Results matching “france citizen”

With much pessimism in journalism, from decreased advertising income and a lack of model for online publishing, the news media is in crisis.

But, does that mean news is over?

Not exactly, according to George Brock, former president of the World Editors Forum, current board member of WEF, and professor and head of Journalism at City University London, who recently gave an inaugural lecture on March 17 at City University on where journalism is right now and where it's heading.

His lecture not only explains what developments have led to the current state of media, but what to do to ensure news media survival "for they are in need of help."

T. Christian Miller of the independent, non-profit news organization ProPublica recently won the prestigious 2010 Selden Ring Award for Investigative Reporting. Editor & Publisher reports that it was a collaboration between The Los Angeles Times and the non-profit news outfit that produced Miller's winning report into abuses of insurance coverage for private contractors in war zones.

Just last week, the winners of the George Polk Awards in Journalism - usually given to courageous and skillful reporting - were announced, NPR's On the Media explains. Among the usual big media winners was a surprising win - the anonymous Iranians or Iranian who captured the death of the 26-year old protestor Neda Agha-Soltan on tape in the violent aftermath of the Islamic Republic's contested elections of June 2009.

Paris-based French daily Le Parisien and its national arm Aujourd'hui have developed a user-generated section of their site, in conjunction with Citizenside, a citizen photo journalism agency that recently launched similar projects with the French branch of free daily Metro, and French radio station RTL.

The new site, You, invites readers to provide text, photo and video contributions, or to alert the community of a specific event.  Items are immediately published on the site, but Le Parisien staff will check the authenticity of contributions (using Citizenside's technology) and then mark them as 'verified.'

Carlo de Benedetti, president of Gruppo Editoriale L'Espresso, whose publications include the daily newspaper La Repubblica and weekly magazine L'espresso, spoke in Paris about his support for paid content online and his belief that both Google and Internet providers should be pushed to share income with content producers.

De Benedetti gave a speech at SciencesPo university entitled "Internet and newspapers: the voice of democracy against populism," in which he outlined his belief that the Internet is crucial for spreading information more widely and is a force to be reckoned with, but that this does come with definite risks to democracy.

In terms of democracy, the fact that the Internet gives a clear platform to public opinion and allows any citizen to contribute to this, constitutes "extraordinary progress," De Benedetti said. However, there are serious dangers that accompany such a transformation, said De Benedetti, as such a system also gives a voice to the uninformed and the demagogues.

The importance of newspapers over other media

The vast abundance of information available online (although in many ways welcome) also leads to a complete lack of hierarchy of information. The fundamental role of newspapers, to organize and analyse the public debate, is threatened by this 'open-source' landscape.

Expanding on the importance of newspapers to a democracy, De Benedetti explained how unlike Internet or television, newspapers are capable of offering their readers not only information but the structure and context to allow them to come to their own conclusions on issues and events.

De Benedetti expressed concern and criticism about the state of television in Italy: as prime minister Silvio Berlusconi owns or controls a significant number of channels, and "commercial television imposes a kind of cultural hegemony." A citizen who stays informed only via television is weaker, he maintained, However, as De Benedetti noted, "television is already last century. It will continue to exist, but as a part of the Internet."

He does not believe that the Internet will soon replace newspapers, but suggests that newspapers can retain their traditional role as the "sherpas of information" on the Internet. "The presence of islands of quality news in the ocean of fragments of information... is absolutely necessary," he said.

Paid online content

De Benedetti is a strong supporter of paid online content. Consumers need to pay for news, he argued. Without the readers who were paying €1 each day for the print copy of La Repubblica, the paper would not have been able to carry out its ten questions to Berlusconi campaign, to which the prime minister eventually responded in November, hence proving its validity, De Benedetti said. "News that is free is worth nothing," he said: if you want your content to be valued you have to charge for it.

He admitted that what people require from a newspaper is changing, and that newspapers must embrace these changes and adapt their offering. "Now news is a commodity. You don't buy a paper to learnt what has happened: rather to understand why it has happened."

 "The news that goes deeper, that explains clearly, that verifies sources and adds context, is news that costs and as such, must be protected... whether on paper or on the web, on television or on the radio," De Benedetti said. Although the web has allowed newspapers to reach a large number of readers, continuing to offer news free of charge will soon "annihilate" daily newspapers and all quality news, he maintains. "Anybody can understand that paying for a good product is reasonable, even if it is online."

However, to make online content work, payment must be simple, De Benedetti stressed, something like Apple's iTunes. "Simplicity and 'automisation' of payment is absolutely key," he said. Journalism Online's Press+ has potential, he believes, as "it is difficult to imagine that consumers will willingly purchase content from multiple publishers who all use different platforms," and Journalism Online is offering a single payment system.

Charging online might have to be a gradual process, he explained, first involving making users pay for content that is not currently available online, and for content that is specially created for this aim, "if possible exclusive and elite."

Contributions from search engines...

Publishers should take a strong stance against search engines, De Benedetti suggested. "Google cannot exploit the content created by others without giving anything in return," he argued. "Aggregators do not respect the rules which protect intellectual property rights."

He pointed to the UK's Newspaper Licensing Agency's scheme as something which could serve as a model for the industry regarding obtaining proper compensation for copyrighted content. The NLA works on behalf of the UK's newspapers and licenses businesses organisations to make paper and digital copies of newspaper content, its website explains. The collected fees are distributed to the publishers.

... and internet service providers

It's not just Google who should have to share revenue with publishers, believes De Benedetti, but also internet service providers, who he said "continue to exploit - just like the search engines - the traffic generated by quality news content." Paradoxically, he added, "the more content that is free, the more the revenue of internet operators increases, and the more that of the publishers who created this content decreases." Publishers must seek to persuade telecom companies to share some of their revenue linked to Internet access.

De Benedetti's views on the necessity for paid online content seem clearly in line with those of several other publishers as charging consumers online seems to be becoming an increasingly more attractive and feasible option, as the New York Times and other smaller newspapers jump on board.. L'Espresso group's star newspaper, La Repubblica, currently offers free online access, however, charging only for e-editions and archives. The paper just started to charge for its iPhone application, offering subscriptions for €4.99 per month or €44.99 per year.

