Results matching “anonymous sourc 1”

Three leading British phone companies have confirmed that over 100 customer accounts were illegally accessed by a private investigator and journalist at the News of the World, claims Nick Davies of the Guardian in the latest development in the phone-hacking scandal that let to a parliamentary committee enquiry.

Scotland Yard supplied 02, Vodafone, and Orange with phone numbers used by News of the World's royal correspondent, Clive Goodman, and private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire, to access the private voicemails of customers like Prince William and Boris Johnson. Working backwards to trace customers whose voicemail had been dialed from those numbers, Vodafone and 02 each found that "about 40" voicemails had been compromised, while Orange found that 45 customer accounts had been hacked.

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg ruled in the favour of five media companies yesterday, recognising a journalistic right to protect anonymous sources, reports AFP.

The Financial Times, the Independent, the Guardian, the Times and Reuters news agency won an appeal against British courts who had ordered them to hand over documents relating to a Belgian brewing firm, Interbrew.

Sunday was the second anniversary of Murdoch's purchase of The Wall Street Journal, an event that many press and journalism experts decried as sullying the hallowed status of the respected paper. Under Murdoch's leadership, the Journal has turned away from business-only analytical focus and towards broader general interest stories and politics with big front-page photos.

Dan Gillmor has written a column over at guardian.co.uk about standards of journalism practice, his 'new rules of news,' that he would enforce if he ran a news organization. Here are a couple of the more interesting suggested guidelines:

2. Inviting audience participation and crowdsourcing, with a rewards system for quality contributors.

5. Encouraging conversation and comments, listing letters to the editor and replies in blog format, and listing comments posted under real names first. Local, community discussion would be fostered by these means.

6+7. Replacing 'Orwellian PR-speak' with real, everyday and neutral terms to describe things, without being afraid to paraphrase for clarity or even to call someone a liar for the sake of truth.

8. Link to everything possible, highlighting content from community members.

11. No 'Top-Ten' lists.

ViewPass was one of the proposals put to publishers at the 'secret' meeting organised by the NAA in May which considered different ideas for monetising online content in a media landscape where revenue from traditional advertising methods is not generating enough income to support newspapers and other news outlets. With ViewPass, creators Alan Mutter and Ridgely Evers are essentially aiming to boost the value of page views by making advertising more effective and lucrative. The Editors Weblog spoke to Mutter to find out more about ViewPass and how he thinks it could be the solution the industry has been waiting for.

Target, target, target

Rather than directly charging consumers for online content, Mutter believes that increasing the revenue from advertising would be the best and most efficient way for publishers to up their overall revenue. Currently, most advertising systems are not producing high enough rates to support the production of content, so a significant change must take place.

The idea, he said, is that the consumer will in fact pay for content "but there are different ways you can pay." The most appropriate way to get the consumer to effectively 'pay' would be by providing information that could allow for highly targeted advertising. The consumer would both supply demographic details and allow their reading habits to be tracked throughout websites that support ViewPass so as to offer a rich picture of what they are interested in and which ads they might pay attention to. ViewPass is not aimed solely at newspaper publishers, but at anybody who puts content on the web, including bloggers. This will help the system really learn what people are interested in and develop a complex picture of them.

Mutter pointed out that the US newspapers who sell ads through Yahoo's targeted ad scheme can make far more than on a standard ad. Mutter stressed that he does not in any way oppose Yahoo's ad network, in fact he thinks that it and ViewPass could be compatible. But he maintains that his proposal is "superior" in the sense that it gathers more authenticated information about the consumer that can be used to target more effectively. For example, Yahoo "cannot target to zip code level because it does not have any way to validate post codes that customers volunteer," while ViewPass, as it takes credit card information when a user buys a piece of content, could easily authenticate postal codes. 

"If it's embraced," said Mutter, "ViewPass will create deep and accurate pictures of actual individuals." Hence, the system will have "a strategically powerful picture of every consumer who registers."

Privacy problems?

An obvious concern for the consumer when using this type of system would be privacy. Mutter said that he is very aware of this, and stressed that "the way we've developed this is so that the system will give information about a person and about what that person is reading in a way that the individual still remains anonymous." Advertisers will only be allowed access to that info for that moment, they will not be allowed to record it. If they do, they will be kicked off the system. He acknowledged that "we have a lot of work to do ourselves on the safety of the database." 

