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Spot.Us is an innovative new sight that recently won funding and support from the highly respected Knight Foundation. It is garnering much attention as the concept essentially transforms the idea of community reporting and reinvigorates investigative reporting on a local level. However, would it be attracting this much support and attention if the newspaper business model weren't struggling?

The concept

Spot.Us allows anyone to send in a story idea to the site as long as it is a local issue affecting the San Francisco Bay area. Spot.Us calculate how much it would cost to investigate said story and the ideas is then "pitched" on the site, if other users of the site support the story idea then they can donate money to pay for a freelance journalist to cover it. It is then published on the site and other news organisations can publish it as well. The point being, some stories that are interesting to the public are being ignored by news organisations, this is an opportunity for the public at large to read a story that they want written about. The public becomes the editor.

Spot.Us deserves credit for coming up with an innovative way of bringing journalism back to the community and reinvigorating local investigative reporting. Furthermore, it is an original concept that has won the support of not only the Knight Foundation, but also Jeff Jarvis and other significant names in the journalism community.

Will the public pay?

While Spot.Us is undoubtedly exciting, there does appear to be some issues with the concept. For example, the organisation is currently garnering a lot of press attention and is therefore very much in the public eye, but what happens after the media attention dies down? Will people continue to visit the site: how will they maintain public interest?
 
Furthermore, it will be very difficult for Spot.Us to maintain its integrity and not be manipulated by outside groups who want certain stories investigated for their own agenda. It may be difficult for it to stop itself becoming little more than part of a lobbying machine for various interest groups.

The Editors Weblog spoke to David Cohn - the CEO and sole employee of Spot.Us - about these issues and the thinking behind his project.

EW: If newspapers were not suffering financially in the US, do you think there would still be a place in the market for an organisation such as yours?
 
DC: I do think there would be a place for an organization such as mine - but I don't think it would be as urgent. Part of what Spot.Us does is democractize the media by allowing the audience to determine the news agenda. Traditionally .001 percent of the population determined the news agenda, we called them "editors." But with Spot.Us the public can set the news agenda because now they have a freelance budget as well.

EW: Do you have any guidelines on what you will or will not investigate or write about, eg, an oil company wants you to write a piece proving that oil drilling doesn't hurt the environment?

DC: Yes: They aren't guidelines but categories that all pitches have to fall in. This was to ensure that we don't get pitches that aren't civic journalism. The categories are education, environment, city government, public health - etc.

EW: How will you maintain Spot.Us's integrity, to stop it from being used as a tool for lobby groups or marketing?

DC: We have an algorithm that required a diverse group of people to support a story or it does not make it on to our homepage as a pitch. Right now my algorithm is very simple, firstly, the site is new and I have a small pool of people visiting the site in general. As the site becomes more popular it is just a matter of tweaking the algorithm to ensure that you always have a diverse group of people.

EW: Is this something that you are aware of?

DC: It is something that I am very aware of. I would say I am concerned about it. I understand the concern and the fear...

But I am more concerned that we are going to find out that the public are just not going to donate at all, that's the fear. People think that they're going to be clambering, we will have to build bridges so that we slow them down they are going to be donating so much money towards our work. I think it is actually going to be the opposite and that we are going to have to do a lot of outreach to try and find people who would benefit and see the public good of donating to journalism.

EW: There is a lot of media attention surrounding your organisation right now, but how you are going to maintain that when, say, the interest in your organisation has died down from the media perspective. How will you maintain interest with the community?

DC: We are going to be doing some community organising. This is where it gets interesting right? So, like the San Francisco Commutative campaign that we did over the summer and we raised $2,500 from 74 different people who gave $34 each. If we were to do that again next year, the first thing I would do is go to the League of Women Voters. It's an organisation with a branch in San Francisco and say they have - I am just guessing here - 1,000 members in the bay area, they have a large group of people who would be interested in fact checking for the political adverts and I can go to the League of Women Voters and say, "Hey, can you help go and spread the word about this to." Then they spread the word to their members, and say even 30 of them thought it were a good idea and donated $25 each. That is a decent amount of money right there. That and also social networking and things like that.

EW: Are you going to try and build a relationship with the local media?

DC: Yes, definatly. If there is a pitch that a local newspaper would be interested in running, they have a vested interest in seeing community members donating towards it so they could help spread the word about the pitch.