His interest in coming to some kind of revenue sharing agreement with search engines and aggregators is also something which is shared by other publishers, some of whom are demanding more control over their content. As De Benedetti noted, Google has recently been presenting a more conciliatory face to publishers, by making its 'First Click Free' scheme more flexible, for example. The Internet giant also offers newspapers a revenue-sharing opportunity on Google News in the form of Fast Flip, and more user-friendly ways to display news, such as Living Stories or Timeline. But it seems unlikely that the company is planning to offer any direct cut of its main ad revenue to publishers in the near future.

Suggesting that ISPs also have an obligation to pay content providers appears more controversial, but it is an idea that has arisen before. Last year in France Laurent Joffrin, editor of Libération, suggested a kind of tax on ISPs which would then be distributed to content producers. The UK National Union of Journalists proposed a similar measure to support public service broadcasting in April 2009. Such legislation would be likely to face significant opposition, however.

The Paris-based citizen photojournalism agency Citizenside has partnered with Metro International to launch a new website for citizen reporting.

The site, MetroReporter, allows readers to upload and share their news photos and video. All contributions are vetted by editors before being posted. If they are published in print or on Metro's primary site, the member is paid between €10 and €70. Membership of MetroReporter is free and Metro has agreed to purchase and publish user contributions on a regular basis. This means that an international publication has plans to regularly pay its audience to contribute content, rather than expecting user-generated content to be free.

We're in a society that has moved from scoop to buzz, says Aurèle Lambert, new media consultant, speaking at the WAN-IFRA conference 'Using sports news to optimise your revenues'.

A scoop refers to new and exclusive information, while buzz refers to information that is easily reproduced through viral transmission. We've moved from an economy based on attention to one based on contagion, he says, where information attracts attention and is transmitted to other players. It's important to consider the relevance of new information and its singularity. He suggests finding ways to turn a scoop, which is both relevant and unique, into a buzz, which is relevant but highly visible, and thus can monetise information and create profit. To be different, it's important to show that you're not providing the same information as everyone else.

He distinguishes between two main kinds of bloggers. One is a community, such as Skyblogs, which can create a mass of information and increase a site's visibility. The other could be called star blogs, run by gurus, experts and opinion leaders. These are heavily involved in personal branding, and are used for visibility and loyalty, such as Pierrot Le Foot's blog on Yahoo France.

Citizenside, a Paris-based citizen photojournalism agency, has launched an Android application that allows its members to upload images to its site directly from the scene of the action.

Citizenside invites its amateur photographer members to send in any images they think are newsworthy and the pictures and videos are made available for sale to mainstream media outlets once they have passed a reliability check. The company is part-owned by Agence France-Presse, and Citizenside's amateur photos are included in AFP's image forum. 

Citizen photojournalism agency Citizenside has partnered with French free daily 20minutes to launch a citizen journalism portal on the paper's website 20minutes.fr. In the area "la une des lecteurs" (the readers front page) there is a new section called "vos images" (your images) where readers can upload their photos and see them sorted and published.

Hélène Fromen, new media editor at 20Minutes said in a press release that "putting this contributative platform in place "confirms 20minutes.fr's capacity for innovation." She added that "with this service, we are deploying a true participative ecosystem around 20minutes.fr that treats our Internet readers as a potential new source of verified information and gives value to their contributions."

Following the Iranian election on 12 June, which both sides claim to have won, Iranians and the rest of the world wants to know the truth about the results, as well as wanting to follow protests and other developments. But this has proved more difficult than anticipated given the restrictions on reporting, both by Iranians and foreigners, and the occasion proved to be an opportunity for citizen journalism to show its value.

Reporting restrictions

Mainstream media has been suffering from severe restrictions in Iran, even tougher than during last year's Zimbabwean elections, foreign editor for Channel 4 News Ben de Pear told the Guardian. Foreign journalists first had to get special press cards and were closely monitored, then on the Tuesday following the election, foreign journalists were banned from reporting on the streets. The BBC's correspondent has been asked to leave the country after the broadcaster was accused of supporting rioters. And it is not just foreign reporters who are suffering: now even reporters of Iranian nationality are being confined to their offices. According to Reporters without Borders (RSF), 26 Iranian journalists, editors and bloggers have been imprisoned since June 14.

Citizen video becomes a symbol

In the absence of an abundance of professional reporters, amateurs have stepped up. One of the most watched and discussed videos to come out of the tragedy, and one which is emblamatic of the role of citizen journalism in reporting from Iran, is that of the death of Neda Agha-Soltan, a young Iranian woman who was walking near the scene of clashes between pro-government militias and demonstrators when she was shot. The video has prompted international outcry and the girl's death has since come to represent the tragedy of the conflict, a "symbol of the anti-government movement," according to the New York Times. It was taken, not by a reporter with a camera, but by a bystander on a mobile phone, and posted on Facebook and YouTube after the man sent the 40-second clip to a friend who then forwarded to friends and news sites in Europe and the US.

A Twitter revolution?

Talk of a Twitter revolution swiftly spread as Iranians and others in the country used the social network Twitter to get their news out to the world, and it has been used extensively by the media. Twitter is particularly effective as a method of spreading news as it is harder to censor, given that it can be accessed via various different applications on computers or mobile phones, as well as via the website. #IranElection has been the top trending topic on Twitter for days, with thousands of updates an hour using the hash tag to get included in the feed and direct interested observers to text, image or video content. Following a request from US President Obama, Twitter decided to delay maintenance to the site in light of the important role it was playing in keeping people informed, carrying it out during Tehran's night rather than daylight hours.

Twitter is clearly not immune to censorship, however. The following message has been passed around Facebook over the last few days amongst Anglo-Saxon users:

"FREEDOM OF SPEECH: If anyone is on twitter, set your location to Tehran and your time zone to GMT +3.30. Security forces are hunting for bloggers using location/timezone searches. The more people at this location, the more of a logjam it creates for forces trying to shut Iranians' access to the internet down. Cut & paste & pass it on."

