are would be clear from their choice of news sources for their Niiu's composition.

Ignoring that their proclaimed audience is exclusively young students and not old people and family men, this raises some questions about whether using personal information for advertising violates some privacy protections. But this is doubtful as various advertisers and distributors have used similar techniques for years: think about those supermarket coupon promotional catalogues, also known as 'junk mail,' which you might get at your front door. They differ per neighborhood using the same concept (in my experience, I got Pioneer Supermarket rice coupons up in Harlem, while my friends downtown got brochures for Citarella).

Of course, a paper cannot live on adverts alone. In terms of subscriptions, Niiu continues to be innovative. The subscription packages are aimed towards young readers and students, the paper's perennial target audience (and probably one of the more difficult market sectors to enter, especially in media and technology).

Mr. Oberhof explains: "We have several different packages, not a traditional subscription but a pre-paid system. You load up money for packages, like the one-day trial, or the longer-term packages over 25, 75 or 150 days. It's not a classical subscription at all, that's an important point for us, because many young people, according to our feedback, don't want a subscription for a year because they do not know where they will be in the near future, whether studying in a different city, or doing an international internship or living at home, so they want short-term packages." Currently Niiu is priced at €1.80 per issue, €1.20 for students.

Is this really a good way to build subscriber loyalty? There is a risk of high turnover, potentially running through the market potential before they get established. However this model makes sense for their target demographic. Personally I find this an appealing arrangement. Not really knowing where I will be in six months has prevented me from subscribing to my publications of choice, so I read online news while I would prefer the print editions.

Challenges

One of the biggest questions I had for Mr. Oberhof was regarding the licensing and use of articles and content from news providers. In the context of the current debate over paid online content and the associated problem of the cost of news and journalism, this is quite a pressing concern and I was most interested in what Niiu's arrangements were. Surprisingly, it was unsurprising and rather simple.

Niiu has a contract with each newspaper and online provider, in which "we have a little license fee which we pay for every used page," Oberhof explains. The licenses, and thus the copies of Niiu itself, are based on pages: "we pay a fixed fee for each page we use...because we take one-to-one pages from each newspaper," meaning the pages of Niiu are exact replicas of the original page from the source. This setup will be the working model for the first few trial months.

"The newspapers give us access to everything they have. That means every page and article that is used in the New York Times we can have the next day in Niiu," although details on how blogs and internet sources would be presented are a bit fuzzy. It would be safe to assume that they would appear in Niiu as they would in your browser, albeit reformatted and resized.

An obvious question regards how newspaper publishers feel about Niiu and why they would allow access to their articles, when this could very well cannibalize their own sales. While some certainly think so, the majority of publishers approached by Oberhof and Tiedmann have embraced the idea and accepted licensing contracts.

"Most of [the news publishers] think it's an interesting new project for a target group which doesn't read much newspapers. The young people, the students, in Germany don't read that much newspaper so for [the newspaper publishers] it's an experience; they want to have a look at the feedback and to test it out. Most of them also don't think that we will take the long-term single paper reader away from them, since our audience is the reader who doesn't know which paper is right for them or likes a variety of news sources," Oberhof asserts.

So, in theory, there is no direct competition because they target different audiences. However, the Niiu provides the same service as the internet but in print form; it is hard to see why publishers who would blame the internet and the news aggregators (which is basically what Niiu is doing) as the newspaper's bane would embrace that service in their own industry.

Some industry experts are not so optimistic. Joachim Blum, a digital media consultant, voices 'considerable doubts' over Niiu's future. He says the idea is interesting, but it just won't work because the target audience has left paper behind: "People who read newspapers are office workers, not students," Blum tells Spiegel Online. This is similar to the problem discussed above, where it seems that the assumption has been made that students who are used to getting news quickly and for free online will suddenly start paying for it to be physically manifested; they surely won't be paying for the service, as they can do it themselves. They would therefore be paying for the physical product, the newspaper, and its aesthetic appeal. But we all know how fickle young people and students are when it comes to aesthetics.

Another issue is more topical as to how Niiu relates to traditional newspaper and the internet, its status in between and bridging these media forms. For all its supposed innovation, "Niiu shares the same dilemma of print journalism in the age of the Internet: every paper you read in the morning only contains yesterday's news," says Stephan Weichert, a journalism professor at the Macromedia University of Applied Sciences in Hamburg. "The Web offers news every second and gives the option to link to blogs and other websites. Why would people read and even buy a story or information, which they select on the Internet the day before? It's old-school journalism," he tells Time. Again, the same underlying problem is pointed out; the combination of paper and internet has great potential, but it also combines the weak points of both and confuses the primary audiences of both mediums.

Time will tell whether these criticisms will stand or whether Niiu will live up to its potential.

The Future!

For the time being it seems like the main challenges for Oberhof and Tiedmann have been surmounted. They are looking forward to the November 16^th launch, for the time being to serve Berlin only. The circulation scope for now is limited because of the high quality but rather slow digital printing. "You can't compare it to a classical offset machine that could print 200,000 copies of Niiu in an hour; our digital printers can only do about 2000 in an hour," Oberhof explains. "That means it is not possible to deliver from one printing machine to several cities, so we start in Berlin. But obviously it's planned to expand to other cities in Germany and Europe," if the paper gets off the ground with the aim of around 5000 subscribers by the first 6 months.

However Oberhof knows there is much to be done, and that the work is far from finished. "For the next month the biggest challenge will be whether the whole work flows as we want it to. The first actual non-test paper will [hopefully] have around 5000 subscribers and this will be a lot to handle since every newspaper is individual. We might not actually know or can't imagine what the real work flow will be, what will come, and that's definitely the hardest thing." Meanwhile, he already has plans for future products and services once Niiu gets going and is established in the market.

Oberhof and Tiedmann's mission is more about giving the market what it wants, i.e. providing whatever information the reader desires in whatever format they prefer, rather than innovating the newspaper industry (which seems to be a side effect of their project). So if the market preference shifts, so will their products and services.

Having recognized that newspaper may only be around for so long, InterTi GmbH is planning "to offer an e-paper as a second step, probably by the end of this year," Oberhof revealed. Other editions are in the works, but no plans have been formally announced given that the formal launch is still a few days away. "For the future, I think that things like the Kindle will be very interesting for our product developments, but for now its not actually enough, not many people use e-readers at all," Oberhof confides. However, given the company's service-oriented vision, we can reasonably expect an e-reader version once the market for them takes off.

Whether you think newspapers are doomed or just in a rough spot right now, there is no denying the simple ingenuity and appeal (however limited) of Niiu. Its combination of the strengths (and unfortunately some of the weaknesses) of printed news and online news could make it a product to be reckoned with, even for those newspaper publishers who feel no competition from it. The potential for newspaper innovation through individualization is huge, and it remains to be seen whether Niiu will capitalize and profit from that potential

The Editor's Weblog wishes the best of luck to Oberhof and Tiedmann. It is now up to the Berlin public to decide the fate of Niiu.

Mr. Wanja Oberhof will be speaking at the WAN 2009 16th World Editors Forum in Hyderabad

Sources: Personal interview with Mr. Oberhof.

Spiegel Online

PrintWeek

Time

One third of 16-24 year olds would not be prepared to pay anything at all to download of view online content such as music or videos, according to the European Commission's Digital Competitiveness report. This figure is twice the EU average for all age groups.

If many young people are not willing to pay for entertainment content like music and videos, is there hope that they will pay for news online? Is the idea that content online should be free too firmly entrenched in the younger generation? Many publishers seem to be making moves to charge online: is it going to work?

The BBC and others reported that L'Espresso media group, publisher of Italy's second largest-selling newspaper La Repubblica, is suing Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. The group is suing for defamation following Berlusconi's description of the paper as 'subversive.'