EW: Can you explain how you monetise Spot.Us?
 
DC: The same way that Kiva.org monetizes their site. If somebody is donating $25 then all of their money goes to where they want it to go, but before they are done with the transaction we also ask that they donate 10% or $2.50 to the nonprofit organization that is Spot.Us. This extra 10% is optional. Kiva.org does the same thing and they found that something close to 90% of people will go ahead and give the extra 10% to the organization.

EW: What inspired you to set up Spot.Us?

DC: A few things. First - I was a freelance journalist for a long time and I know how hard it can be to make it as such. I wanted to create tools that enabled freelancers to do their job easier.

I was also the research assistant for a guy named Jeff Howe who was writing a book on "Crowd sourcing." I was researching for the chapter on Crowd funding and I began to learn about sites like Kiva.org and DonorsChoose.org. These are micro-finance sites for teachers or for people in third world countries. They are hugely successful. I wondered if it would be possible for journalist to also tap into the gift economy, which in America was $300,000 billion last year.

I have worked in citizen journalism in the past. I love it and strongly believe in it - but I also know the limitations of citizen journalism. I wanted to find a way that journalism could be participatory but also stretch to do some of the harder journalism that requires professionals to stick to a story for a longer period of time.

EW: Can you talk me though how you organise your staffers?
 
Spot.Us is not a newsroom. It is a platform or Internet tool. All pitches on Spot.Us are from freelance journalists in the Bay Area. They are not staff reporters for Spot.Us.

EW: How big is your team and how do you contact the editors

DC: I am the only staff person on Spot.Us. The developers and designers are contractors. All the pitches you see on Spot.Us are from independent freelance journalists - and are contractors. We assign an editor to each story - but the editor is just another journalist within our system. Again, Spot.Us is NOT a newsroom or news organization as traditionally understood. We are a platform. Just as YouTube is not a film production company, but they host video, Spot.Us is not a content producing organization, but we host the production of content.

EW: What technology is powering the platform you are using?
 
DC: The site is built with Ruby on Rails. I was thinking about using Drupal but in the end used Ruby on Rails and so far I am very happy with that decision.

The development firm is called Hashrocket. My hosting service is Engine Yard.
 

Following on from yesterday's article about newspaper integration and aggregation, the Editors Weblog continues its interview with Ian Fernandes, head of the Digital Division at Nation Media Group (NMG). Today, we look at its new social media platform, mobile classifieds and cross-promotion.

Social media and the Daily Nation - Who wants to be famous?

The NMG has been looking at how to get their readers more involved with the company's activities. Fernandes says, "We are taking a lot of knowledge from what we see happening abroad and from being in the entertainment industry with radio and television. From this, we are noticing that the younger generation are spending more time on Facebook or MySpace than watching television. So we are starting our own social website which will be launched before the end of the year." The name of the site has been under wraps, but Fernandes exclusively revealed to the Editors Weblog that it will be called Zuqka, and the style of the site will be a mixture of Facebook and citizen journalism.

NMG receive pictures, video clips, and songs from readers, listeners and viewers from across its various platforms and it is unable to use it all as there is only so much content they can carry. Users of this new site will be able to share this content with other subscribers and who will then be able to vote on how good or bad it is. The best of this content will be used on NMG's mainstream media platforms. Fernandes says, "We are killing two birds with one stone. Firstly, we are using content that we couldn't use before and, secondly, we are giving people the chance to be famous. A lot of Kenyans want to be famous but there is no chance to be. For example, you can send in a song and if the site users vote for it and it gets in the Top Ten of songs on the site, it will then be played on NMG's Easy FM radio station. In the same way, the top ten blogs on the site will be put in the Saturday newspaper. Whatever topics are being discussed on the blogs and pictures being sent in and so forth, will be shown on a TV magazine programme."

NMG are also going to introduce a platform called Events whereby you can see what is happening in terms of concerts and so forth in Kenya. Through this portal your network of friends on the site can see what you are attending and you can send details of the, for example, concert, to your circle of friends and invite them to come along.