Amateur issues

Clearly, there are problems with relying on information generated by amateurs. Benoit Hervieu of RSF told Editor & Publisher that one of the main problems is that because many people want to remain anonymous, it is harder to verify information. And indeed, it seems that much false information has been circulating. After Twitter was hailed as the voice of the revolution, a backlash quickly emerged asserting its unreliability. There is always the possibility, after all, that interested parties might deliberately try to misinform, or might be so personally involved in the debate that they cannot maintain impartiality. And one of the disadvantages of a campaign such as that mentioned above, encouraging international Twitter users to set their locations to Iran, could end up misleading journalists searching for information on the network.

So how are citizen journalism agencies dealing with these risks and challenges?

Checking for reliability is a top priority for those trying to sell their content to traditional media companies. Citizen journalism agency Demotix has obtained many images from freelancers and amateurs portraying events in Iran, including two pictures which have appeared on the front page of the New York Times. Demotix COO Jonathan Tepper emphasised that Demotix understands the importance of reliability of sources and "believes that serious citizen journalism needs to take all the ethics of traditional reporting and build on them, such as verifiability and protection of sources." All submissions go through a vetting procedure which includes looking at the metadata in photos.

Citizenside, which specializes in citizen photo journalism, has managed to get hold of some good images which have been published by mainstream media outlets, but co-founder Matthieu Stefani said that it has been "really hard" both to establish contacts in Iran and to receive images from these contacts. "The big issue is that most of the contributions we've received were sent through proxies, with most of the time no way to contact our contributors as cellphone networks don't work really well," he explained, and therefore his team is extremely cautious about what they accept. He said that the photos that the agency has been pushing most to its clients were received from known and trusted members in the UK who were sent them by close relatives in Iran.

The Observers, a project run by TV news station France 24 combining citizen journalism with professional editing, has been active in its coverage of Iran. Founder of the initiative Julien Pain told the EW that what makes their coverage particularly useful is the fact that they already had trusted contacts in Iran before the election, and hence they have fewer problems with establishing the reliability of sources of information, particularly when using proxy servers. "We worked with these people before the situation was tense," he explained, "so we know them." He gave the example of a girl who has recorded a video describing how the censorship works, with whom he and his team had already worked. Prior to any major election, Pain added, the Observers tries to enlarge its network of contacts, which in this case proved particularly useful. Even using trusted contacts, Pain said that the Observers still cross-checks information as far as possible.

Amra Tareen, CEO of AllVoices, a project that aggregates professional and amateur news on one site, has a different approach: publish everything and let the reader decide. She said that the site has received more than 1,000 submissions, in English and Farsi, since the election, gathered via proxy servers as the AllVoices site is blocked. She stressed that submissions have tackled both sides of the issue and that this is one of the most crucial aspects of citizen journalism and of her site in particular: that anyone can be heard. "we're neutral and anyone can have their voices heard on our platform--that's key for the credibility of citizen journalism; bias will undermine the concept and keep citizen journalism and citizen journalists from ever being taken as seriously as they ought to be."

Generally it seems that such a situation where media access is severely reduced has provided citizen journalism with a significant opportunity to prove its importance. Tareen commented that "we really want to use this opportunity to show that Cit-J is not only about massive amount of non-qualified content, but also good "pro-am" work that we have been promoting for years now," said Stefani.

Getting pictures on the front page of a major daily is likely to be a huge boost to Demotix in terms of fame and credibility. Tepper was clear that Demotix is trying to supplement mainstream media rather than replace it, but said that "we think our reporting can sometimes be more accurate than the mainstream media" because "most of our users record what is known to them, in their city or country" and therefore "Demotix images provide a more accurate representation of the subject from a local perspective."

For the Observers, the situation has provided an opportunity for collaboration with the TV station on an unprecedented level. Usually, Pain said, he would publish a video on the Observers website and offer it to TV, now he has been working more with programming at France 24 to supply them with videos first before putting them online, to offer a period of exclusivity. "We've really moved a step forward here," he said. "We have learnt how to work together, and it's not going to be the same any more."

Although amateur 'citizen journalists' do not have the knowledge or expertise to analyse developments the way a professional journalist could, they can certainly witness and record events, and when traditional media coverage is limited, this is a valuable service. In terms of providing a true news service, amateur contributions must be verified so that readers can trust them, which is a priority for citizen journalism agencies. As opportunities continue to arise for citizen journalism to prove its value, the mainstream media is likely to incorporate it with increasing frequency and develop new ways of working closer with citizen journalism agencies.

Demotix, the citizen journalism agency and openDemocracy, an open-sourced news site have agreed a new partnership, reports journalism.co.uk. openDemocracy will carry the Demotix widget and run its pictures alongside their stories and analysis.

The arrangement is a "perfect synergy" according to the Demotix announcement, "on the one hand, oD's razor-sharp, individual textual analysis, and on the other, Demotix's collective, collaborative visual representation of the world. Opposites attract".

A large proportion of the discussion and innovation with regards to monetise newspapers' online content has come out of the United States, possibly unsurprisingly considering the intensity of the economic downturn there, and arguably the American entrepreneurial spirit. But the US is not alone in its contemplation of the issue, which could potentially 'save' newspapers, and the Editors Weblog took a look at the situation in France and the ideas that are emerging, based on two recent studies.

Masters student Matthieu de Vivie carried out a major research project entitled "Can online news be profitable?" in which he analysed the sectors' sources of income, along with debates that have taken place on French media blogs over the past few months. The Institute of Audio-visuals and Telecommunications in Europe (IDATE), a market analysis and consulting firm, has produced several reports on online strategies for the press.

The French situation

In France, printing and distribution costs are high, partly due to state regulation and to a very powerful printing union, meaning that print profits tend to be lower. However, papers do benefit from much public aid, and this was increased in January when president Nicolas Sarkozy offered the press a 600million euro bailout. Many media outlets are owned by groups which do not actually specialise in media, but are looking for "prestige and influence within it," according to de Vivie. He gives financial daily Les Echos as an example, which is owned by Bernard Arnault, LVMH. Groups such as Dassault which owns national daily Le Figaro, or Lagardere which owns the magazine Paris Match, Journal du Dimanche and part of Le Monde, have leaders who are friends with Sarkozy. Many journalists have protested at what they see as threats to the independence of their papers.