L'Espresso's complaints have been lodged with a Milan court, according to a statement. The group said that the prime minister had attacked the paper in a speech last month to Italian entrepreneurs, discouraging them from buying advertising space in the "subversive" newspaper. L'Espresso also accused Berlusconi of abuse of office and flouting market rules.

The second day of the Logan Symposium at UC Berkeley had a panel devoted to the future of investigative journalism, considering "recently it has not been a high priority for editors and publishers," due to the time, money and energy that goes into it.

The discussions involved different leaders in the field such as Robert Rosenthal of the Center for Investigative Reporting, and Buzz Woolley, chairman of the board and primary funder of Voice of San Diego. The air was relatively optimistic as the speakers focused on collaboration as the key to the future of investigative journalism.

Bill Keller of the New York Times commented, "I don't think investigative journalism will go away, and there is emerging media that will be partly profit, partly non-profit, partly collaborative, partly competitive, mainly online". Robert Rosenthal was hopeful: "Last year I said the business model for newspapers was toast. Now I believe that collaboration is going to be very important for profit and nonprofit journalism". Esther Kaplan, of The Nation Institute Investigative Fund says that partnerships in the field "are in their infancy" and they take a lot of work to happen. "We should consider a lot more, like joint investigation sites, shared technology for micro-financing," she added.

It is a common belief that well-researched, in-depth investigative journalism is in danger as newspapers worldwide are forced to cut costs in order to survive. By its very nature, investigative journalism is time-consuming, resources-consuming and not as likely to rake in readers as breaking news stories. But it is also one of the most crucial areas of journalism with regards to its impact, and necessary if the press is to maintain its vital role as watchdog over governments and powerful institutions in a democratic society, and therefore arguably essential to save. Guardian writers Bruce Ackerman and Ian Iyres recently wrote that solutions to the newspapers industry's woes should focus exclusively on "the collapse of investigative journalism, not the fate of particular delivery systems." The Editors Weblog spoke to Brigitte Alfter, director of a new European fund, which is doing just that.

The European Fund for Investigative Journalism was launched last week, as a project run by the Belgian Pascal Decroos Fund, although it hopes to become a separate entity in the future. It seems as if there is an increasing need to fund investigative reporting separately from other forms of journalism. "Media is in a time of change," explained director Brigitte Alfter, "and recently investigative journalism has not been a high priority for editors and publishers." So the Fund aims to fill this gap, to "keep the quality up." Europe has been lagging behind the US in terms of finding alternative ways to fund investigative journalism: the US boasts national non-profit investigative reporting outfit ProPublica and local operations such as the VoiceOfSanDiego or MinnPost, as well as more established funds such as the Fund for Investigative Journalism. Why this is the case is not immediately clear and would require some research, but Alfter suggested that part of the reason was America's "strong philanthropic tradition, that we don't have in Europe." It is also possible that the number of newspaper readers has fallen faster in the US, due to more widespread internet usage, among other things, and therefore newspapers have been less able to fund such investigative journalism themselves.

"In Europe we can see that politics, business, even organised crime all cross borders, while journalists and their coverage are often focussed purely on a national target group and are reluctant to cross borders"

The Fund will seek to promote European investigative journalism that crosses national borders, which Alfter sees as a very important aspect of such a project, and one that has not so far been emphasised enough. "In Europe we can see that politics, business, even organised crime all cross borders, while journalists and their coverage are often focussed purely on a national target group and are reluctant to cross borders," Alfter explained. Along this lines, the grants should provide enough money for the travel and translation costs that such a multi-country story would generate. Stories would be published on a national level, in the countries of those journalists who have contributed, and excerpts or even full stories will appear on the fund's website.

The plan is to invite proposals for stories on a quarterly basis. The first round of funding is 20,000 euros, provided by Norwegian foundation for freedom of expression, Fritt Ord. The proposals will be assessed by a four-member jury, who will serve for two years and remain anonymous throughout this time. Their anonymity is intended to be a kind of buffer that would mean that they cannot be influenced in their choices, and hence strengthen the credibility of the organisation, believes Alfter. She stressed the care that the fund has taken to make the criteria for choosing pieces public and transparent. Stories which give added value to mainstream coverage will be valued highly, as will those which have relevance to society, and those which involve collaboration between colleagues. One of the issues with investigative journalism is its lack of immediate newsworthiness, and Alfter explained that newsworthiness is not one of the most important criteria that the jury will be looking for. She commented that rather, she hopes that the outcome and impact of stories would be news in itself.

Investigative journalism is evidently more likely to succeed in attracting funding as it represents public interests, and society could suffer significantly without it. If the non-profit, endowed model of news-gathering is to become more prevalent, it is very possible that it would primarily support investigative reporting, to protect it from economic difficulty. Brigitte Alfter expressed her hope that one day the traditional media will once again find enough money to fund a suitable amount of investigative journalism, and explained that she would be delighted if this fund could serve as an inspiration for that. But for now, it appears that it must be funded separately, and she and her team are focussed on providing an impetus to European journalists to take on projects that "go beyond the day-to-day agenda and thus live up to one particular task of journalism, which is to be a watchdog and to provide relevant information to the public debate, that otherwise would not have got out." Hopefully, they will succeed.

Following Getty Images' decision to close its citizen journalism arm Scoopt, the venture's founder Kyle MacRae explained in an interview why "the dedicated cit-j agency model isn't the way forward." His reasoning was that even though many members of the public may well be on a breaking news scene with a camera, it is extremely unlikely that they will be a member of a citizen photojournalism organisation. But has Citizenside, a small, young company based in Paris, found a solution? The Editors Weblog spoke to co-founder Matthieu Stefani and editor-in-chief Aurélien Viers about Citizenside's work and the way they see the future of citizen photojournalism.

Citizenside operates in two different ways. On its own site, it functions in a similar way to other agencies: it gathers photos from its community - 35,000 members, close to 7,000 of which are active - which are published after thorough checking of the photos' validity. Staff receive 500-600 images a day, and those which pass the checking are categorised into sections such as headlines, showbiz, or unusual, or gathered into portfolios with others along the same theme or about the same event. Media outlets can purchase the photos from Citzenside, with up to 75% of the price going to the contributor. Agence France Presse owns a 34% stake of Citizenside, and is currently trialling incorporating the company's amateur images into its image forums, where any of the news agency's 7000 partners would be able to buy them. Content is clearly labelled as amateur, and Citizenside stressed the importance of differentiating the work of 'citizens' from that of professionals.

AFP is currently trialling incorporating Citizenside's amateur pictures into its image forums where any of its 7000 partners can buy them

Staff are proactive about finding images, "we don't just wait for people to send them," explained Stefani. Their kit allows them to locate users within a certain radius of any given spot, so if something happens which they want to know more about, they can send out an email requesting photos. "We send 3 or 4 of these a day," Stefani clarified. The company tries to avoid receiving photographs straight from mobile phones via MMS as the quality is poor and it is much harder to check an image's authenticity. Developers have however released an iPhone application, and are looking at launching similar products for Blackberry and  Google's Android phone. Staff also provide feedback when contributors send in images that cannot be used.

Mainstream Media success through factchecking

Citizenside photos have recently been on the cover of French daily Liberation, and in Le Point magazine and Le Figaro magazine, so the company is making a name for itself. The Liberation photo was of a snow storm, and Viers explained how a storm was a good example of an instance when citizen photo reporting really works: anybody can be a witness and as it might be harder to travel, professional photographers will not necessarily be able to cover the whole storm effectively. He added that Citizenside members were definitely not trying to play the role of reporters, rather they are "news witnesses."