Industry-owned for greater profits

Mutter would ideally like ViewPass to be an industry-owned initiative and said "we're working really hard to enable that." Evidently, this would be an advantage to the industry as it would then be able to share in profits from the business itself. However, he realises that it would be quite a challenge to persuade the industry to agree as one on such a solution. Currently ViewPass exists as a detailed plan that has been continuously developed and discussed with industry leaders, but it is not yet a concrete product. If publishers do not support it as an industry-owned initiative, Mutter would consider taking it forth as a private company, he said.

How it would work

Publishers would have to insert a piece of Java code into their webpages and then would choose the stories that it wants to protect with ViewPass, and the ones it wants to leave open. The publisher has "complete control over the rules," Mutter emphasised and has several different options to choose from with regards to how they make their content available. ViewPass logos would be placed next to the articles to indicate to the consumer how they can have access. One article could be entirely free, or you might have to simply be a ViewPass member to read another, for one you might be required to pay and for another you could be asked to complete a short survey, for example.

For the consumer, the process "would be extremely low impact and non-intrusive," according to Mutter. Once you had logged into ViewPass at one website it would remember you from then on, and once you had entered your credit card details the system would remember them unless you told it not to.  There are a number of sites with whom ViewPass could cooperate in terms of registration, such as Facebook and Microsoft, Mutter suggested. A Facebook user could therefore tie their ViewPass account to this account, which would make it easier to get started.

It would, Mutter admits, be off-putting to the consumer to have to do anything extra to read news, and it would hence be important to market ViewPass in the right way. His idea is that the ViewPass brand would be associated with quality content that is valuable enough to pay for in some way, so that when people see ViewPass content they know they are seeing the best. Thus it would also be a way to brand the content as being quality.

So what are the benefits for the consumer?

The system is "first and foremost a solution designed to replenish the revenues of the publishing business," but there are also advantages for the consumer. Mutter believes that the consumer benefits from the possibility to acquire better calibre content than might otherwise be available if professional media sources continue to diminish due to falling revenue. More concretely, the system would start to recommend articles to users based on their interests, so "you may learn things that you would be delighted to know about if you only knew that they were out there." As Mutter points out, there is so much information on the web that having content pushed to you can be a highly valuable service. Equally, having advertising that is actually relevant could also be extremely useful. It could also be argued that being able to pay for news with time and information is a good alternative to being forced to pay with cash.

Paid-online content

Although Mutter is doubtful that charging consumers online could actually increase revenue, ViewPass would enable publishers to charge for online content by the article, or by a subscription to an individual paper. When asked about the possibility of paying a bundled fee for content from multiple publications, Mutter was sceptical. For the consumer, he believes it would be ideal, but there would be too many practical problems for the publisher. Dividing up such a fee so that all publications were content with their share would be an almost insurmountable obstacle, he maintains. He pointed out, correctly, that it could be difficult to equate the value of different types of content: could a 10,000 word article from the New York Times be awarded with the same compensation as a two line item on a sports score? He does not think that those publications who produce the more expensive content would be content with the small amount of revenue they would receive in exchange.

Bundling content is one of the options that another start-up, Journalism Online, is promising. Will the company be able to overcome the obstacles that Mutter highlights? Journalism Online, founded by Steve Brill, Gordon Crovitz and Leo Hindery, aims to facilitate charging online and to help its members work out the best way to charge by gathering data on their efforts.

And these two are not the only projects out there that are promising to enhance monetisation efforts of news content. Circulate from CircLabs is another proposal, focusing on upping the number of page views of newspaper articles and hence increasing advertising revenue. The company also intends to use the knowledge of its members that it gathers to institute targeting advertising on the Circulate bar that would follow users around the web.

Mutter pointed out putting too many hurdles in front of users when they are reading news content would swiftly put them off, meaning that publishers should adopt just one system. So which of these is it going to be? Mutter maintains that ViewPass is the one that can make publishers the most money. Journalism Online seems to have somewhat of a headstart, however, with partner publishers expected to be announced in the next few weeks. But will it satisfy publishers' monetisation needs?

In a bid to increase its international audience, the French business newspaper La Tribune has begun using software to translate its website into English, German, Spanish and Italian. Unfortunately for the paper, the cost-saving measure of automatic translation produces some confusing results.

A current headline on the English-language site reads: "The United States: confidence of the consumers in Bern, reduced trade deficit," which appears to make a serious error in geography. What do American consumers have to do with the Swiss capital?

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.