NMG are in the final stages of putting the site together, with the design template scheduled to be completed by the end of this month. Once Broadband is introduced to Kenya (scheduled for next year, please see yesterday's article) sites such as this will have a real opportunity to take off. Fernandes reports, "We want to inform people that there is a lot more you can do with the Internet."  The site is set to be launched at the end of November, and a newspaper pullout also will be unveiled at the same time under the same Zuqka brand name. This pullout will be driven by content from the site.

Fernandes say, "We are at an advantage in terms of tapping into social media as we have all the other platforms within the NMG to drive it. Just telling a user that they can send a video or audio and share it with their friends is not good enough. With the NMG site, the user could get in the newspaper or on TV, this will be the selling factor."

Fernandes goes on to say, "Media has changed. The editor used to select what we saw and so forth whereas today it is the subscriber who chooses. By allowing subscribers to contribute to your product you can also test to see what is the big story... Getting your readership involved by sending in content to you is so important."

Mobile news ahead of online site

With Internet connectivity being so slow, mobile usage in Kenya is significantly higher than internet usae, with four out of every five Kenyans having a mobile phone. To explot this usage, the Daily Nation website also has a Wapsite, providing readers with a mobile web version of the newspaper. Customers who are looking for Daily Nation content on their phone are directed to the Mobile version of the news site.

The Daily Nation mobile site sends breaking news alerts, sports alerts, religious phrases, and horoscopes to subscribers. Furthermore, in the coming months, NMG is looking to introduce video news alerts for mobile phones via MMS or video content.

Classifieds through mobile

The company is also looking at the classified platform whereby if, for example, you are looking for a red BMW and you are willing to pay 200,000 shillings you will be able to punch the details into your phone and this data then links to the newspaper classified database. The relevant seller details will then be sent to your mobile phone. Once again, the slow Internet connection has resulted in the online classified section being underused, this should change next year. Fernandes predicts that once broadband hits Kenya, "we will see an explosion in Internet usage and we want to be ready for that."

Who wants to be a millionaire?

A key target of the newly established digital division is the monetisation of the various platforms within NMG, it seeks to pursue this by linking its platforms and cross promoting. Fernandes told the Weblog that every Tuesday on NTV (NMG's TV channel) there is a quiz show and viewers send in their answers by SMS, the winner is the person who sends in the most correct answers fastest. The winner of the show wins 1,000 shillings. This show is being cross-promoted across all of NMG's brands and has proved a hit with Kenyans. Fernandes explains the popularity of the show, "Kenya is probably one of the few countries where the "Who wants to be a millionaire" format did not work, not because people did not find the show interesting but because they were too shy to go on TV and look stupid if they did not know the answer. With this format Kenyans can play along from the comfort of their own home and no one knows if you get an answer right or wrong or what you look like."

Secret of NMG's success

Looking at all the various changes and innovations that the NMG has introduced, and is looking to introduce, it is clearly at the cutting edge of innovation within the newspaper and media industry. The cross-promotion across its platforms and the integration of not just the newsrooms but also the content is particularly notable. The Zuqka site looks set to be a success and the vision behind it is exciting, it should generate a real buzz in Kenya and around the NMG brand. Furthermore, it will also attract the key youth readership and create loyalty. Fernandes says, "Our philosophy is that the world is changing and we need to give our customers what they want when they want it and in the way they want it." This seems to be why NMG is so successful, the company knows and understands its readers, and anticipates what they want before they even want it

See also:

Kenyan Media Part 1: Is newsroom integration possible for media conglomerates

The Daily Nation newspaper is in an advantageous position in the African market in that it is part of the largest media conglomerate in Central and Eastern Africa, the Nation Media Group (NMG). The Nation Media Group not only runs newspapers, but also TV stations, mobile platforms, websites and radio across Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. Furthermore, the introduction of three undersea fibre optic cables next year will bring broadband to Kenya and significantly change the market. These advances in technology and the large footprint of this media conglomerate brings with it unique opportunities but also unique problems for the Daily Nation.

The Editors Weblog spoke to Ian Fernandes, head of Nation Media Group's Digital Division about aggregation, integration and its plans to become a major African online news service. Before heading the Digital Division, Fernandes worked for thirteen years in broadcasting and five years in newspapers.

"Tremendous growth" for Kenya?