One of the ways in which Citzenside differs from other sites that gather user photos and video, such as self-declared "unedited, unfiltered" CNN's iReport, is that all images are checked for authenticity. The company's developers have created a tool through which users can send photos, and which provides various details to staff about each photo or video that they receive, such as the camera brand and model, the resolution, and the date the photo was taken. Crucially, the programme can also alert staff to whether a photo has been modified online. Using the sender's IP address, the tool also shows from where in the world images have been sent. With this information, Citizenside staff can get a pretty good idea of whether what the contributor has told them about the image is indeed true. "I think at the moment, we are the only company who can offer such a specialised tool for the media," Viers remarked, and Stefani explained that developers would continue to refine the product to make it more and more effective. If staff still have doubts, particularly in the case of major, potentially controversial stories, they will contact the sender directly via telephone or email. "We will double check, triple check, quadruple check if it is a big story," stressed Stefani. "If someone appears to be trying to mislead us, we will expel them from the community," he added.

"We will double check, triple check, quadruple check if it is a big story." 

This emphasis on checking the authenticity of the images significantly increases the value of Citizenside's service, as amateur content with no professional input can be relatively meaningless. Citizen journalism site The Observers offers a similar commitment to fact-checking, a trend which has the potential to bring citizen journalism closer to the mainstream media in terms of respectability. Stefani asserted that he believes it is the company's focus on "quality not quantity" which makes their service so appealing to clients.  "We don't believe in the idea that everybody is a journalist, just because they have a camera and a blog," underlined Viers. Rather what he believes works is a form of professional-amateur collaboration: "an association of bloggers, witnesses, journalists and editors."

A global citizen photo network?

The most crucial difference of Citizenside, however, is its mission to share its technology. Stefani explained that he and the other Citizenside founders quite quickly understood that, as Kyle MacRae pointed out, one agency alone will never be able to get an image from every breaking story. But what if many different publications all over the world each hosted their own UGC community that was managed by Citizenside? This is what Citizenside is aiming to do by offering its 'Reporter Kit' to traditional publications, sold via AFP. The tool was released in September 2008 and the first client to purchase it was Voici, a French gossip magazine. Citizenside is about to launch the same service for Public, one of Voici's rivals and is also in talks with one of France's biggest daily newspapers, a couple of regionals and one UK paper. The Voici community allows readers of the magazine to upload their images to the site, and if Voici decides to use them in its print magazine or on its main website, then it will pay the contributor, and Citizenside takes commission. If Voici would like to sell an image to another outlet, then Citizenside retains exclusive resell rights, and the profit will be split equally between Citizenside, the magazine and the contributor. Recently, for example, a video showing Hollywood star Lindsey Lohan being showered with flour by animal activists on her way into a Parisian club was sold to US TV channel Extra TV for a considerable sum. Stefani described how he plans for Citizenside's income to be based largely on this reselling of content, rather than on sale of the technology itself. Incidentally, a years' use of the Reporter Kit tool would start at about 13,000 euros, moving to upwards of 20,000 for premium tools and tailor-made development.

What if many different publications all over the world each hosted their own UGC community that was managed by Citizenside? 

Citizenside hopes to make the checking process easier and easier for its clients, for instance by developing a system which would make automatically judge an image's authenticity based on different variables and display a red or green light. Viers stressed that he sees citizen contributions as essential in today's media environment, if news organisations "ignore UGC they are going to make mistakes, and they are going to miss opportunities." Stefani explained that "we had a hard time being understood at first because journalists would just see us as competitors." But he insisted that rather than a competitor, Citizenside aims to be "a new tool, a new source of information." They believe that particularly in a local context, such a community could be extremely valuable to their clients, who would be able to forge better relations with readers, and provide a greater level of coverage. Viers pointed out that hyperlocal news is often incredibly important to people, and it gives citizen witnesses a real chance to flourish.

Dollars for amateurs

So Citizenside believes it has found the solution to the problems raised by Scoopt founder Kyle MacRae. Stefani brought up the example of the man with the first Hudson plane crash photo previously cited by MacRae, who argued that it was the man's instinct to share the photo rather than sell it, and that he was very unlikely to have heard of a citizen photojournalism project that would help him sell it. If Citizenside achieves its goal of establishing popular image sharing community sites for major newspapers, then in the future, a similar witness to an event may well think of sending such a photo to their favourite newspaper, where it would be shared amongst the community, but could also be sold for a significant amount of cash. The project has a great of deal of potential. Obviously, the company is still very small and is yet to break international barriers, though they hope to soon. Stefani admitted that they will need a cash injection if they are to expand beyond Europe into Asian or American markets. There is likely to be some resistance from more traditional media operations to the inclusion of amateur content in their publications, and it might take time to change mindsets.

But the current economic downturn could in fact benefit the rise of citizen journalism as news organisations look for cheaper ways to obtain coverage of events. Editor and Publisher recently ran a story on World Press Photo and Pulitzer prize winning photographer Anthony Suau, who is currently struggling to find work because media outlets do not have enough money to pay him. Using photos from readers is undoubtedly cheaper than employing prize-winning professional. Citizen photojournalism does make sense, if there is a way to prove that the photos are real. A reporter can write a story from afar, but you cannot take a photo from afar. And although many photos will not be of the quality of those taken by experienced photojournalists, professionals cannot be everywhere at once, and taking advantage of the camera-armed public is definitely better than nothing.

Photo credits: Laure Bernard

After banks and cars, is the press the next candidate for a government bailout?  Among a 600 million euro package of measures designed to help France's struggling newspaper industry, French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced on Friday that the government will be offering all 18 year-olds a free newspaper of their choice once a week. Newspapers themselves will provide free copies and the state will cover the cost of delivering them to the thousands of homes, Sarkozy clarified.

The measures announced came largely from recommendations in a three-month study into the industry's health that was released on 8 January. The proposals were largely based on reducing productions costs, but the study also recommends that newspapers restructure their finances and that journalists be better trained for multiple forms of media, including online.

For their eighteenth birthdays, teenagers will receive a yearlong subscription to their favourite general news daily. In a speech to industry leaders, Sarkozy stressed that "The habit of reading a daily paper takes hold at a very young age." The plan is presumably an attempt to introduce teenagers, who frequently only get their news online, to the delights of the printed word. A similar idea has been tested by Ouest-France and 41 regional newspapers over the past few years, offering some 18-24 year-olds a free paper once a week for a year. Ouest France reported that 15 per cent of young people wanted to continue with a paid subscription after the year was over.

So far, the national scheme has been met with significant criticism. The free subscription idea was among 10 ideas recommended to the government by a sub-committee charged with considering the specific problem of youth readership, but was far from the top of the list. Two different strategies were most highly recommended: assuring that a youth voice was in newsrooms themselves to begin to address core content and platform issues via a cadre of young "ambassadors," and creating a habit of regular newspaper reading by assuring a short but daily newspaper reading period in school.

"French papers are made for 50 or 60 year-olds, not for teenagers."

Francois Dufour, who headed the youth advisory committee, is disappointed with the government's decision and has little faith in the scheme's potential for success. He told the Editors Weblog that "teens only read what they are interested in:" just because they are given a free paper does not mean that they are likely to read it. It is the newspapers that need to change if they are going to appeal to young people; at the moment "French papers are made for 50 or 60 year-olds, not for teenagers." He also questioned whether 19 year-olds, even those who might have enjoyed having a free newspaper every day, would be subsequently sufficiently enthused to start spending over 200 euros a year on their own subscription.

"It's a shame because this solution is a mere band-aid, when radical surgery is needed," commented Aralynn McMane, World Association of Newspapers Director of young readership development, who advised at one of the committee's meetings. "If the content is not compelling, free subscriptions are a waste."  

Frederic Filloux, Editor of the international divison of the Schibsted group and former Editor in Chief of 20 minutes also maintains that newspapers need to tackle content issues and that the plan is unlikely to work.  "If young people are not reading newspapers, it is not because of the price but because what they offer is inadequate.  The press must improve its quality and provide more pertinent content to seduce new generations," he told Le Monde.  He believes that the scheme is merely "a gadget to please editors," as it achievable at marginal cost to the papers themselves.

"If young people are not reading newspapers, it is not because of the price but because what they offer is inadequate."

