Results matching “norway newspape”

Newsrooms that integrate their online and print coverage have become common, if not commonplace, on the media landscape in recent times. Now that many have made the leap to an integrated newsroom, media strategist Steve Yelvington has spoken with editors and journalists who made the jump - and revealed his thoughts looking back.

He writes that, ultimately, merging print and online staff is and was "the right thing to do", and that if anything it should have happened sooner - perhaps moving faster would have lessened the divide which developed between print and online reporters in the interim period.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Editors Weblog has been following the Integrated Newsroom trend for several years. Major papers around the world from the Guardian to the New York Times to Kuwait's Awan, and the Hindustan Times of India have merged print and online operations. But there are plenty of papers that haven't taken the integrated route. In the following article, Espen Egil Hansen, Editor-in-Chief of Verdens Gang (VG) Multimedia, Norway, shows that keeping print and digital teams separate at his paper have led to steady profits for both newsrooms.

I am generally sceptical of the idea of one media house, one newsroom. When was the last time anyone won both the 100 meter dash and marathon during an Olympic game?

There are two fundamental issues that call for a greater degree of separation and specialization - what I like to call the model of focus.

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

"The newspaper and the internet are by nature so diverse that they demand completely different working methods and organizations in order to succeed."

The strength of the online journalism is the possibility to develop the product minute by minute, interacting with the readers. Their experience and presence (the readers are where we aren't, they know what we don't) becomes an integrated part of the continuous journalistic working process. An article does not have a deadline, the readers submits comments, we ad links and so on.

The strengths of the newspaper are opposite. Towards deadline one search for the most exclusive story and the best possible angle on another story. These stories are then being thoroughly edited and presented on a limited space.
 
While internet by nature has its strength in that the users themselves can choose from a stream of information (the roaring river), the strength of the newspaper is its well edited presentations (the glass of water with a twist of lemon).

"The idea of integration is a threat both to the printed product and for the online news site."

Furthermore, the basic differences in business models, rate of development, distribution and so on are also so substantial that they in my opinion demands specialized organizations in order to succeed.

The second fundamental issue that calls for a greater degree of separation is that we are living in the middle of a media climate change! The glaciers (the traditional publishing houses) are melting, the storms (the competitors) are getting violent and coming from unexpected places, and the changing circumstances for life are such that ancient species must succumb to new ones (goodbye Tribune - hello Facebook)

Where we earlier had to cope with a certain number of newspaper and channels on TV and radio, we are now exposed to an infinite offer of information wherever we are. As I am writing this, on one of the first days of 2009, I am simultaneously following one of many Twitter-feeds reporting a new round of bombing in Gaza. The news agencies will report the same stories during the next hour, but without the nerve and credibility of someone who are in the midst of the falling bombs...

"As I am writing this I am simultaneously following one of many Twitter-feeds reporting a new round of bombing in Gaza."

In this entirely new media landscape, I believe the specialists will win. The ones that are best adapted and that are able to change fast enough. What until now has been regarded as the power of publishing houses - tradition, position, stability and financial security - is now turning to become a weakness.

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

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

Our success is obviously not a guarantee for this model of focus being the best one in the years to come. Neither is our success with the model a guarantee that it will work in all other media houses, and markets. It makes greater sense to integrate if you're at a number two position (or lower), than if you are leading in the market. The current financial turmoil is accelerating the media climate change, and we must constantly evaluate whether our organization is optimal.

Norway's Aftenposten newspaper, owned by Scandinavian media firm Schibsted, is planning to webcast extracts of its editorial meetings starting this autumn, Journalism.co.uk reported.

The paper is to follow in the footsteps of American paper Spokesman-Review, whose meetings have been webcast since June 2006 in pursuit of "editorial transparency" Journalism.co.uk reported. The Liverpool Daily Post has been webcasting its editorial meetings since May and is UK's first paper to do so.

Aftenposten's editor-in-chief Hans Erik Matre said, "What we have concrete plans for, is publishing parts of our editorial meetings online to get feedback. This could either be to get reader perspectives on the evaluation of our stories, in retrospect, or to involve readers more upfront in the planning stage of big stories - say on healthcare."