The Daily Nation currently faces challenges with its online division due to the lack of Internet reliability in Kenya. The introduction of broadband is widely expected to result in significant growth in the online and telecommunications market in Kenya. Richard Bell, the chief executive officer of East Africa Capital Partners, a Nairobi-based venture capital group, said when talking about the broadband introduction to Kenya, "We have bet the farm on the fact that East Africa is going to see tremendous growth... We're looking for Africa's next Google."

Unique advantages and disadvantages

The Nation Media Group is preparing itself for  broadband by integrating its news platforms. From one office in Nairobi the NMG runs five print titles, two radio stations, a television station, and the recently created Digital Division, which Fernandes heads up. The goal of integration is to, "take the content from all these brands and to make that content available on converged platforms, meaning the mobile and online platforms. Whereas other newspapers have had to invest in technology for their online editions, for us it was already existing, so all we had to do is, for example, link a Barack Obama story that we have in our print publication to what our broadcast team has done and 'voila' we have a fully multi-media website. We skipped what a lot of newspapers are actually going through today." Fernandes goes on to say, "We are giving our customers the opportunity to chose how he or she wants to view their media." Therefore, if one looks on the Daily Nation website, one can see content from the online team, but also from the broadcasting and print team within NMG as well.

One big basket of content

NMG recently introduced a new content management system called CoreMedia. With this new system, "if we are looking at the content of three of our newspapers and we see that the top story on the TV station is a piece about Barack Obama then we do not have to go and physically place that story on all of the three editions, it automatically picks it up as they are resident in a common database. We have one big basket into which everyone is throwing their content and then the online editors decide to pick what is relevant for their particular portal and it can be done at the click of a button."

Integration across print, TV and radio

In terms of convergence and integration, this is as far as NMG has gone. In terms of newsgathering, each brand still has its own newsroom, and each newsroom goes out and pursues an event individually. However, with the introduction of the new content management system, NMG is now looking at newsroom convergence. Therefore, instead of sending eight different teams to cover one particular event from each angle be it TV or radio, they are looking to pull them all together and have one multi-media team go and cover an event. This would consist of a reporter, cameraman and photographer reporting the story and then placing it in the CoreMedia "basket" of content. The various brands at NMG can then take that content and repackage it so it is suitable to its relevant market.

Problems of size

This is obviously a far more efficient way for NMG to cover a news event, but NMG faces a specific problem with regard the integration of publishing, ie, publishing to multiple platforms from one piece of software. Due to the sheer size of NMG, they have been unable to find suitable software that can carry all their content and efficiently manage it. Fernandes reports that "there is not any software that exists in the world today that can manage the process, because there are very few organisations like us, who need such a service.  The Times of London's video content is from the Times of London, but on the Daily Nation web edition the video content comes from NTV - the NMG's TV station -, which has its own unique brand. That is where the difference is." Fernandes and his team are examining various technologies on the market and reports "newspapers have software that integrates the ability to manage their online content, and with that newspaper companies are looking at getting video as part of that content, which is something they haven't done before. So the technology is still very much at the development stage whereby they are using video content that is suitable for their website and we need to look at video at a higher quality level."  

Aggregation site to challenge international players

The Nation Media Group is also readying itself for this new advancement and has built a news aggregator portal called nationafrica.com. nationafrica.com pulls together all the news from across the Nation Media Group's many platforms. Fernandes reports, "Our vision is to be the media of Africa for Africa. It would be wrong to think we could have newspapers and TV stations all over Africa, but online is the perfect platform." The timing of the launch of this site is significant, if nationafrica.com can establish itself quickly enough in the market, it has the potential to become the dominant force in the aggregator arena in Africa. The players in the market who have their strategies in place for when broadband hits Kenya will be at a marked advantage for establishing their brand in the market.

Fernandes reports that they are expecting the site to grow from just being a portal focusing on the Central and East African region - NMG have three newspapers in Tanzania and a newspaper and TV station in Uganda - to beyond its current reach. NMG have correspondents in 18 African countries providing content on a daily basis, it plans to train and equip these same journalists with "not just note books and pens, but cameras and video cameras" and they will be able to load this content directly onto the NMG system. NMG is in a unique position to challenge the other media conglomerates operating in Africa who have bureaus and correspondents all over Africa, such as the BBC. Fernandes states that this portal is vital to Africa as the international broadcasters like the BBC and CNN tend to focus on the "doom and gloom stories about Africa."