The package also includes an increase in state expenditure to support newspaper and magazine deliveries to 70 million euro from 8 million last year, and the government will double its spending on advertisements in print publications. The state will also defer some fees the publications face, and Sarkozy announced a freeze on the cost of postal distribution and a reduction in payroll taxes for newsagents.

France's press is among the least profitable in Europe and according to the Guardian, is "stifled by rigid communist press unions, a lack of kiosks selling papers and a declining readership far below that of the UK or Germany." Sarkozy has promised to increase points of sale, and work to improve newspaper delivery to both kiosks and homes. Another major problem is high printing costs, as presses are controlled by communist union Le Livre. Sarkozy announced that the state is aiming to reduce printing costs by 30-40 per cent by negotiating with the union.  

State-funding of the press has been an issue in France for quite some time, and the Guardian asserted on Friday that "the public's trust in the media is at an all-time low in a climate where politicians rewrite their own interviews for publication and the president's powerful business friends, from construction to arms manufacturing, own several major papers or TV stations." So state aid at such a time might not be the wisest choice.

It remains to be seen how many 18 year-olds take up the offer of a free paper, and any concrete benefits to the industry will not be measurable for some years.  World Editors Forum Director Bertrand Pecquerie believes that the programme would be more "cost-effective and helpful if it were linked to some paid-for online content becoming free," as young people today are unlikely to become dedicated print fans. Without tackling the root cause of the problem - the content of the newspapers themselves - it seems foolish to hope that more easily accessible, even free, papers are going to up circulation numbers enough to save the suffering industry.  And the idea that thousands of teenagers are going to find the time in their day to sit down and read a broadsheet rather than scan news online is somewhat optimistic, to say the least.  
 
 

To mark the relaunch of the Editors Weblog and the Shaping the Future of the Newspaper Blog, the World Editors Forum is running a special series entitled "Doing More with Less." The series highlights major trends that editors-in-chief are using to steer their newsrooms through the difficult economic climate. This week, we looked at the Tampa Tribune, which has radically revamped its newsroom, and some examples of Editorial Outsourcing, a trend which many news publications have adopted. Below, editors from around the world share their own thoughts about EDITORIAL OUTSOURCING.

AFRICA
Azubuike Ishiekwene, Executive Director, Punch Nigeria
Editorial outsourcing is not an immediate problem for Punch, but we're already looking down the road to that moment. We think that before we reach that bridge, regular and forward-looking review of content (especially print content), and the continuous evaluation of job schedule of journalists across platforms might help us keep cost down and decide how best to apply our resources.

LATIN AMERICA
Marcelo Rech, General Product Director, RBS Group, Brasil
Due to labor laws in Brazil, it's difficult to outsource staffers, but I think the ideal newsroom would be the one with a "hard nucleus", made up of editors, assistant editors, page designers, some videophotographers and some reporters, and a broader staff of reporters, columnists and image producers working under specific tasks. In this way, we could have more diversification, flexibility and cost managing.

In my view, the newsroom looks like a tree: the trunk is the team of editors, the branches are the assistant editors and page designers - those are the structure of the newsroom, and must be very close to the general concepts for the product.

The leaves and fruits are the reporters and columnists. A tree without a healthy and strong trunk would die, but in the end are the fruits what people pay for. 

EASTERN EUROPE
Roman Gallo, Director of Media Strategies, PPF Financial Group
First, newspapers must target their product as specifically as possible. They shouldn't be developing products or writing articles which others could do better. To complement this strategy, newspapers should have a completely integrated newsrooms with skilled and competent staff that can produce material across all platforms. With a staff like this, editorial functions will not have to outsourced.

Newspapers can also tap into the community of Readers for content to supplement that of their newsroom. If the newsroom is looking for extra help, this can be a better means of gathering content than outsourcing because the readers are immediately familiar with the community.

WESTERN EUROPE
Espen Egil Hansen, Editor-in Chief, Verdens Gang Multimedia, Norway
 I don't think the key question should be "How to do more with less", but rather does the new technology and new market situations give us some new opportunities?

In VG Multimedia we spend some time and energy studying two companies outside the traditional media business that might inspire some change: Apple and Ryanair.

Can we learn from Steve Jobs and his Iphone?
Not only is the Iphone in itself a great product, in what appears as a stroke of genius Apple opened up, enabling everyone to create applications for the phone. Teenagers, programmers, and creative people around the globe develop great products for the Iphone - without pay. With no cost for Apple there has been added more than 15 000 applications to the company's Appstore   and they have already been downloaded more than 500 million times! For every new application and for every new download the value of the Iphone rises for the end users. And best of all, from Apple's perspective, since the company controls the distribution of these applications it gets a cut of every sale.

In Norway the 15 year old Knut Ørland has outperformed media companies developing the most popular TV-guide for Iphones. From his boy's room in a little city on the west coast of Norway he launches Iphone applications and earns a profit most teenagers can only dream about. For every sale through the Appstore he gets to keep 70%. The boy is of course happy, Apple is happy because it gets to keep the 30% and the end user is happy because the product is great. By the way - there is no need to buy a newspaper or go online to check what's on TV right now. Not all Iphone applications turn into a success, but if it does, Apple is guaranteed its share. Smart!

Media's approach to product developing has by contrast always been this: We want to do everything ourselves. If we are to make a new product - let's say a new travel section in the Sunday paper - our approach is always more journalists and more purchased freelance material. Smart?

Electronic media is by nature communication and cooperation. If we don't start to understand this we will be forced to ask the same question over and over in the years to come: How can we do more with less?

Can we learn from Ryanair?
While most airlines focus on how to charge as much as possible for each ticket, the low cost airline Ryanair has great success with going the opposite way: How can we charge less? The company compensates lower fares by turning what used to be costs, into new revenue streams. While the tickets are cheap you have to pay extra for food, baggage or boarding the plane early to pick your favorite seat. Together with a long range of cost cuts and commission based products like care rental and hotels, Ryanair has used this approach to become one the most profitable airlines in Europe.

The question newspapers should be asking themselves is: Are there costs in our company we can turn into revenue?


NORTH AMERICA
Ed Greenspon, Editor-in-Chief, Globe and Mail, Canada
We have not experimented, at least not yet, with very much in the way of editorial outsourcing of layouts I a major way.  We remain very interested in the experiences of others but a bit wary.
Of course, to some extent, we have always outsourced.  We tap the talents of a large number of freelance contributors, some of them highly-specialized.  We also have a few standardized pages, such as our comics and puzzles page and our stock listings, produced outside the newsroom. But we haven't ventured into outsourcing the kind of dynamically designed, valued added and pages that speak to our brand message on a given day.
In the opinion field, we tend to go outside in order to compliment our own columnists with more specialized contributors. In other areas, such as multi-media, we tend to use agencies for more commoditized news, thus freeing up staff journalists to focus on the value added material that distinguishes and differentiates us. Thus we have a small Globe Docs unit, which works with our staff to produce high quality video companion pieces to major print features, and sometimes vice versa. Our award-winning Talking to the Taliban is one such example.

Terry Eberle, Executive Editor and Vice President, Fort Myers News Press, Florida
We are using more freelancers and are partnering with other newspapers for certain sports coverage we once produced ourselves. We also are talking about partnerships with television stations to see what makes sense there. As we look for ways to cover more with fewer resources we must keep in mind that the quality of our information can not decline. We must guard against taking shortcuts that hurt readers and our image.

In the run-up to the 16th World Editors Forum being held in Hyderabad, India March 22-25, 2009, the Editors Weblog is running a special series entitled "Doing More with Less." The series highlights major trends that editors-in-chief are using to steer their newsrooms through the difficult economic climate. This week, we looked Global Post and Huffington Post, two news websites that are challenging the traditional newspaper business model. Below, editors from around the world share their own thoughts about ONLINE-ONLY NEWS PUBLICATIONS.