"Our webcasts have 40-50 viewers in the morning, 20-25 in the afternoon. It's mostly our competitors or people who have, or think they might have, a stake in what is being said. We attract few viewers simply because these are boring meetings. It's symbolic: the fact that it is there, that it is an option, is important. We also break out pieces of the webcast and put them on blogs when we are dealing with controversial issues," said Steve Smith, editor-in-chief of Spokesman-Review.

Source: Journalism.co.uk

Here are some headlines from our sister blog, SFN:

Yahoo defends "yes" to Google, "no" to Microsoft
Norway's online newspaper revenues reache €290 million
Mobile marketing still immature, but most effective among young generations
Free dailies contribute 24 percent of Swiss newspaper ad revenue
US Newspaper help wanted ads falll by month, year

A "furious letter" was written to Mecom chairman David Montgomery by seven editors-in-chief from the Netherland's biggest regional newspaper publisher, Wegener, describing how worried they were about the future of their newspapers.

Wegener's editors are worried that job cuts will take place in their titles as well and hinder the editorial quality of their papers. Last year, Mecom took an 87% stake in the group.

"The employees are under extreme pressure. There are not enough people, resources and incentives to achieve product differentiation quickly in order to achieve the necessary large-scale success in the multimedia field," the editors stated in the letter.

"As the editors-in-chief, we would like to stress that our papers are not just an economic product.

The concerns of the Dutch editors echo similar situations in many countries where newspapers have been faced with declining ad revenues. Their letter serves as an important reminder that cutting costs and stripping newspapers of their resources can be more detrimental than helpful - editorially and commercially.

"We are also a cultural element, and this is the key factor in the core value of our product. The newspapers are more than an information provider for the inhabitants of the relevant regions - they are a bearer of historical and cultural awareness and social cohesion."

Mecom owns many titles in Europe, such as in Norway, Germany, Poland and Germany, including the "prestigious" Berliner Zeitung, where some 30 journalists positions were cut.

Although Mecom refused to comment on the letter, a senior official mentioned that the situation has improved since it was written and that issues like "local responsibility for publishing" will be resolved soon, the Guardian reported.

Source: Guardian Online

See also:
Mecom grows European assets
Montgomery buys Dutch shares

 

The World Editors Forum has asked five prominent newspaper designers to pick their Top 10 newspaper designs and Top 5 newspaper website designs to illustrate the evolution of newspaper design and how it is beginning to relate more to the Web.

Here are the newspapers most often cited by the designers: The Guardian (United Kingdom), Poklitiken (Denmark), Bergens Tidende (Norway), St Petersburg Times (United States), Eleftheros Typos (Greece), De Morgen (Belgium), elEconomista (Spain), Excelsior (Mexico), Expreso (Portugal) and Äripäev (Estonia).

The newspaper websites most often cited were elpais.com (Spain), guardian.co.uk (United Kingdom), globeandmail.com (Canada), 24sata.hr (Croatia), and Times Online (United Kingdom).

The results are included in a chapter on the 'fusion" of print and web design, one of the key trends examined in the just-released Trends in Newsroom 2008.

The examples chosen by the designers are those they consider the best newspaper and online newspaper designs of 2006 and 2007. The five are Jördis Guzmán Bulla of Welt am Sonntag in Germany, Lucie Lacava, one of the most notable and prolific print designers working internationally, Robb Montgomery, CEO of Visual Editors and former visual editor for the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune, Peter Ong, an Australian-based designer with clients throughout Asia and the Pacific, and Ally Palmer, a founding director of Canada-based Palmer Watson, which has created internationally acclaimed designs for newspapers around the world.

Source: WEF

JO Christian Oterhals, Head of Development at VG Multimedia & Chairman of the Board at Nettby Community AS, Norway, spoke about his companies' forays into social networking at the Annual Digital Media Round Table, a session at the 61st World Newspaper Congress.

Tony Lee, sales director of Norway's FAST, a company helping media companies transform their business online, presented FAST's product and strategies for newspapers at the annual Digital Media Round Table, part of the 61st World Newspaper Congress.