Related to this issue of possible government influence, the French press is suffering from a lack of reader confidence, similar to that in the US. A 2008 survey showed that 46% of people did not believe a large part of what they read in newspapers. The Internet has "done away with journalists' monopoly over the production of information," states de Vivie. The increased presence of other fonts of information and aggregators has encouraged people to look far and wide for news, as in other countries.

De Vivie concluded that today, it would be impossible for a major French newspaper to survive online-only, due to the abundance of information available online and weak advertising revenue. IDATE's reports also suggest that traditional advertising is not going to support a newspaper on its own. So what are the options for newspapers as their readers migrate online?

Charging readers

The most basic option is to charge readers for online content, as newspapers have done in print for many decades. IDATE believes that the pay wall model is extremely limited. However, leading newspaper Le Monde seems to have successfully adopted a part-paid, part-free model online. It is a rare feat for a general interest paper, at least compared to the English-speaking world, where only financial giants such as the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal seem to have accomplished this. Articles are free for three days after publication, after which they go behind a pay wall. They can then be purchased individually, or basic and premium subscriptions are available, the premium option including access to digital copies of the print paper. Subscriptions represented about 35% of LeMonde.fr's revenue, while advertising accounts for 65%, according to figures obtained by de Vivie in November 2008. LeMonde.fr still has high readership, suggesting that the site's traffic has not been damaged too much by the pay wall, and that the model makes sense.

De Vivie also looks at French site Mediapart, a participatory, paid venture without advertising, launched in 2008 but Edwy Plenel, a former Le Monde editor. It is free to read other citizen participation, but a subscription gives users the right to write articles or leave comments, and to read articles from the Mediapart team. The site, however had not captured its target number of subscribers in 2008.

Alternatives to advertising?

But if papers do not succeed in persuading users to pay for their news: what are the other options? In terms of advertising, the Internet has allowed new measures to develop, as well as the CPM, pay-per-click and pay-per-action rates offer a more accurate assessment of an advertisement's effectiveness. It also allows for targeted advertising, however this is not much used in France. CPMs are also considerably lower in France than in the UK or US: according to de Vivie, a CPM of $10 is considered good in France, compared to $30 elsewhere. Part of this is due to lower investment in advertising, as well as lower Internet penetration.

IDATE's report on the future of the press considers below-the-line advertising as "essential" for a newspaper's online advertising strategy, and also recommends e-commerce as a distinct possibility: "the media now have the opportunity of developing into veritable media stores by incorporating e-commerce offers into their editorial content. IDATE suggests that newspapers form alliances with book sellers to market the books that they review, or with ticket sellers to market plays or other events. Another option is to get involved with products that target a newspapers' readership, such as the Wall Street Journal's partnership with Wine.com. The Lagardere group has signed an agreement with Sumitomo, a Japanese leader in online commerce. The firm sees advertising and e-commerce as the main revenue streams from mobile news, rather than making users or telecoms operators pay for content.

De Vivie also believes that for larger media groups, diversifying online can be profitable. He cites the example of the Washington Post's ownership of profitable education service Kaplan Inc. which he feels "is allowing the Washington Post to survive." The French Le Figaro group includes numerous commercial websites such as Evene, Sport24, Cadremploi, BazarChic ou TickeTac, which represent "an important source of revenue." LeFigaro.fr is not currently profitable but it has an important audience. One of the problems with such a strategy, however, is that it risks diluting the brand's value, which is already a fear of many papers as reading habits change online.

Potential of online-only

De Vivie is does see some potential in online-only sites, but only in certain conditions. Firstly, he believes that small "supple" organisations which offer content with significant added value, focussed on specific niches and gathering a large community, are a good approach. "This equilibrium is nonetheless precarious," he added, particularly in France where advertising brings in less revenue than in the US and it is often necessary to develop alternative sources of income.

One French success story is Rue89, which combines the skills of journalists with the knowledge of experts and the participation of citizens. Amateur contributions are checked and edited by the site's reporters. De Vivie explains that the site quickly acquired "strong journalistic credibility," offering exclusive stories and investigations. He estimates that the site could quite feasibly become profitable, especially as Rue89 does not make all of its income from advertising, but also develops websites for others, which makes up an estimated one third of its revenue. He believes that other online players also have potential to break even, due to their low fixed costs and overheads.

The impression that emerges from the studies is that online news has great potential and possibilities continue to evolve. It is therefore advisable that newspapers continue to innovate and do not resign themselves to relying on print income for as long as possible.  

An experienced radio journalist, having worked at Radio France Internationale for 20 years, Anne-Laure Marie decided to launch what she describes as "participatory online investigations" (or enquêtes participatives in French) using citizen contributions to look into technological issues in Africa. RFI, whose target audience is Francophone Africa, is widely respected as an independent source of news, and as well as the radio station, offers an extensive website. Marie has carried out three investigations so far, combining her professional journalistic experience with information from people in Africa who have the capability to offer first hand accounts of the situation. The Editors Weblog spoke to her to find out more about her investigations and how she is making professional-amateur journalism work.

How it started

Marie was given the task of working on interactivity of the website, but as most of RFI's audience is based in Africa, she was not sure how effective this would be due to people's difficulties in getting online. This concern itself gradually developed into the topic for her first project: why is the Internet so expensive in Africa? Using the l'Atelier des Médias community, which she described as a space in which people can "not only relate to journalists, but relate to each other," Marie sought contributions from people with first hand experience of this topic, asking questions such as how much people paid for an hour in an Internet café. She also contacted experts and found official figures.  L'Atelier des Médias has an hour and a half long radio show as well as its website, and its host Philippe Couve asks the community what questions they would like to ask guests on the show, and what subjects they would like to hear discussed. Collaboration between the two projects is working well, giving Marie a good base to work from and increasing the size of Couve's original community.

The benefits of participatory journalism

So far, Marie has carried out two further Africa-based projects, on the role of the mobile phone and on computers in classrooms. She is in the process of launching a fourth investigation, the subject of which she is letting her community choose. The advantages of seeking information from a community 'in the field' are numerous. For a start, it allows a journalist such as Marie to obtain contributions from many different countries, such as Benin, Cameroon, Senegal, Madagascar and the Congo: it would have been financially and practically impossible for one reporter to visit all of them in a short space of time. Looking at a range of countries allowed her to draw more general conclusions about the problems, and identify the causes more accurately. And as she said, her point of view would have always been that of a foreigner; "The people who live in the place always have another way of seeing the problem."