AFRICA
Azubuike Ishiekwene, Executive Director, Punch Nigeria
A Nigerian site equivalent to the Huffington Post named Saharareporters.com is a competitor of Punch, but we don't consider it a threat. However, the site has helped to keep us on our toes. We believe that print will remain an indispensable medium for the validation of meaning among readers. We have nearly 36 years of credibility which must count for something. My colleagues in the newsroom agree that competition from online can only make us stronger and is unlikely to supplant our relevance as long as we're listening to the readers.

LATIN AMERICA
Marcelo Rech, General Product Director, RBS Group, Brasil
By now, newspaper people should always have in their head that they and their newspapers are competing with every kind of consumer distraction, from YouTube to Twitter.

That's why we have to work harder and harder to promote the newspaper to the public and advertisers, especially the basic idea behind the newspaper; to be THE place for news (local, political, national, general, etc., depending on the strategy of your paper), and be far better than your competitor. This is not a new story; it is the same concern of our ancestors 150 years ago.

EASTERN EUROPE
Roman Gallo, Director of Media Strategies, PPF Financial Group
Online-only news sites are not a threat to traditional news gatherers. These project are only threats for media companies that do not understand changing media landscape, that do not understand that publishing on only one channel, one platform media (only print, only TV...) is not a future. One platform media will be able to survive only if they are strictly targeted and focused at a very clear (and I would guess a very limited) audience. In the case of my former publishing house, we are partially in competition with these sites because we run a fully-integrated and clearly targeted multimedia system. .

WESTERN EUROPE
Espen Egil Hansen, Editor-in Chief, Verdens Gang Multimedia, Norway
Several of the stand alone online news sites are really good, they are often better than us to utilize the possibilities of internet, and they force us to improve our own products. Nonetheless, I believe these are not our most important competitors.

The key now is to understand that the technological development gives traditional media a competition from a range of players we don't necessarily define as "media". There are three factors demanding that we analyze the competition with fresh eyes:

THE USER'S TIME: The time spent on popular sites like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Nettby.no and so on is dramatically longer than on news sites. This trend is reinforced by new mobile platforms like iPhone. Look around you: On the metro, in the cafeteria, at the breakfast table -in all the situations where people traditionally have been enjoying a newspaper, more and more people are now staring into some sort of screen. This represents a dramatic competitive shift because these services steal time from that which used to be allocated to newspapers and news sites.

NICHE SITES and SOCIAL NETWORK: Within any thinkable niche there exist special interest sites and services with more depth, higher quality and that are perceived as more effective than newspapers and news sites. Although many of these are not in the news business in a traditional sense, they are still our competitors because they so strongly affect the way in which we gather information in our daily life.

ADVERTISING: We are in direct competition with Google when it comes to the big advertising money. In addition, we see that the classified ads, that have been a great source of income for many, are now moving to sites not attached to traditional media houses in any way. In my mind, the most important question for 2009 is this: What will fund the journalism in the future?

Altogether, these three factors represent competitive challenges that must have consequences for all parts of our operation. Rather than pointing out the stand alone news sites as our new competitors, we need to search deeper and ask ourselves: "With this new media reality - what should we be in the future?"

NORTH AMERICA
Ed Greenspon, Editor-in-Chief, Globe and Mail, Canada
We don't see these sorts of sites as a threat per se to traditional news gathering. But we do see them as competitive. They are in the business of aggregating niche audiences around a public debate of the issues of the day. Anyone who aggregates audience obviously is a competitor, but can be seen as a partner, too.

First off, our unique proposition lies In our ability to generate the news,  often news that would not exist without our journalistic efforts, that feeds the fires of public debate. Of course, newspaper companies have long been in the commentary and opinion part of the business, too, and need to remain so.

But unlike with print, where the barriers to entry are so high, we have no option to live with many more alternatives in the digital world. So we have to consider whether we are primarily distributors or creators, along with our audiences (or communities) of content.
While I suspect we will continue to distribute through our own channels, I see no reason why we won't seek to maximize our reach by aligning our branded content through other distribution channels, such as Politico. Communities are being formed all over the place. We need to get out of the old mindset that they will come to us and go out, introduce ourselves and overwhelm them with the quality of our insights in their areas of interest.

Terry Eberle, Executive Editor and Vice President, Fort Myers News Press, Florida
Local information is what we are about. No one can compete with us for information in Southwest Florida. We must keep that in mind as we do our online work and plan our online and print newspapers. How can we make that national story local? How do we bring a national story home to our readers. On Jan. 20, Barack Obama will be sworn in as president of the United States. The world and national press will be all over that story. But, we will be on a bus traveling from Fort Myers, FL filled with people going to see this historic day. We will be on this bus, we will be doing live video on this bus. In other words, we won't be spending our time just rewriting the main story that we will receive from dozens of other places. We will spend our time reporting on this historic event through the eyes of local people.

To mark the relaunch of the Editors Weblog, the World Editors Forum is running a special series entitled "Doing More with Less." The series highlights major trends that editors-in-chief are using to steer their newsrooms through the difficult economic climate. The third of the series takes a look at the new online-only international news service launching today, GlobalPost.

Amidst reductions in international reporting at newspapers across the US and Europe, GlobalPost, an American online-only international news service whose number of overseas correspondents is second only to the AP, launches today. The Editors Weblog spoke to President, CEO and co-founder of GlobalPost Philip Balboni and Senior Editor and Regional Editor for Africa Andrew Meldrum about the project, and asked the AP's John Daniszewski for his thoughts on a new news organisation that could potentially rival the Associated Press.

 
Filling the international gap

Balboni was passionate about his motives for founding the organisation: to fill a crucial gap in international reporting accessible to the American people. "I have seen the steady diminishment of foreign reporting in television and radio," he explained, added that this "has just been stunning." And he stressed his belief that "even the great American institutions that remain with a meaningful foreign staff are in jeopardy because of this devastating downturn in the economic underpinning of newspapers." Meldrum echoed his sentiments: "in the US, so much international news is being cut."

Daniszewski, AP Managing Editor for International News, was confident that the AP was providing "a comprehensive international news coverage," and that there was not a lack of information out there for people who were determined to find it out.  He was positive about the creation of a new service, however: "it's really good to have those eyes, ears and notebooks out there, and I am sure they have a lot to contribute."  

Complementing the AP and newspapers

Balboni insisted that GlobalPost intends to be a supplement to a newswire service, rather than a competitor. Balboni explained that the sort of "distinctive story-telling" that GlobalPost offers is very different to that of the AP, Reuters or AFP. "As a wire reporter, you chase the story of the day and there is a tremendous need for that, but it has become a commodity and you can find these stories everywhere."  And indeed, GlobalPost will also aggregate the top news agency stories of the day on its site. Its original reporting, though, will be different: "what we are focussed upon is the context behind the headlines," generally stories that will not be widely reported in English. Daniszewski was insistent that he does not see GlobalPost as a competitor to the AP because in terms of scale the AP is far larger. Rather he considers it a complementary service that will contribute to the "great need for the world to be informed."

"We hope to help newspapers, not hurt them"

Balboni also emphasized his hope to "help newspapers, not hurt them." He explained that GlobalPost is a "partner for newspapers," as part of its business model is to syndicate content to newspapers all over the world.  "We want to give them the opportunity to have high quality original reporting which they can print or publish online," he added.  He added that in the Web 2.0 world, it is less useful to put your content in a "walled garden, you have to let it be free to go where users want to find it."

Old-school correspondents

The 60 to 70 correspondents are essentially stringers, filing one piece a week.  As Meldrum described it, "this is designed to be a string that any correspondent could add to the other work that they are doing."  However, GlobalPost is making a significant commitment to correspondents, offering a guaranteed monthly salary and shares in the company, and hopes that its reporters will "feel that they are invested in our success," explained Balboni.   The correspondent group includes three Pulitzer Prize winners, among a mixture of experienced, accomplished journalists and those who are at an earlier stage in their careers.  