"You have to start with with your users," Tony Lee told the audience. He mentioned questions worth asking yourself: what task do I serve? Who are the key users? How do I build uniqueness? What is enabling content and services?

"Where, when and what are the users looking for?" Tony Lee asked. If you can make your content more findable, your users will be more contented." The right content end services improve your relationship with the user, said Lee. The search for audio, picture etc. must be more exact and relevant. Tony Lee shows us a site where the content is transforming depending on what the user is searching for. "It's really about exposing content and showing the user where to find the information." The content on New York Times site is created by the search company, and Lee thinks the Times' homepage has a very rich search and is dynamically built.

Lee isn't very impressed with Google's seach-page. "You don't want a list of results, that's not very user-friendly." Instead, ask the following questions: Can I find it? Can I find it near me? Can I compare it? Can I find a deal in it? Can I read what others think about it?

Mr Richard Seyler Ling, Sociologist and Senior researcher, Telenor Research & Development, Norway talked about the new way we use mobile phones and how this opens up a new market for mobile advertisement at The Annual Digital Media Round Table, a session of the 61st World Newspaper Congress.

Over 90% of the Europeans have a mobile subscription. But more and more people in the developing world are using it. According to Richard Seyler Sing the developing world is on the move and that is where it happens!
 
Men talk longer than women but on the other hand it's teen girls who text message the most - up to 15-20 texts per day. As the girls get older the number of texts drop. So it's a teen thing!

Richard Seyler Ling has studied the social consequences of mobile phone usage. In the developing world it's a matter of basic connectivity. It makes a larger number of people able to use a phone than a landline ever did.

Mobile phones also change the way we look at telephone calls: now we call a person, not a place. It's individual addressability. Parents give mobile phones to their children so they can be accessible.

The young people of today have access to their friends in a way older generations never had. According to Richard Seyler Ling mobile phones generate social cohesion. It's the first technical device to do that.

Social rituals are holding people together, and mobile phones is no different. Our mobile usage create new social rituals. Although face to face communication is the number one thing to hold together social ties, mobile voice is in second place.

The industry of mobile advertising is still in its infancy. The money spent on that kind of commercial is still peanuts compared to the more traditional ways. But Infoma Telecoms and Media predicts the market for mobile ads will be 11.4 billion by 2011.That means in just over three years time the mobile ads market will grow fast!

There are different ways of mobile ads, for example:
-Push based text messages
-Click through web ads
-Ads for services (Get X free minutes on the internet if you look at this ad)

But the key is to make it not look like spam. For people to accept it it has to look like information - a good thing for the news business!

So far there are not many web capable mobile phones. But if you are to believe Richard Seyler Ling the market is out there.

Xavier Vidal-Folch, Deputy Director of the Spanish daily El Pais, has been elected President of the World Editors Forum, the global association for senior newsroom executives within the World Association of Newspapers.

Mr Vidal-Folch was elected by the Board of WEF, meeting in Göteborg, Sweden, on the eve of the annual World Editors Forum conference. He succeeds George Brock, Saturday Editor of The Times of London, who served as WEF President for the last four years.

"It is an honour to be the successor of George Brock," said Mr Vidal-Folch. "Under his presidency, WEF became the voice of editors-in-chief through its Editors Weblog, and the attendance to our annual conference more than tripled.

"My task will be to transform the organisation into a truly digital organisation with more products and services available online. WEF wants to welcome more senior news executives through a new professional online network, useful worldwide, which will become a hub for the entire newspaper industry."

Mr Vidal-Folch has been Deputy Director of El Pais since 1989. He has been with the paper since 1982 and has served as Chief Editor and Brussels Bureau Chief.

Harald Stanghelle, the Political Editor of Aftenposten in Norway, was elected Vice President of WEF.

He has been Political Editor of Aftenposten since 2000. He previously served as News Editor of the paper and as Editor-in-Chief of Dagbladet.

Editors from four countries have been nominated to become new members of the WEF Board: Nadia Al-Saqqaf, Editor-in-Chief of the Yemen Times; Raju Narisetti, Editor of Mint, India; Marcelo Rech, Editor-in-Chief of Zero Hora, Brazil; and Gianni Valenti, Deputy Editor of Gazzetta dello Sport, Italy.