Marie explained that one of the most rewarding aspects of the investigations was coming across the unexpected: being prompted to pursue angles she had never considered. For example, one of the contributors to the first investigation accused her of being naïve for not realising that the problem was a north-south divide. Marie was not convinced by his argument, believing it to be too simple, but in following it up she realised that in fact it was largely true. "That is what's most interesting about carrying out this kind of journalism rather than working alone: it makes you think about different questions you wouldn't come across otherwise," she explained. She said that the way she works means that she has to trawl through a lot of material to find what is actually useful, and that it would probably be more efficient to ask people to contribute to specific points, but that then "all the surprise and the unexpected would be lost."

Participants

To participate, people must be a member of the community, and Marie stressed that it is very simple to sign up and takes less than five minutes. They must provide their name, location, job and phone number, so that can be contacted. They can then take part in any debate they want, or even start their own discussion. For the third investigation into the presence of computers in African classrooms, Marie received 244 responses from about 150 people. "There is a regular group who contribute frequently," Marie pointed out, and added that participants to the last investigation had said that they had located others in the community who worked in the same field.

Marie explained that in terms of participation, the projects have been working very well. She asks for documents and details as well as pure reports from her participants, and described how many people send very long contributions: because their time online is often limited, when they get connected they write as much as they can. One issue, however, is that because of people's limited contact with the Internet and even with phones, it is sometimes hard to reach people a second time to follow up on a contribution. From a journalistic point of view, Marie commented on how stimulating communication with the people is, and how much closer she feels to the people she is writing for and about than in previous projects. "It really creates trust between journalists and the people," she added, "and we create stronger bonds of citizenship."

Fact-checking

One of the major issues that arises with participatory or citizen journalism is how to verify that the information provided by the public is true, and this seems particularly pertinent when the participants are on a different continent. Checking every citizen's contribution would be a fairly daunting and possibly fruitless endeavour, and Marie relies instead on comparing information with that from specialists or officials, and with that of other participants. She asks a series of questions until she gets enough corroboration to ascertain that something is true. It is a tactic that works for this kind of in-depth investigative journalism carried out over a longer period (usually two months in this case) but not one which Marie thinks works well for breaking news, as there is just not time to present a full picture using citizen material. She also stressed that the value that citizens provide is their ability to witness, rather than their opinion on what is going on.

Moving into multimedia

Marie records some of the conversations she has with participants so that she can add some audio to the investigations. For the second investigation, on different uses of mobile phones, she started to make maps that showed the location of the participants, so that readers could click on a country, see who participated and listen to sections of interviews. "People liked it a lot," she commented, and added that she is very keen to make a "truly multimedia story with sound, pictures and video." The problems are that it is extremely time consuming, and she has learnt that it is difficult for people in African countries to get good quality pictures.



Funding

Carrying out these projects is extremely time-consuming, Marie explained, adding that she often produces about six articles over a two month period. For now, RFI are willingly funding her to start more investigations, but she does not know how long this will continue, and although she would like to see this sort of journalism grow, she is not sure whether it would be possible could find another media organisation who would be willing to pay journalists to do a similar thing in this economic climate. Investigative reporting is suffering at many traditional news outlets. Another option she mentioned would be to seek funding from NGOs or international organisations and investigate topics about which they wanted to know more.

Value of investigations, goals moving forward

The investigations are filling an important role in identifying and exploring some of the African continents technological obstacles: as Marie commented, she has "information you couldn't get another way." And some of the discoveries she has made have the potential to make a significant impact, if enough attention can be drawn to the subject. The investigations have revealed, for example, the extremely high costs that foreign telecoms providers such as France Telecom charge for Internet access in African countries, and the fact that there were new computers locked away unused in some African classrooms. The press response to the investigations has been positive, with a extract of the third report recently published in French paper Vendredi in its 'best of the Internet' section. NGOs have also been enthusiastic, Marie said, agreeing that the investigations were accurately portraying the situation in the field.

Marie's goal is to find a way to communicate with people who are not connected to the Internet, as evidently, it is a minority who have web access on a regular basis, as well as making the form of the reports more interesting with an increased multimedia focus. It is by no means 'popular' journalism; Marie herself admitted that many people outside the continent "just don't care" about Africa, but it is bringing attention to issues that matter and giving a voice to people who would be unlikely to have had such an opportunity otherwise.

The International Journalism Festival took place in Perugia, Italy from April 1-5. The festival addressed the differences between old and new media and the necessity to integrate the two, and many other widely discussed issues affecting the media today, such as integrating print and web news in light of readers' migration online, the necessity to finance journalism as a watchdog, and hence the need to make readers pay for online news.

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

Faced with competition on both sides from American industry giants and amateur photographers distributing un-guaranteed work at tiny prices all over the Internet, nine French photo agencies took the decision to create an online portal where they could sell all their work.  The original nine were joined by another seven shortly afterwards, and there are already over three million photos available on www.agencesonline.fr.  

The portal is trying to distinguish itself by providing a superior content and simplifying the work of anybody searching for the perfect image to use in their publication.  Sorted into relevant catergories, the site aims to be quick and easy to use.  Providing a content above what is readily available is a necessary move in an industry threatened by the wealth of free citizen photojournalism accessible on the net.

Source: Agences Online

Photojournalist outlet Citizenside has announced plans to trial incorporating their member's photographs into the Agence France Presse's professional website.  The AFP, who own 30% of Citizenside will host the photos in its image forum, although they will be clearly marked as amateur content.  They will be available to the 7000 media agencies linked with AFP, although clearly marked as amateur content, and their contributors will receive up to 75% of the sale price.

However, after a similar deal with Getty Images, citizen photojournalist site Scoopt is no more.  Kyle MacRae, who co-founded Scoopt in 2005 before selling it in 2007, has said in an article for Journalism.co.uk that "fundamentally, the Scoopt model doesn't work".  Whilst still maintaining that nowadays there is more than likely to be a member of the public with a camera phone at any breaking news site, McRae now accepts that the chances of them being a member of an organisation such as Scoopt or Citizeside are painfully small.