The correspondents will be on the whole country-based, meaning that they know the language and are familiar with the history and current affairs. The idea, Balboni explained, is that readers will have "the opportunity to follow developments from someone you can come to know and trust."  Daniszewski thinks GlobalPost is trying to return to the old model of a foreign correspondent, "that sort of authoritative, contextualized, interpretative voice, who adds different perspectives that people bring to a story with their own personalities." As "traditional newspaper correspondents out there are now acting more and more like a wire service," Daniszewski believes, there is a gap to be filled by people who can produce a more in-depth, time-consuming story.  

The five regional editors are working full time, or "more than full time," as Meldrum put it.  There are regional editors for Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and South America, and a team of half a dozen senior editors based at the HQ in Boston.  Seven beat correspondents will have a truly global scope, reporting on issues such as health, climate change and technology worldwide.  

"Journalists know best"

"The goal is for this not to be a top-down model, but a bottom-up model," Balboni clarified, as correspondents "know best about what the interesting and important stories are." Meldrum remarked that "it's much like a traditional foreign desk," with correspondents pitching stories, editors approving them and then editing once they are sent in. The content management system used means that correspondents are able to follow the story process "right from conception to completion."

Interactive multimedia from abroad

"These days a freelance journalist is always going to be multi-skilled" asserted Meldrum, and "we are all on a learning curve." Correspondents have all been issued with Flip Cams - video cameras the size of a mobile phone - which they are encouraged to use whenever possible, whether to produce narrated pieces or natural sound shots that will supplement their story.     Photos are also expected to feature significantly on the site, taken both by correspondents and by other photographers who will contribute.

Reader comments will be allowed on articles throughout the site.  "We want it to be as interactive as possible," Meldrum commented, explaining that they plan to respond to readers and adapt to how readers want to use the site.

Partnering with the best

According to Balboni, it is "imperative" for a new venture to form relationships with other news providers. And GlobalPost is already doing this, having established a partnership with the Huffington Post whereby some of GlobalPost's content is available on the Huffington Post's new world section. Correspondents are also appearing on 'World Focus', a night news programme on US television channel PBS, for a Q&A session with the TV anchor about whatever story they have covered that day. Balboni said that the organisation is also exploring similar opportunities with radio and in commercial television.  

Entrepreneurship drives online-only journalism

Balboni was enthusiastic about the potential of an online only publication. One of the main advantages is the "incredible distribution platform at a very modest expense." The Internet solves the problem of how to reach the audience.  He believes that there are "incredible opportunities as well if you can be entrepreneurial enough to create a new model, and if you can fulfil a need." By operating online-only and keeping distribution costs low, GlobalPost hopes to be able to produce a higher quality of product.

The other crucial point, he explained, is that serious news consumers are now looking mainly online to find their news.  He worries that newspapers have been "dumbed down" in an attempt to attract more readers, pushing many people online. It is not just about chasing numbers of viewers, and GlobalPost expects to have a "very high quality user population" of intelligent, well-educated people.  

Stamping "Passports" to profitability

"Paid online content will be the salvation of journalism if it can be worked out"

Balboni expects the site to become profitable in three years, and it will be funded via syndication, advertising and paid premium content.  He expressed his conviction that paid online content "will be the salvation of journalism if it can be worked out." GlobalPost's premium content aspect to the site will be called 'Passport' and will be available for an annual fee. The Passport area of the site will include a service called Foreign Desk, which will allow subscribers to write suggestions for stories that they would like to see.

The foreign news solution?

There is a gap in the market for this sort of well-investigated, foreign news, and as long as GlobalPost can find enough readers who are interested enough in the world around them this site has much potential.  The passion of the people behind it for international news is indubitable, and the model that they have chosen is forward-thinking and may well work. Being online only allows it to have a vast scope and reach with comparatively few resources. It will be particularly interesting to see how successful the paid content model is, and whether this can, as Balboni hopes, save journalism. 

Related links:

http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2009/01/globalpost-aims-to-resuscitate-foreign-correspondents-online008.html
http://www.journalism.co.uk/5/articles/533189.php
http://www.ojr.org/ojr/people/davidwestphal/200901/1615/
 

In the run-up to the 16th World Editors Forum being held in Hyderabad, India March 22-25, 2009, the Editors Weblog is running a special series entitled "Doing More with Less." The series highlights major trends that editors-in-chief are using to steer their newsrooms through the difficult economic climate. This week, we looked at how The Guardian and Finland's Kauppalehti have integrated their newsrooms. Below, editors from around the world share their own thoughts about INTEGRATED NEWSROOMS.

AFRICA
Azubuike Ishiekwene, Executive Director, Punch Nigeria
The question of integration is not optional - it's functional. The speed and timing of integration may differ from newsroom to newsroom in countries and even within regions. But we at the Punch have found that the only way to remain relevant is to anticipate and follow the readers. A good example of this is mobile phones. With over 50 million people in Nigeria now using mobile phones and one out of every four phones being WAP enabled, our newsroom has been preparing for our next major step - delivering the news through mobile phones.

As for our journalists, we are not creating separate boxes for print and digital. We're starting with print journalists who already have a flair for the digital platform and encouraging the rest to join in the fun. At entry level, however, our preference now is for digital natives! Fortunately, we are not yet at the stage where we're compelled to fire staff for lack of digital enthusiasm. We're hoping we can convert the dinosaurs before the curtain falls!

Most importantly, as we aggregate platforms hard-nosed journalistic skills, including of course, a stubborn passion for truth, will remain valuable professional qualities.

LATIN AMERICA
Marcelo Rech, General Product Director, RBS Group, Brasil
For us, in Zero Hora and the other RBS Group newspapers, the discussion about integration is outdated. By now, we are trying to fuse, 100%, the digital and print operations inside the newsroom. We still maintain some specific jobs for print and digital, like print page designers, but whole departments have already merged.

We don't demand that someone work for the digital operation if she or he is uncomfortable with it, but the truth is that we have much more good, multimedia and innovative digital content produced by our reporters, columnists and editors than we could imagine. 

This is due to two simple reasons:
1) People know that if they avoid experimenting with digital media their careers will be under threat sooner or later.
2) I believe the first task of a journalist is being relevant - being read, watched or listened by the highest number of people, and making a difference. When our journalists realized they were becoming more relevant due the internet, they largely volunteered for work with the digital side on a routine basis.

By now, no less than 70% of the about 230 journalists of Zero Hora work with eyes on both operations. For a minority of that 70%, the unofficial group leaders, we can no longer describe their tasks as purely digital or purely print.

EASTERN EUROPE
Roman Gallo, Director of Media Strategies, PPF Financial Group
The benefits of integrating print and online journalists is that you can reach more readers and affect more users from different target groups that you could not touch through traditional media. You can use your current power (brand, loyal readers group....) to extend (or minimally defend) your position in the whole media market. And of course it is a more effective way how to run your media company.

On the other hand, the dangers of joining print and online journalists is that you can destroy your original brand. Why? To be able to succeed in different media fields you have to change the way you reach readers. Here I sense a hidden risk. During the integration process you can gradually lose losing the main characteristics of your brand. For example, if you write for the internet and your goal is speed, you may quickly lose your sense of accuracy. Step by step, this bad habit can reach your newspaper.

In conclusion, no matter which medium you use, the quality of your journalism has to correspond to your brand.

WESTERN EUROPE
Espen Egil Hansen, Editor-in Chief, Verdens Gang Multimedia, Norway
I'am generally sceptical of the idea of one media house, one newsroom. When was the last time anyone won both the 100 meter dash and marathon during an Olympic game?

Newspaper and internet are by nature so diverse that they demand completely different working methods and organizations in order to succeed. This applies at all levels: in the editorial department, sales, distribution and management. To argue that "newspaper" and "online news" are the same because both are news, makes as much sense as saying that a roaring river and a glass of water are the same because both are water.