New York Times journalist Martin Fackler has written about the "failure" of the news media to press Japanese prosecutors for answers in an ongoing political scandal.

In March, Tokyo prosecutors arrested an aide to a prominent opposition political leader and sparked a damaging scandal which led to the resignation of Ichiro Ozawa, head of the opposition Democratic Party. Many Japanese have been vocal in their criticism of the prosecutors' actions, which appear politically motivated, but "you would not know that from the coverage by Japan's big newspapers and television networks," said Fackler.

Topix, which describes itself as "the leading news community on the web", is a news aggregator combined with active discussion and comment forums which give all users the power to "discuss, edit and share the news that matters to them." It is 75% owned by Gannett, Tribune and McClatchy, and a recent posting on the site announced that it had become the number one news site of the three companies' Internet portfolio - beating the USA Today sites.

A post by Topix CEO Chris Tolles reveals the site's success and explains how its founders came to the decision that focussing "on hyper local news - especially where there currently wasn't any - was the strategy we were going to pursue". He sings the praises of local news, and the hyperlocal model Topix pursues, but admits that there is more work to be done. On the news business in general, he believes that "there is going to be a huge restructuring in the news business, and it's going to be bloody. There's really nothing that would have prevented most of what's happening here."

In the UK, Northcliffe has defended its decision to centralise subbing for seven newspapers into two offices, whilst in the US two Northeast Consortium publications have responded to concerns following their decision to merge their statehouse bureaus.  Both moves were proposed with an eye to cost-cutting, and both received criticism from involved parties.  

Northcliffe came under fire from the National Union of Journalists who accused the company of having "a total lack of commitment to local journalism".  Northcliffe has responded however that it "passionately believes in being at the heart of all things local". Hull Daily Mail editor and North-East regional editor John Meehan continued, "We'll continue to be focused on local content and local relevance but we've got to reflect the conditions we are facing in our business."  The move will result in job losses, but Northcliffe is aiming to retain its best journalists and to benefit from economies of scale.

The Hearst Corporation threatened Tuesday to sell or close the San Francisco Chronicle unless it could make cost reductions, including job cuts of union and nonunion employees. Hearst is demanding concessions from its unions, and an anonymous Hearst executive called the statement a "warning" to the unions, asserting that the company does not wish to close the paper.

A statement by Frank A. Bennack Jr., Hearst's vice chairman and chief executive, and Steven R. Swartz, president of its newspaper division said, "Without the specific changes we are seeking across the entire Chronicle organization, we will have no choice but to quickly seek a buyer for The Chronicle or, should a buyer not be found, to shut the newspaper down."

Document-leaking site Wikileaks has published 6,780 Congressional Research Service reports containing digitalized research material intended for Congress members and their employees.

The documents date back to 1990 and are predicted to be worth US$1 billion. Although the reports do not have classified information, they do refer to "politically sensitive" issues such as social policy, foreign affairs and defense, IT World wrote. Wikileaks spokesperson Daniel Schmitt said the reports were received almost a month ago and that the website spent some time organizing them prior to publishing them.

Former Gannett reporter and editor Jim Hopkins and is asking Gannett employees to provide information about the job cuts of hundreds of staff via the Gannett blog, according to Poynter.

Even though Internet-based media is gaining in popularity in Jordan, experts have said that the country's current legislative system may not be capable of regulate this new content. There is a growing demand for citizen news, and "traditional" news may become even less popular despite accuracy and accountability worries, writes The Jordan Times.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PN: No, there will always be a need for professional journalists, especially in covering breaking news or conducting investigative journalism, and Helium is definitely not out to undermine established journalists or copywriters.

Instead, we are trying to expand the ranks of paid writers to include part-time talent that otherwise would be sitting fallow.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

EW: What newspapers or websites do you work with?    

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

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

EW: What about your competition? Who are they?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Create a community of micro publishers

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

Restructuring the newsroom - rebuilding the engine

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

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

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

New technology to aid the change - democratising the web

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

Retraining for the digital future

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

Managing staffers through uncertain times

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

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

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

Staff sackings

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

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

The future

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

Under new laws introduced by the Federal Government in Australia, journalists and whistleblowers will have "increased protection from prosecution."

Changes to the Evidence act mean that journalists will no longer be forced to reveal their sources in court, even if they have broken a law in providing the information, according to EJC.

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."

According to Editor & Publisher, several dailies in the Northeast have been discussing a content-sharing deal in place of their AP agreements. The deal will include the sharing of stories and photos.  