The Paris-based World Editors Forum (http://www.worldeditorsforum.org ) is the organisation of the World Association of Newspapers that represents editors-in-chief and other senior news executives. WAN, the global organisation for the newspaper industry, represents 18,000 newspapers; its membership includes 76 national newspaper associations, newspapers and newspaper executives in 102 countries, 12 news agencies and ten regional and world-wide press groups.

Source: Larry Kilman, Director of Communications, WAN, 7 rue Geoffroy St Hilaire, 75005 Paris France. Tel: +33 1 47 42 85 00. Fax: +33 1 47 42 49 48. Mobile: +33 6 10 28 97 36. E-mail: lkilman@wan.asso.fr

Norwegian media group Schibsted has bought a 35% share of Metro International's Swedish edition for 350m Swedish kronor (€38m).

Schibsted's Aftonbladet paper will form a joint advertising venture with Metro Sweden. The new company will offer advertisers the chance to reach 4.2 million readers, reports The Guardian.

Schibsted, the publisher of Norway's biggest-circulation paper VG, said in a statement it would get two seats on the board of Metro Sweden. Aftonbladet will also close its freesheet Punkt SE immediately at a cost of 65 million kronor (€7m). Punkt SE, which had been posting losses, is only one of the many freesheets that are starting to see their revenues tail off.

Source: Guardian (here and here) through IFRA Executive News Service

The Norwegian press is experimenting with innovative Google news mash-ups and online databases, an effort that is spearheaded by, among others, Epsen Anderson, who is charged with modernizing NRK 's (Norway's public broadcaster) flagship program Brennpunkt,  the Norwegian equivalent of Panorama.

Andersen, who regularly designs new technology methods for "doing journalism", feels that "computer programming is also journalism." He is a strong advocate for making programming know-how a necessary and commonplace skill in a newsroom. 

His latest project for NRK is Politikerdatabasen (see image), a database that currently contains information on all members of parliament in Norway and will expand to include information on the country's 11,000 local politicians in May, reports Journalism.co.uk's Kristine Lowe.
 
"I think it is absolutely key to bring programmers into the newsrooms so they can get involved in journalistic projects at an early stage," Andersen said. "Programmers can create solutions to process large quantities of information, e.g. from public sources, and present it in an engaging and orderly manner."

Before working with NRK, Andersen created several high-profile online databases and mash-ups for local newspaper Budstikka, discovering along the way that maps which touched on issues close to readers found the most success. Examples included a map of parking fines showing the parking lots with the highest fines, and one detailing which parts of the region were troubled by snails killing off plants, a concern for gardeners.

Andersen is not the only Norwegian on the cutting edge of multimedia journalism; two journalists at VG were recently honored for a complex multimedia project focused on domestic homicide.

Source: Journalism.co.uk

Last week, journalists Anne Stine Saether and Anders Sooth Knutsen from Norway's VG's online arm were awarded with the Skup-diploma, an investigative prize, for developing the newspaper's biggest multimedia project ever.

The idea for the online project about domestic killings in Norway was born in mid-2007 after a murder case that had been buried in the back pages of the paper. It took six months to complete, but on, Nov. 12 the front page of VG's print edition featured portraits of women killed by their men. The story was planned and executed on all platforms simultaneously, and included online blogs, articles, chats, and video interviews with some of the murderers, next of kin, psychologists, and others.

For the project, VG took on the task of extensively researching anonymous homicide statistics, using all the archives and registers they could access for the multi-media project.

"The idea for the project came as a result of my own anger and feeling of impotence half a year ago. Yet another woman had been murdered and the story was buried far back in the newspaper, I thought, dammit, this happens all the time, which lead to the idea to spray the front page with the faces of women who'd suffered such a fate," said Kjersti Sortland, the managing editor of the award-winning journalists.

The project took half-a-year to finish, but the completed coverage was "groundbreaking" and "led to a change in how murders are reported in Norway," according to Online Journalism Scandinavia's Kristine Lowe.