The idea of integration is in my opinion a threat both to the printed product and for the online news site. To the printed product because the integration in a way conceals a level of costs and way of working that is not sustainable in the long run. And the threat to the online site is that it will inherit the way of working, organizing and a level of cost that is not competitive in this market.

In the publishing house of VG we have, with success, chosen the model of focus. We have two companies, two boards, to editorial departments, to chief editors, two managing directors and so on. We cooperate where appropriate for both organizations (which means a lot), but at the same time we are free to choose whatever necessary in order to succeed on our own platform. We've made some tough choices. While down-sizing by 100 people in the print organization we hired 40 more online. No one was moved from print to online. With this model of focus we've achieved the number one position online and in the print market. Both editions have for the last couple of years been very profitable.
READ ESPEN'S FULL TEXT HERE

NORTH AMERICA
Ed Greenspon, Editor-in-Chief, Globe and Mail, Canada
So far, I have not seen a single danger in joining print and digital journalists.  Like any kind of exercise that brings together people with different skills and dispositions, it seems to do nothing but generate greater creativity all round.

There is also no better way to sell digital in a traditionally print newsroom than by letting those doing it day to day serve as the ambassadors.

In fact, I would say that most journalists in our newsroom consider themselves hybrids; they are story tellers who use different media and the inherent strengths of each to convey their stories.  That said, just as there will always be the need for certain journalists dedicated to producing the print product, such is the same for our digital products, especially given the rapidly-developing technologies and story-telling techniques.

Newsroom integration can be linked to redundancies and reductions in staff, but it can also be used to meet the demands on us to produce greater volume and variety of content to satisfy more sophisticated audiences. In any case, it would be counter-productive to resist.

Terry Eberle, Executive Editor and Vice President, Fort Myers News Press, Florida
The information world is rapidly changing and will continue to change at a more rapid pace for a long time. This makes it imperative for today's editors to look forward and to put systems in place to assure we remain relevant. Information is our product, the platforms we distribute this information on are less important. We must understand the audiences and we must get our needed information to them on the platform they want it. This all means that we can no longer have a staff for the print and a staff for online. One staff for print photos and one staff for video. We must be one and we must act as one. I believe to do anything less would doom us to failure.

Blackberry is set to release a new challenger to Apple's iPhone into the market. The new product, called "Storm", will be released in the U.S., Europe, India, Australia and New Zealand "next month" through Verizon and Vodafone.
























The initial reports on the device are positive, the touchscreen feature has received rave reviews. As with the iPhone, it is sensitive to the bioelectric pulses in your fingertips. Furthermore, it has a very delicate touch and if you want to select something  you have to press down on that screen until it clicks. As a result, Wired report, "there's no ambiguity to button presses". This new system is called ClickThrough.

One negative is the lack of WiFi, however, it does have a dual-mode smartphone running on both GSM and CDMA networks.

It has a high-resolution 480 x 360 pixel color display, Transmissive TFT LCD, the font size is user selectable and the screen is light sensing.

Furthmore, the Storm is suitable for text editing, so the user can access word and excel on the move.

Source: IntoMobile and Wired

Thanks to its precocious reporting, Taraf, a small, Turkish daily paper launched last November, has found itself at the center of a brewing political storm.

In its inaugural year, Taraf published a chain of stories divulging the army's efforts to overthrow the government's ruling party.

Taraf broke the news of a secret meeting between Osman Paksut, Turkey's second-ranking judge on the constitutional court, and General Ilker Basbug, its land-force commander. The paper also published a document outlining "plans by the general staff to mobilize public opinion against the government", according to the Economist.

"Taraf has become a standard-bearer for the rising number of young and increasingly vocal Turks who say the people, not the generals, should determine the country's future."

Despite the paper's success - circulation is at 24,000 copies-per-day and growing - some fear it could be shut down. Nokta, a Turkish weekly, was forced to close in 2004 after publishing sensitive military material.

But Deputy Managing Editor Yasemin Congar isn't worried about the paper's future. As public outrage over the revelations swells, Taraf is settling into its spot in the limelight.

"We are changing the rules the mainstream media work by in this country," he said.

Source: The Economist

The Weblog continues its mini-compilation (last Friday: Europe) of the top 10 paid-for and free newspapers in terms of circulation, broken down by region in the world. Further figures about the newspaper industry can be found in the latest issue of World Press Trends.

If you have further information on these figures or circulation trends, please feel free to share them with us.

Click the picture to view full-size:

In the latest issue of World Press Trends, the newspaper industry's most comprehensive compilation of statistics about newspapers worldwide, readers can find a list of the top 100 newspapers in the world, advertising and circulation figures, and more.

Throughout the next week, the Weblog is offering the top-10 newspaper list in terms of circulation broken down by world region, both for paid-for dailies and free papers, starting with Europe (click on picture to view full-size):

Hot Topic: Will newspapers survive the era of digital distribution?

According to Timothy Balding, CEO of WAN, newspapers in a global perspective are doing well, contrary to trends in specific regions like North America and parts of Europe. Print as a distribution form is losing ground to new digital media, especially in the Western World. Congress and Forum speakers and guests of the 15th World Editors Forum share what they think the future holds for printed newspapers.

In August 2007, a European newspaper aggregator venture, dubbed Imooty.eu, was launched in beta version (read background here, based on a profile by the Online Journalism Review). Over the weekend, Imooty has launched a new headline aggregator widget for newspapers to implement on their sites (pictured left - see their widget platform here).

Imooty's "plan is really to develop a powerful tool for news syndication," said co-founder Kristoffer Lassen (who founded the site with Blaise Bourgeois). "The purpose is to democratize access to the most important mainstream information sources of Europe." The site now aggregates RSS feeds with latest headlines from about 450 newspapers in 19 European countries.

Imooty.eu, a newspaper and blog aggregator

Unlike services such as Factiva or LexisNexis, which are geared towards professionals and have costly fees, Imooty aims to provide a mainstream and free news search resource. Newspapers' RSS feeds that are featured on the homepage are generally chosen for their prominent size and influence, but sometimes also for their known expertise in a particular domain (Morgenbladet in Norway for its 'Culture' coverage).

Users can conveniently view latest headlines by country, newspaper, or category of news. A tab enables users to view recent blog headlines - about 700-800 have enrolled so far. Users can also customize search fields by these same criteria.

Does it still make sense to distinguish 'News' and 'Blogs', at a time when some blogs do original reporting and some traditional news brands are turning to lighter, blog-style news?

"It's basically to make a distinction between news brands as we know them today and independent reporters," said Lassen. The line between both may be getting blurry - especially concerning newspaper blogs, but Lassen believes the news consumption and expectations are different between blogs and news sites, although both may be news.

Pros and cons of Imooty for newspapers

Imooty has launched a specific section called 'Newspaper Universe', so that partnering newspapers can directly upload their feeds and customize them. "You decide how your newspaper brand will appear on the  Imooty platform."

Pros:
- Reach: Imooty "puts newspapers in touch with users who normally wouldn't use them," said Lassen. Through Imooty, readers who are geographically distant, or on the other side of the political spectrum, can discover new titles.
- Mobile: Imooty offers a mobile platform that can be of interest to newspapers.
- Revenue share: Imooty's revenue model will be based on redirecting readers to newspapers' premium (archived) content, and it will share revenues with papers.

"Cons":
- "I can see how, under the old news paradigm, some newspaper people might feel threatened by the model, because it's possibly taking away from local focus. But then again, these are new times, and people relate to media in different ways," said Lassen.



No editorializing, unlike major online news portals

News featured on the homepage is ranked by 'clicks' for individual newspapers and recency for headlines: there is no editorializing of content or of the RSS feeds by Imooty. But as Lassen said in his OJR interview, "readers now demand concise information that directly addresses their personal "need to know" requirements in an age when people are swamped by news sources." So why not give readers editorial guidance?