According to EP, the papers included in the deal are New York's Daily News, Newsday, The Buffalo News, the Times-Union, and the Star Ledger.  

Investor's Business Daily is a national business newspaper that has been published since 1984 by investor and entrepreneur William O'Neil.  The paper has more than 150,000 subscribers and won a Pulitzer Prize last year for editorial cartoons.

However, according to The Big Money in an article titled, America's Strangest Newspaper, it is "the biggest newspaper no one has ever heard of."

O'Neil founded the paper because he wanted to publish a paper that presented his personal investment philosophy on stock picking. 

In the latest stage of reinvigorating the Wall Street Journal brand, its online edition - WSJ.com - has undergone a huge makeover, relaunching on Tuesday.

The parent company, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., appears determined to put its mark on its latest acquisition; the President of the Wall Street Journal Digital Network, Gordon McLeod, reportedly said that the investment into the website revamp is a "big financial commitment."

The Editors Weblog spoke with the Deputy Editor of the Wall Street Journal, Alan Murray, about the shake up occurring at the newspaper. Murray was bullish about the changes, saying, "The new owners have made it clear that they no longer want people to look at the Wall Street Journal as a second read. It should be their primary read, it should suit all their information needs. We want it to be the ultimate news source for our engaged, affluent and educated readers."

Murray went on to speak about the redesign of WSJ.com, the recent changes in newsroom layout and management, and the ambitious plans for the future of the Wall Street Journal brand. He made it clear that, "(The website relaunch) is not a finishing point. This is the launching pad." 

Murray was particularly excited about the relaunch occuring at the same time as the Lehman Brothers story breaking, saying "We are delighted that the biggest financial news story since 1929 happens to coincide with the launch of our revamped site!"

"Newsreel" revolutionizes site navigation
For the new, sleek look of WSJ.com, News Corp's primary design motivation was to take advantage of users who "come in through the side door". Individual article pages mostly found through search engines, have been equipped with multiple navigation tools, to keep readers on the WSJ site.

Arguably the most interesting navigation feature is "Newsreel", essentially a news ticker placed at the top of the article. As the reader browses an article page, Newsreel scrolls through the days most important stories from the section the user is in. For example, if a user is in the business section, the Newsreel displays the top business stories of the day.    

In addition to the new layout and navigation functions, the Journal's newsroom is upping its content production to help keep readers on the site. The redesign also aims to be more colourful with more photos and includes an enhanced video player, an increasingly prevalent aspect of all news websites. Further features are set to roll out over the coming months. 

Social network for the business community
Perhaps most important for the WSJ's new owners is maintaining WSJ.com's impressive online subscription base, which has reached over 1 million paying members. Apart from increasing content, News Corp hopes to hold on to these subscribers with exclusive features such as WSJ Community, a social network for WSJ subscribers.

The key feature of this new social networking tool is that members must use their real names, which is aimed at cutting out any random, anonymous comments or useless noise found on other Internet news sites. Murray believes the quality of the site's subscriber base will create "a higher quality conversation". He acknowledges WSJ.com will not achieve the numbers of a chat on Yahoo Finance but, "we think the usefulness and quality is going to be key". The Journal is considering opening up the Community to non-subscribers in the future, who, just like subscribers, would only be able to join and interact with their real name.

WSJ.com has been the world's most successful subscription newssite for years and its membership keeps growing. According to Murray, online subscriptions have increased 26% in the past two years. And the number of unique user is skyrocketing too: "By our numbers, we now have 17 million visitors to WSJ.com" - 8 million more than two years ago - "and in September it is going to be even bigger than that. Therefore, Murray doesn't see any conflict in bringing more people in and letting them sample WSJ content.


Integrated Newsroom

Murray revealed that the Wall Street Journal is not only undergoing a radical change on its website, but is also changing in its newsroom, "The relaunch coincides with a complete integration and reorganisation of the reporting and editing staff."

Managing Editor, Robert Thomson, has spearheaded the integration programme, which has brought together the online and print staff. Last week, Thomson debuted a news hub in the newsroom where the senior editors from print, online, Dow Jones Newswires and MarketWatch all sit together and co-ordinate the coverage throughout the day.

The morning news meeting has been "totally turned upside down," according to Murray. It now begins with a report from the online team, then from Dow Jones Newswires, then MarketWatch and, only after discussing the coverage for real-time news, do they look at coverage for the day's paper.