The future
 
NMG has undoubtedly been at an advantage with the expansion of online media due to the fact that it is not just a newspaper company, but the fact that it is not a newspaper company creates challenges for the firm in terms of efficiency for its business model. The challenge of streamlining the publication platforms for an organisation of NMG's size is a significant mountain to climb. Technology is rapidly coming on stream that will aid this process, but could it result in the various NMG brands loosing their identity in the drive for efficiency? This is something that NMG will have to consider as the brand's popularity is in no small part due to its ability to tap into the domestic market.

The future looks bright for this media conglomerate and its move to challenge the international players in the market such as the BBC is a bold and brave move that it needed to take to keep NMG at the heart of the Central and Eastern African market.

Part 2 - In tomorrow's article, social media, the Daily Nation and the search for fame, and why the "Who wants to be a millionaire" format failed in Kenya and how NMG adapted it to the mobile market.

Source: AllAfrica.com
 

As newspapers across the United States redesign and relaunch; readership has not increased, neither has ad revenue.  So is a new design the most effective way to tackle the changes to the industry?  A recent article in Portfolio, takes a look at the Tribune Co. redesigned papers and ultimately concludes that their redesigns have not landed the success they should have.

According to Ken Doctor, a news industry analyst for Outsell and Content Bridges, "it's a distraction.  The major challenge to a company like Tribune is not to try to incrementally either stop circulation declines or add a point or two, but to really remake itself into a multimedia modern company." 

In what was the first meeting in a decade, a discussion amongst 25 editors of the Atlantic Coast Region of the Associated Press Sports Editors turned from whether or not they need the AP to how the AP could "better serve its members."

The list of grievances is familiar.  Paying for use of the AP is "one of the biggest expenses at most newspapers."  Larger newspapers are charged more than smaller newspapers, yet "on average," smaller newspapers use more AP content.

According to several sources, the Commonwealth Press Union will cease to exist as of December 31, 2008.

An internal memo from the October 15 meeting stated:

"It was unanimously agreed by the Executive Committee of the Commonwealth Press Union that the CPU Secretariat in London would cease operation on 31 December 2008.  

"It was unanimously agreed that the name, mission and future work of the organisation would be handed over to the Commonwealth Press Training & Education Trust (CPTET) together with any funds, to continue this work as deemed appropriate by the Trustees."

While newspapers have been fighting off declining circulation and an aging readership, social networking sites are thriving. De Telegraaf, a leading Dutch broadsheet, has tapped into this popular medium by teaming up with popular Dutch social networking site, Hyves, for the Euro 2008 football tournament and the Olympics. In so doing, Telegraaf.nl gained access to Hyves 7 million users.

The Editors Weblog spoke to Telegraaf.nl's Publisher, Lara Ankersmit, to find out how the project came about, the impact it had on its newsroom, and the benefits of working with social media.

"Brainstorm"

When Telegraaf.nl first met with Hyves back in September 2007, it was simply to have "a conversation and a brainstorm." This initial conversation led to the two companies building a partnership that would not only drive traffic to the newspapers' web edition and enable Hyves to increase its product offering to its users, but also revolutionise and redefine the relationship between newspapers and social networking sites. This partnership has now become something of a blueprint within the industry for other newspapers looking to tap into the success of this new media platform.

"We don't care where people read our news; as long as they do read it."

Explaining the thinking behind the partnership, Ankersmit says, "We don't care where people read our news; as long as they do read it." Telegraaf has come to terms with the changes the internet has brought to the newspaper industry and adapted its product offering and thinking accordingly. Furthermore, the Telegraaf is putting its product on different platforms independent of news aggregators, and is thereby controlling how its brand is presented.

Specialised Content

To launch this innovative scheme, the two companies needed a suitably big story; therefore, the launching pad for Telegraaf's content on the Hyves site was the Euro 2008 football tournament and the Olympic games in Beijing. Telegraaf's content for Hyves was not lifted directly from its web edition: the news provider moved out of its "comfort zone" and changed its tone and content appropriately for the medium.