"That's the role of the big Internet brands. Google does this, by editorializing their pages," said Lassen.

"Our philosophy is to show the user the way news is from the different publications. We don't editorialize. The purpose is to give a panoramic view of what's actually out there."

News aggregation and Imooty: a resource for news professionals

In that respect, Imooty may be of greater use to news junkies or journalists than to the general public, at least in its first steps.

"You really have to be a news-interested person to be interested in Imooty, but it can be a starting point for ordinary news users as well."

"A lot of people like to have a pre-packaged news product," said Lassen. Although the trend towards news aggregation is increasingly visible, newspapers' role is also to provide their news judgment to sort news in an organized manner.

Future developments

Imooty is working to develop its multimedia offerings, including its mobile platform, podcasts and IPTV. According to Lassen, "this is also the direction newspapers are going in," because text-based content will be less prominent on mobiles. Imooty has launched a mobile site in beta.

According to Lassen, Imooty now has about 15,000 unique visitors and 50,000 page views monthly.

Imooty is still in full development and is still in the process of signing on official newspaper partners. This weekend it launched its imooty headline aggregator widget, which can be implemented by news sites that wish to open up their doors to other relevant sources.

Source: Kristoffer Lassen, co-founder Imooty.eu

Editor announces plans to shake up the editing culture in Washington newsroom

Live video streaming if the future of newspapers videos online, according to Charles de Vroede, deputy chief editor of Dutch newspaper de Telegraaf.

"I believe the future is in live streaming - for me live streaming is the missing link between newsgathering and newswriting."

De Vroede's comments come just after YouTube announced it would be implementing live video streaming within the end of the year.

According to him, other video formats lack immediacy. De Telegraaf staff is already using cameras with live streaming capability, in order to cover entertainment news stories.

"News videos online quickly become very old. For a newspaper in print that's not a problem, because everything is a day old. Being on the web as a newspaper means instantaneous news and this will happen for video," said de Vroede.

Baz Broekhuizen, editor of Volkskrant TV (competitor to de Telegraaf), disagreed with de Vroede. At this point, live video news is too expensive for newspaper sites to produce, and they produce little or no long-tail effect.

According to Broekhuizen, newspaper videos shouldn't aim to compete with television broadcasters. It should instead focus on video formats that have a longer-term appeal than breaking news items.

Most probably though, newspapers will branch out into both formats, as they learn more about video and the audience's likes, and find how to differentiate their content from broadcast-produced news.

Source: Journalism.co.uk through IFRA Executive News Service

The Editors Weblog obtained an exclusive interview with Philippe Karsenty, who is currently appealing a 2006 verdict that found him guilty of libel, in a trial opposing him to French public broadcaster France 2 and journalist protégé Charles Enderlin. The hearing on Wednesday Feb. 27 lasted over six hours, but the court adjourned its decision to May 21.

According to Karsenty, France 2's Al Dura "coverage is the media's biggest masquerade to have had such impact." But he doesn't believe that the allegedly fraudulent report is representative of more widespread manipulations in media coverage.

Quick recap of the story: in 2000, France 2 diffused coverage obtained from a local camera man, and voiced over by Enderlin, of the death of a Palestinian boy, allegedly killed by Israeli fire, an iconic image which was widely reproduced thereafter and used as a symbol by pro-Palestinian propaganda.

In 2004, Karsenty's Media-ratings company accused France 2's coverage of being a hoax - for a plethora of reasons. Karsenty was subsequently taken to court and found guilty in October 2006 of defaming journalist Enderlin and his outlet, public broadcaster France 2. He appealed the decision and during the new hearings on Feb. 27, a lot of time was spent reviewing and discussing the video footage and images. And as a Weblog exclusive, you can read the ballistic report, which was commissioned by Karsenty.

Without going too deep into the details about the new trial, Karsenty argues that a lot of coverage produced at the time was staged with the help of the local population, and this seems to be confirmed by footage viewable on Honest Reporting, as well as footage shown in court. "On that day in Gaza, it was a film set," he says. Other major news organizations, including Reuters and the Associated Press, were present.



Are these kinds of manipulative or staged media practices widespread?

"I'm not generalizing," says Karsenty, who insists his only claims are about this specific report in those circumstances. But this event should bring attention to international news organizations' use of local correspondents and camera staffers, whose content the outlets must often trust at face-value, he said.

In fact, the France 2 camera man's footage was offered to CNN, which refused to initially air the report because it didn't obtain the guarantees of authenticity it was asking for.

Whether these media practices are widespread internationally Karsenty didn't say, but he argues they correspond to the media's situation in Palestine, "a situation where the media bends over to the rules of Palestinian authorities," he says (see here about the monitoring of coverage of the Oct. 12, 2000 lynch).

There is another intriguing issue in this affair: in the years since this controversy has started, few French traditional media have openly taken Karsenty's defense or been willing to place it high in the news agenda.

Blogs and independent media have increasingly covered the story, many of them outside of France though. According to Karsenty, a similar affair would have never dragged on as long in the US, because bloggers and truly independent media would have long dug out the truth (evoking Dan Rather and the Killian documents controversy).

What the Al Dura affair also shows is that France is (still) a "system with dominating media that don't recognize their mistakes," says Karsenty. He points out that of the few established blogs and 'independent' news outlets in France, those that are considered legitimate by traditional media, all are held by professional journalists and former journalists who have worked within traditional media.

But Karsenty refuses to see the Al Dura affair as the symbol of commonplace manipulative practices in the media. Nor was France 2's report symptomatic of showbiz-news and news agendas increasingly led by eyeballs and sensationalism. For him, this is simply the story of a local camera man who submitted a faulty report, which was picked up by a mainstream media organization and its well-respected journalist, both of whom didn't recognize their mistake.

According to Karsenty, a US website will shortly be publishing the 18 minutes of raw footage that France 2 showed in court (out of 27 minutes filmed by the camera man).

Karsenty says he is confident about the outcome of the appeal. The court will make its decision public on May 21.

Source: Philippe Karsenty - Metro - Le Monde - Tribune de Genève - Honest Reporting

According to research by Neil Thurman of City University London, news websites are struggling to make the most of readers’ contributions despite their ostensible emphasis on user-generated content (UGC). Editors will have to learn how to balance between moderation of UGC and letting it organically grow.

There are at least three key findings:
- Editors and publications have no fundamental prejudice against UGC and are looking to expand that type of content. Editors understand the possible benefits of UGC to complement news coverage.
- However, editors have remained until now in a gatekeeper relation with UGC, deemed important to uphold their brand and quality standards (this may also turn out to be a brake to the unbridled nature of UGC) .
- Despite many efforts to include UGC, it is a costly operation and actual traffic has yet pay off.
“Despite the seemingly heavy emphasis on UGC at mainstream news websites, questions remain about the extent to which users are interested both in participating themselves and viewing other readers' contributions,” reported AlphaGalileo.

Exemplifying this, BBC News websites’ ‘Have Your Say’ feature only got contributions from 0.05% of the site’s daily unique audience, and generated about one fifth of the page views that a popular news story gets.

Due to UK-specific legislation, many editors have been cautious in their approach to UGC, worried over possible legal liabilities.

In most cases, editors and publications have insisted on upholding moderation because of concerns over spelling, grammar, decency, duplication, unbalanced views or lack of newsworthiness.

The high costs of moderation were another deterrent to the boom of UGC on news websites – most UGC experiments still don’t cover the costs of maintenance.

"By becoming gatekeepers of UGC, editors are on familiar territory and can protect their brand's value - a key aspect of their job. But it is a delicate balancing act. Too much filtering and control could frustrate the supply of UGC - something that is not in the interest of editors or users," said Thurman.

For his research, Thurman spoke to online editors from, among others, The Times, Telegraph, BBC News, Financial Times and The Independent.

Source: AlphaGalileo through IFRA Executive News Service