The substantial Dow Jones Newswire team is also being moved to make the integration process physical, with the whole team being brought across the river to sit alongside their New York print colleagues. This move will happen, "sometime next Spring" Murray said.

The Wall Street Journal team has been undergoing training to prepare for the integration process. Murray reported, "A simple example is headlines. You have to write a different kind of headline in the online world and in the print world. We will continue to do that kind of training."

The future of the Wall Street Journal

The Editors Weblog asked if this process was the beginning of a long term-reinvigoration process for the Wall Street Journal brand, Murray said: "You bet! We have very ambitious plans for international, we have very ambitious plans for premium products on top of this online platform and we have a whole schedule of online innovations that we are planning over the course of the next 18 months. This is just the beginning"

"Look for us forming closer links with all the social networks because we are not trying to compete with social networks, we want to make it as easy as possible for our users to share our content over social networks and to bring their friends and connection into our community"

Murray also added that News Corp is confident about the future of print, stating, "The Wall Street Journal under its new management is investing in both print and online, so I would say we are very optimistic about the future of newspapers. We may be the only people who are optimistic! We are dedicated to delivering our news on all platforms"

Source: Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones Newswires, MarketWatch, paidcontent.org

See also:

US: Murdoch on the future of newspapers
US: Wall Street Journal to launch new website on Tuesday
Wall Street Journal unveils magazine supplement, WSJ
US: Wall Street Journal launches new mobile application
Murdoch: Newspapers willing to invest in new forms of delivery will prosper

Google has announced last Wednesday the launch of its Knol feature, a website dedicated to providing user-generated articles on a range of topics, similar to Wikipedia. 

Jack Schofield, a Guardian blogger, warned that Knol may harm the media industry since writers not only have the chance to sidestep editors but also be able to earn money from the ad revenues on their pages.



A "knol" or a "unit of knowledge" will offer articles on a wide range of topics, written by experts on those subjects. Individual knols will be treated like web pages, indexed in Google's search engine.

"The ultimate goal is: we want to improve search," said Cedric Dupont, Knol product manager.

The difference between Knol and Wikipedia is that the latter has anonymous articles that are edited a multitude of times, reported the Guardian. Knols stress authorship, according to Dupont.

Knols may be edited if the author opts for the "moderated-collaboration" mode, but he or she has the right to chose what changes may be made, reported ZDNet UK.

Google partnered with the New Yorker magazine to let authors add cartoons from the publication to their knolls, ZDNet UK wrote.

Source: CyberJournalist.net, The Guardian, ZDNet UK

Lemonde.fr organized an online chat with French new media and technology specialist Francis Pisani. The expert gave his views on multiple topics, including the future of the mobile Web, anonymity online, social networks, and the public's fear of a Big Brother digital society.

The following is an edited and translated version of what can be found on Le Monde's site.

Nowadays, massive social networks are becoming the norm on the Web. Will this continue or will there be new social networks that are smaller and more localized?

Both coexist and will continue to do so. I find the concept of the website ning.com very interesting. Instead of putting users in a global social network, it enables users to create micro networks.

Is anonymity online a defunct notion?

It's hard to say. Personally I think the possibility of being anonymous should be preserved, but the most important thing is to have direct control over information about us. This means that users should be able to know what kind of data a website has about them, and users should be given the possibility to destroy that data or migrate it to another site.

What are the trends for blogs in the future?

I think blogs will evolve in two directions: the 'old' one, which entails publishing postings in a Wiki-type database, which can be searched independently of chronology and categories.
But today Twitter, Friendfeed and others are showing us the good things of being able to include conversations, in which the predominant role of bloggers is minimized.

How will the development of the mobile Web influence the way we use the Internet?

There are two big notions at play: the importance of location, and the highly specialized technologies necessary to understand the context around one's location.

This essentially means that once we will have these technologies, content providers (journalists, TV stations, institutions...) will have to provide content adapted to these circumstances.

We will also have to adapt to a new preset: the fact that we are becoming more and more nomadic.

Which mobile format do you think is most promising for news and information? Cell phones like the iPhone, e-books like Kindle, video game consoles like the PSP?

I would add a fourth category, UMPCs (Ultra Mobile PC), a format that is starting to seriously grow in Asia, and that we will probably see in the US and European markets very soon.

At this point, I can't say which of these forms will win. In fact, the increasing number of these machines should enable a large number of people to choose whichever format is convenient for them.

Source: Lemonde.fr