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 eighth in the series takes a look at France24's The Observers, which provides professionally-edited citizen journalism.

The Observers is a France24 venture launched in December 2007, which combines citizen journalism with professional editing.  Only three full time staff work on the project, yet it operates two versions of its website (one in English, one in French), has just started a weekly radio show and is about to start a weekly television slot. The Editors Weblog spoke to Julien Pain, Founder and Editor of the site, about its work.

How it works: zooming in and zooming out

The Observers is a collaborative website, with "professional content and an international scope," stressed Pain. The site displays a series of documents - either photos or videos - taken by amateurs from around the world. According to Pain, "you won't see a photo taken by a professional journalist on the site." Editors, based in Paris, then provide some background information on each document and 'observers' from the country it discusses will comment. The idea is to zoom in on a small anecdote and then zoom out, placing it within a wider context.  The stories picked to follow might be connected to well-known breaking news items, or might be about something which is relatively unknown to readers. Occasionally an extraordinary item will come to light, such as a short video sent in by a policeman in Gaza, which shows the entrance to an alleged tunnel linking the Gaza Strip to Egypt.

Who are the Observers?

As well as the three full time staff in Paris, about a dozen freelancers have been taken on as 'regional editors,' and they are paid for their time but only work when required.  Most of the documents used come from the 700 'observers' around the world who essentially act as trusted contacts. The idea is to receive information from people who are on the scene of whatever story is being told. They are used as local sources, Pain explained, "we don't try to make them into reporters. We use their expertise and local knowledge." He always looks for truly local contacts, "I am not going to get somebody in Beijing to comment on something that happened 3000km away in the Sichuan province," he insisted.  When possible, Pain always tries to get people native to the country to 'observe,' rather than French or English people living abroad, as they obviously tend to have a better knowledge of the local language and culture. Anybody who goes to the Observers site can register as a "friend" and is free to comment or contact the site, and those 'friends' who provide useful information over a course of time will be invited to become Observers. Pain hopes that the already substantial network will grow further.

Observers are not reporters: "We use their expertise and local knowledge"

Blog-style site breaks down barriers

The site takes advantage of the best aspects of a blog, but maintains professional direction. The site has the informal tone of a blog; it aims to be "smooth and easy to read," commentated Pain. He believes that "blogs have broken down the barrier between journalists and readers. Now on a blog, you can talk to your readers." The Observers hopes to be part of a dialogue, allowing comments on all stories and responding to reader reactions. "We are always very clear about what we do know, and what we don't," Pain clarified: for instance if the date of a photo is known but the exact location has not been proved, and this is where readers' knowledge could come in useful. He added that readers are asked "to provide information and links to update the story," and he occasionally specifically asks if people can check or verify content. "The story doesn't stop when it's published," Pain explained, and editors will frequently go back and add or change things.

Essential professional editing

What differentiates the Observers from other similar citizen journalism projects linked to traditional media outlets, such as CNN's iReport, is that although much content is produced by amateurs, everything is professionally checked and edited. Fact checking is a time consuming process, Pain explained, but crucial to maintain the validity of the site. "Amateur content is far more valuable if edited by professional journalists," he believes, as when faced with the vast amount of citizen produced content available on the web, it is difficult to know what is reliable. The Observers is confident that is can be a trusted source, and the confirmation process often involves checking facts with more than one contact. Pain also explained that he would feel very uncomfortable about associating unverified information with The Observers' parent brand, France24.

"Amateur content is far more valuable if edited by professional journalists"

What's next?

The Observers has just started a weekly 15 minute radio show in partnership with Radio France Internationale. The idea is to take a document and analyse it, with an expert on the subject matter, and then Pain explains how the Observers obtained it. A television slot on France24 is expected to follow shortly; it will be along similar lines, but just five minutes long. The same content will be used for all three platforms - online, radio and television - but will be presented in different ways. Pain also hopes to start an Arabic version of the site soon, and possibly increase staff numbers.

Pain was clear that the Observers' work does not intend to replace professional journalism, rather it hopes to provide an alternative voice in the news media world, where so often, almost identical stories will be published countless times. The site is likely to fascinate anybody interested in international news, and the model is extremely innovative, with an impressive output considering its tiny number of full time staff. The Observers has found a way to validate citizen journalism and turn amateur content into something more valuable, and this could well be a model used more frequently in the future as news outlets struggle with limited resources.

The series of coordinated terrorist attacks in Indian financial capital Mumbai have gained worldwide attention, and the speed with which Internet users were able to read first-hand reports within hours of the initial attacks is proof of a revolutionized way that information reaches an audience.

Although mainstream news coverage has dominated headlines thus far, social media has been a major outlet for news at the scene and around the world.  Internet users are sharing news and information for updates and reactions.

Success of the Web? Try Newspaper Values With a New Twist
Caroline Little, Adviser to Guardian News & Media and former CEO and publisher of Washington Post/Newsweek Interactives, United States:

"Keep one foot rooted in the core journalism values of the core product, and one that happens to be delivering the most revenue, and with the other, stretch as far as possible to try new things in this new medium."

"The news websites share the same journalistic values as the newspapers, but the web folks also are working in a medium that's indisputably different, one that requires trying new things and sometimes going down in flames," she said. "Fear of failure can be debilitating. All we have to lose by being too conservative is everything."

Le Poste.fr - a site edited by Le Monde interactive - was launched a year ago with the idea of being designed for the reader. The concept behind the site was to create a news and information gateway that was designed for everyone and targeting no set demographic. Le Post.fr wanted to get rid of the traditional hierarchy of information and to provide a new means by which to obtain news. Since its launch, Le Post.fr has seen its audience increase by 20% each month.


On the launch date it received 1,500 visits, the following day, 18,000 visits, one year later they are at between 160,000 and 200,000 visits a day and 400,000 pages visited.  Le Post is now catching up to its counterparts and is looking to build on this rapid growth further. The site is certainly visually innovative for the French market and its content is fresh and  dynamic. It appears that this new style is popular, if one looks at the readership data.