The Norwegian government plans to map domestic murders, and starting in 2007, the Norwegian police had began to register the relationship between the murderer and victim in their reports.

"In contrast to other countries, we did not know how many women were killed by their husbands, partners and boyfriends in Norway," said the jury who awarded the prize.

Source: Journalism.co.uk (photo)

Last month, Mecom-owned Drammens Tidende (DT) invited its readers to help them cover this year's World Cup Ski Sprint, but DT discovered that local readers seemed to be more interested in the Children's Ski Cup, submitting pictures of their own children instead of the professional skiiers. (First photo shown is reader submitted while second one is a pro-snap, both from DT.)

"The traffic to our news site doubled on the day of the World Cup, and the shots submitted by readers garnered quite some interest, but people were particularly interested in viewing and submitting pictures from the Children's Cup," said Geir Arne Bore, Editor-in-Chief of DT.

Readers can upload text, pictures, and videos onto the online portal The Reader's Newspaper, (still in Beta version) which was developed by Edda Media, Mecom's Norwegian branch. As of now, DT, an early tester for the portal, finds that their readers have mostly uploaded text and pictures about entertainment events, while another early tester Budstikka.no's readers are more involved in local sports events.

Over the upcoming months, all of Edda Media's regional and local papers are expected to have access to the portal.

"Our experiences confirm the general impression which is taking root in Norwegian media: user generated content does not come unsolicited, and if it does come it is on issues people are very passionate about, or as a result of substantial marketing," said Bore. "I guess you could say this in line with the trend described in The State of the News Media 2008."

Source: Journalism.co.uk

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

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

Imooty.eu, a newspaper and blog aggregator

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

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

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

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

Pros and cons of Imooty for newspapers

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

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

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



No editorializing, unlike major online news portals

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

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

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

News aggregation and Imooty: a resource for news professionals

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

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

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

Future developments

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

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

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

Source: Kristoffer Lassen, co-founder Imooty.eu

The World Association of Newspapers has asked leading newspapers executives to identify the current trends they believe will have an impact on the future of their businesses. Some are profound and others are seemingly minor -- but all have the potential to shape the future of newspapers.

Video, video, video. In 2007, the ‘V’ word was the new craze for newspapers internationally. And this is bound to continue in 2008. But just how much video should newspapers seek? Is it an optional plus, should all reporters be assigned to capture video, or should a newsroom even have its in-house studio? In Part 1, we take a look at several examples of how newspapers have included video.

User-generated content websites have flourished and there is no question now that they are here to stay, and that ‘user’ content will increasingly pervade all media – ‘traditional’ media that is. Has the definition of ‘News’ changed, or deteriorated, with the Web 2.0 revolution?  Are UGC sites competitors or facilitators for newspapers transitioning to the online world? Martin Rogard, director of content for YouTube’s European alter ego, Daily Motion, answers some of these questions for the Weblog, to help newspapers that can be torn between opening to readers and keeping the old rules in place.

Feel like a dedicated editor-in-chief? Think again: the editor-in-chief of the regional paper Tönsbergs Blad, in Norway, had to step in to deliver the paper himself, because of a shortage in newspaper delivery staff.

The World Association of Newspapers is organizing two major events in October for the whole of the press industry. The World Digital Publishing Conference & Expo, to be held on Oct. 17-18, and the World Editor and Marketeer Conference & Expo, to be held on Oct. 18-19, will take place consecutively in Amsterdam.

According to the Shaping the Future of the Newspaper’s (SFN) latest report, World Digital Media Trends 2007, at a time of decline in the print advertising market, it is becoming increasingly important to generate revenues from its digital businesses. By now, that’s conventional wisdom. The sixty-four thousand dollar question really is, (how) can newspapers sustain their high profitability, and quality, through their digital businesses? Editors Weblog considers the latest trends in terms of newspapers’ use of mobile and video.

The challenge of digital media is not so much the new platforms in themselves, but the way in which they are embraced, capturing new audiences, according to Matthew Buckland, general manager of New Media at the Mail & Guardian Online. Speaking at a roundtable discussion at the 14th World Editors Forum, Buckland said the question was how publishers could harness these challenges to be successful in the future media environment.