Telegraaf.nl and Hyves worked together to produce a fantasy football game, which was hosted on the Hyves platform. This fantasy football game proved to be a great success, achieving almost 170,000 participants. The rules are the same as other fantasy football competitions, with users selecting teams and predicting which country would win the tournament. Furthermore, Telegraaf provided editorial pieces to build on the playing experience. While playing the game, Hyves users could also choose friends from their social network to play with; the end result of this being that almost 45% of the players joined the game because of a recommendation from a friend on the social network site.

After the success of the Euro 2008 competition, the teams at Teegraaf and Hyves are working together again on a game for this year's football season (till May 2009). At going to press, the game has almost 32,000 participants.

The game comes with all kinds of statistics, eg, a player can see how good/bad they perform compared to the Hyves community, other women, other participants who are of a certain star sign, who live in the same city, and so forth. Teegraaf have not yet used this data for online content as the season has just begun. However, during Euro 2008 Telegraaf used such data for stories in the newspaper and the website.

For the Olympics, the newspaper provided tailored coverage of the games in Beijing, with the Telegraaf's sports desk working on the coverage. The blogs produced for Hyves in Beijing were also published on the newspaper's web site.

Just as content for the web edition is different from the print edition, content for the social network platform also differs from the news website. As Hyves is a more informal website than a straight web edition of a newspaper, the Telegraaf needed to provide the site with something a little different. For example, in the print edition Telegraaf will feature one photo within a story, on the web version it will have five photos, but for Hyves Telegraaf it will feature twenty photos. The style of photos will also be different from Telegraaf.nl, so there will be more behind the scenes shots or photos of the journalist travelling to, for example, the Olympic Games.

The newspaper also customised its blogs for Hyves, requesting that Telegraaf journalists at the Olympic games provide blogs from a more personal perspective.

Adapt the newsroom - stay flexible

This coverage from Telegraaf.nl did increase the workload (for example, increased blog content) for the newsroom, but Ankersmit reports that the staffers were enthusiastic about the Hyves project. Ankersmit also told the Weblog that the newspaper hired two journalism students who focused on uploading pictures and monitoring the Hyves site.
The sales and marketing team and project managers were also working in the background to ensure a buzz around the new product.

Payoff

The benefits of this relationship to the two media companies are clear: Telegraaf is able to tap into Hyves 7 million users and open up its content to a younger audience who may not have considered reading the newspaper previously and Hyves is provided with high quality content from one of the Netherlands' most respected newspapers. During the project, almost 20% of the incoming traffic to Telesport.nl (the sports pages of Telegraaf.nl) came through the Hyves site. Before the project, the traffic coming via the Hyves site was negligible.

This partnership also helped the Telegraaf re-brand itself and present itself as a modern news organisation. The newspaper had a rather "old fashioned" image before the project, but this initiative made people look at Telegraaf in a new light. The games on the Hyves site also got people talking about the site on the internet and the project became a topic of conversation around water-coolers in offices.

Despite these changes at the Telegraaf, Ankersmit says that "news is still our core product," it is simply changing the way that it connects with its audience. Anksersmit told the Editors Weblog that it is important that news organisations "extend their brand" and its relationship with Hyves got people used to reading Telegraaf news on different platforms.

The future

Building on the success of its partnership with Hyves, the newspaper site is currently moving ahead with plans for its Mobile smart phone coverage. Ankersmit reports that while smart phone content was previously just read by business users, the introduction of a flat-rate fee from mobile companies has opened up the platform to a wider audience. Telegraaf has also noted that readers are using the site in a different way, they now read content in a similar fashion to that on the website. Ankersmit expects Mobile to be increasingly popular in the years ahead as it becomes increasingly commercial, and when it does, the Telegraaf will once again be ready to break new ground.

The Editors Weblog interviewed Martin M. Simecka, the author of an article that appeared in Czech magazine, Respekt on October 13, 2008.  

The article claims that an authentic police report, over 50 years old, has resurfaced from the Communist security agency's archive.  The report implicates Czech author Milan Kundera.  Kundera is accused of denouncing Miroslav Dvoracek, who was a university student in Prague. The denunciation led to his imprisonment for over 14 years.  

Part of the document reads:
"Today at around 1600 hours a student, Milan Kundera, born 1.4.1929 in Brno, resident at the student hall of residence on George VI Avenue in Prague VII, presented himself at this department and reported that a student, Iva Militká, resident at that res