At Le Post.fr, readers find news and information (international, national and regional), special interest pages such as politics, economy, health and media, entertainment and current events. It is also possible to find news and information by theme by clicking on tags and video content is regularly updated.

The news site is also largely contributed to by its readers, they do not go as far as to call it "citizen journalism" but aim to promote contributions and collaboration to add a more participative dynamic to their dissemination of news and information.  

Media commentator, Benoît Raphaël, says of he has learnt at Le Post that the distribution of news and information has changed with the Internet, its now more liquid, more segmented.  Also, "do what you do best, link to the rest," according to Raphaël its better to reference those who treat a subject well than to try to re-do it. People do participate and in many cases have interesting spins on topics and propose new angles to topics covered, and in some cases, journalists will pick up some topics or spins offered by contributors.
 
Sources:  Le Monde.fr, Benoît Raphaël Blog

 

Newspaper companies have been successful in generating audience and attention with their digital platforms. But the Holy Grail for newspaper companies is how to produce significant revenues online.

Companies that have had success in making money from the web -- from citizen journalism, cross-media advertising, web TV, mobile and other digital strategies -- will be featured in the World Digital Publishing Conference & Expo, to be held in Amsterdam on 15 and 16 October.

Speakers at the World Association of Newspapers event will include Caroline Little, CEO of Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, Manual Mirat, CEO of Prisacom in Spain, Eric Scherer, Business Development Director of Agence France Presse's Olympics coverage, Jorma Harkonen, Director of Bonnier's MTV3 mobile strategy in Finland, and many others.

Full details of the event, which will be held back-to-back with WAN's annual Readership Conference & Expo, can be found here.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has recently come under the press' fire, after he and his party criticized AFP coverage. But political dissensions should by no means lead to inaccurate journalism, which is exactly what the weekly Le Nouvel Observateur did when it attributed these words to Sarkozy, during an informal meeting with a group of journalists:

"(expletive) guys, it's hot, let's go the terrace!" When asked about his visit in Tunisia and journalists there, the Nouvel Obs reported that Sarkozy had answered: "Don't give a damn, anyway, they're only a bunch of (expletive) who ask (expletive) questions..."

This would be crunchy content, especially knowing of Sarkozy's previous ethical missteps (a video shot by Le Parisien of Sarkozy insulting a citizen drew a million viewers in a day).

The problem is that this information was inaccurate, and that the Nouvel Observateur later admitted this information hadn't been verified and presented its apologies.

In fact, there wasn't even a Nouvel Obs reporter at the time of Sarkozy's meeting.

Let it serve as reminder to the press as a whole, in France and elsewhere, that a necessary degree of partisanship and political contestation shouldn't lead to inaccurate journalism.

Source: Le Monde (link in French)

The Editors Weblog is running a series of exclusive interviews about the future of journalism with top editors at leading newspapers around the world. Here is the latest installment with Dan Bogler, Managing Editor of the Financial Times in the UK.

Click here to view all interviews in this series. Other titles include The New York Times, the Guardian, Fairfax Media, the Hindustan Times, etc. (full list at the bottom of the interview).


Questions: "News, journalism, newspapers: same past, different futures?"


- How long do you think you will define your company as a newspaper company or a print company?

We see ourselves as a news organization and we're becoming much more agnostic about our distribution channels. We're becoming much more interested in creating relevant information for our readers and much less interested in how it gets to the readers. Pearson, the parent company, clearly is an education company with a print publishing arm and an information division, which includes the FT. At the FT level, we consider ourselves to be a financial news business more than a newspaper. Our mission is to be the gold standard for global business news in print and online - and in any other formats.

- At this year's World Economic Forum in Davos, a panel of futurists claimed that print newspapers wouldn't exist by 2014. To what extent do you agree with this?

Largely but not completely. 10 years from now - 2014 may be slightly too short a time frame - we will still have printed newspapers, because people like reading  things in print. Newspapers, just like the book, are convenient to read in places you can't do with a computer; but my belief is that a lot of what will be printed will be analysis, comment, analysis and opinion. The actual news will be more or less online or in other more timely formats. In a way the FT will split in two, with FT.com for all the news that's breaking and some immediate reactions and  opinion. The more considered analysis will be almost an Economist-type publication. Maybe it wouldn't have to be broadsheet anymore, it could be tabloid or even magazine format. To put it very crudely, you'd have all the news online, and you'd have 12 pages of Martin Wolf the next day in print, and all the editorials, columnists, features and more.

- In journalism's multi-centennial history, do you view the emergence of digital journalism as part of the continuity, or as a complete breakaway with previous forms of journalism?

There's one thing that's old and one thing that's new. What's old and part of the continuum is that traditional companies are going online. Our journalists are now fully integrated and write online and in print. I'm sure that in 2 years time they'll all be carrying video cameras. We've gone from zero videos website to over 100 per month in the last 18 months. That's part of the continuum: it's us doing the same thing in different distribution channels.

What's new is the blogosphere, citizen journalists and the idea that anyone - people who are not qualified journalists, either experts in a narrow field or just interested citizens - can start a blog or website and distribute it. For the FT, you would think it's negative in the sense that there's more news and opinion and more competitors. In fact, that's not really true, it almost enhances the position of leading media brands for several reasons. One is we are trusted, people believe the news they read with us. Secondly, we select and edit, which becomes an increasingly crucial function as there is more information out there. The more 'over-informed' people are, the more likely people who want to know what's actually going on will turn to a few sources that tell them what s actually important. That's what professional newspapers do really well.

- Do you believe in the increasingly active role of the user in the news process, and is it a threat or an opportunity for professional journalists?

I do believe in their increasingly active role of users: very often readers are more informed than us. If you look at an old format like the letters page in the newspaper, the amount of expertise that our readers have, who are often professionals in the City, is just incredible. They know more about it in certain aspects than our journalists. That's why we get CEOs, academics, lawyers, heads of accountancy firms and more writing in to us to say what's actually happening. They can do this online with comments or take part in Q&As, or print their views in the pages of the FT and FT.com. That sort of content is very helpful. We also have a function for any user to comment on the website's stories.

Is it a threat? Sure, to some extent. But as long as it's happening on our site or in the pages of our newspaper, it's been bundled, monitored, checked for quality and therefore is important. We're not going to turn into a place where we just repeat hundreds of readers' letters and have no journalists of our own. It's more of an opportunity for our journalists to become more informed and build contacts among readers. And it's amazing that all these readers are willing to give this information for free.

- Do you consider the Golden Age of investigative journalism is already past, or just beginning?

I don't know. That's a really hard one. I might say it's already past.

There's so much more information out there and it's so much harder for companies to hide information. Take the Northern Rock story, which was broken by BBC journalists, and there was a bank run as a result. It's harder to hide information. The idea that journalists have to do long-term, deep, undercover investigations where they reveal something months later - I don't think it works like that anymore. Journalists still have scoops and still break important stories, but it tends to be in a much shorter time frame. It tends to be a single development that they're breaking rather than a long series of connections.

But frankly, newspapers and media organizations are under pressure. It's hard for us to send a journalist or a group of journalists off three months investigating something - and if nothing works that's a shame but nevermind. We don't have resources to let people go off and do that for such a long time. I think The Golden Age of journalists working undercover, developing sources and breaking big scandals is less likely; but revealing news that people don't want out there, on a short term basis, uncovering a scandal and having it come to light, that's more likely. As soon as a tiny thing breaks now, it gets distributed so quickly that it's hard to see a journalist working undercover for a long time and gradually piecing something together without having it go public much earlier in the process.


Stay tuned for more interviews in our series. Among the other titles that have been asked to participate in these interviews are:

- The New York Times - Jonathan Landman (US)
- Financial Times - Dan Bogler (UK)
- Guardian (UK)
- Washington Post - Jim Brady (US)
- Globe & Mail - Ed Greenspon (Canada)
- The Times (UK)
- The Economist (UK)
- Gazeta Wyborcza - Jaroslaw Kurski (Poland)
- Le Monde (France)
- Die Welt (Germany)
- The Hindustan Times - Pankaj Paul (India)
- Asahi Shimbun (Japan)
- JoongAng Ilbo (South Korea)
- The Age / Fairfax - Mike van Niekerk (Australia)
- The Nation - Pana Janviroj (Thailand)
- Punch (Nigeria)
- El Tiempo (Colombia)
- Clarin (Argentina)
- Gulf News - Abdul Hamid Ahmad (UAE)

The Editors Weblog is running a series of exclusive interviews about the future of journalism with top editors at leading newspapers around the world. Here is the latest installment with Pana Janviroj, President of The Nation in Thailand.

The list of upcoming interviews will be updated as they are published (click here to view all interviews in this series). Among the other titles that have been asked to participate in these interviews are:

- The New York Times - Jonathan Landman (US)
- Financial Times (UK)
- Guardian (UK)
- Washington Post - Jim Brady (US)
- Globe & Mail - Ed Greenspon (Canada)
- The Times (UK)
- The Economist (UK)
- Gazeta Wyborcza - Jaroslaw Kurski (Poland)
- Le Monde (France)
- Die Welt (Germany)
- The Hindustan Times - Pankaj Paul (India)
- Asahi Shimbun (Japan)
- JoongAng Ilbo (South Korea)
- The Age / Fairfax - Mike van Niekerk (Australia)
- The Nation - Pana Janviroj (Thailand)
- Punch (Nigeria)
- El Tiempo (Colombia)
- Clarin (Argentina)
- Gulf News - Abdul Hamid Ahmad (UAE)


Questions: "News, journalism, newspapers: same past, different futures?"

- How long do you think you will define your company as a newspaper company or a print company?

We're evolving quite fast. For our mass circulation newspapers, it will be a while (that they are still considered print). But I think our company will be multimedia in the near future, in the next five years, maybe it will be closer to 50-50 in terms of print and digital revenue. Right now print is still up over 80%.

- At this year's World Economic Forum in Davos, a panel of futurists claimed that print newspapers wouldn't exist by 2014. To what extent do you agree with this?

I think print newspapers will still exist, but maybe in different forms. They may evolve to become freesheets, because free papers still have many readers and offer effective advertising - advertising on the digital format isn't as effective. The paid-for newspaper may become very rare. In the (longer) future, the format will still be the format of the newspaper, but the carrier itself will change to mobile or e-paper.

- In journalism's multi-centennial history, do you view the emergence of digital journalism as part of the continuity, or as a complete breakaway with previous forms of journalism?

Continuity. It won't be a breakaway. People still need help choosing the news and finding an angle. Content will come in video form, etc., but the compilation of news will not change. Reporters will do more things than they do now, but the news angle will remain. If you look at today's world, there are actually more consumers of news thanks to the Internet and TV.
But the problem is that newspapers don't make as much money as these media. The economics of the Internet will drive changes in newspapers after a while, because Internet advertising in newspapers is still only 7% of revenue. In 5 years time, it might be 15%, but not much more. Newspapers online might end up being part of commercial sites such as Google or Ebay. A news website alone will not generate enough money.

- Do you believe in the increasingly active role of the user in the news process, and is it a threat or an opportunity for professional journalists?

Yes, it's an opportunity to widen the range of news. but user-generated content is not always news. It can be used other ways, as a comment or in a forum. Of course, when you open up to the mass, you will get a share of news stories, but there's a limitation to it.
Is it a threat? If you look at the phenomenon of reality TV, you'd call it a threat to (traditional) TV drama shows, but reality TV won't replace drama. UGC enables newspapers to have more journalists without having to hire more reporters. It will change the ability of journalists to cover certain areas.
The problem of UGC is that it needs a lot of editing, and it needs a (specific) channel to go out. I don't see at this point any very successful example of a citizen journalism site. UGC has a place, but it's still not an overwhelming media channel at the moment.

- Do you consider the Golden Age of investigative journalism is already past, or just beginning?

Neither. Investigative journalism is a job that always has been and there will always be more investigative journalism to be done. The problem will be whether the newspaper or website can afford to hire investigative journalists. I don't know. Maybe the Internet will allow individual investigative journalists to do their work and get paid for it. I don't think the digital format will affect the need for quality journalism though: there will always be a shortage of quality investigative journalism.


Stay tuned for the next interview in our series.