The Editors Weblog interviewed Benoît Raphaël, head of editorial operations at LePost.fr.

This is part of series looking at different examples of online-only news sites:
Part 1: MinnPost.com: can traditional print journalists strive online – and how?
Part 2: LePost.fr: when traditional media experiment with all-new approaches to journalism
Part 3: Rue89.com: pro-am success story shows path to newspapers

 
Traditional media brands faced with new media challenges:
“Do I transform my brand, or create a laboratory to experiment?”

Le Post is published by Le Monde interactif, which publishes the eponymous quality newspaper website. But the paper and Le Post have no editorial ties, nor do they intend to.

Le Post is first and foremost “a project and an experiment,” says Raphaël. Staffed by a fulltime editorial team, the news site enables users to create a profile and compile their own media, by collecting content from Le Post, other sources, and by submitting their own content. For more background info, click here.

The website is clearly aimed at a very general public of the younger generation, and includes all the now normal Web 2.0 features: favorite postings, most emailed, most tagged, social networking groups... Content is presented in a clear layout and accessible tone, with a focus on witness reports, pedagogy and entertainment. The website prominently features video links to YouTube, cartoons, pictures, posts about iPhones and dangerous dogs. “It’s a choice of experience over analysis,” says Raphaël. But this isn’t citizen journalism persay, he says. It’s closer to the notion of “participatory democracy.”

Following this philosophy, content isn’t prioritized or categorized in regular newspaper fashion. Instead, it is posted from the top, as it comes, the blog way. Le Post gets about 30 daily posts from users so far, which is above expectations, considering the site launched no official marketing campaign.

Among the top headlines as of now: reactions to French policies regarding genetically modified organisms, reactions to French immigration policy requiring DNA tests, a plane crash in Thailand, a video issued by Al-Qaïda, but also a video from YouTube featuring a flying alarm clock, you get the idea. Most of the items offer a stance on a traditional news issue, but some are simply there for entertainment.

“We’re always trying to look for audience participation,” says Raphaël, explaining which type of content is privileged. Consequently, much of the content is ‘soft news’, or revolves around topics that will generate user input (ie: a poll asking readers whether the singer of Noir Désir, currently on trial for murder, should be signed on for another record).

Can Le Post be considered a journalistic news site? To the extent that it has a regular editorial staff to filter news, which ensures the link between the publication and its… “60 million correspondents” (France’s population), possibly.

In many ways, Le Post’s editorial content and young audience seems complementary to the content and audience of Lemonde.fr. One could presume – this was the author’s presumption – that Le Post was established with an unsaid aim to complement coverage from Lemonde.fr, with a different audience target and approach. And, if successful, Le monde interactif would have eventually included a Le Post-type section, light and new media driven, within its more sober media offerings (Lemonde.fr), to get the best of both worlds.

But “this is much more about experimenting than it is a vision of complementary media,” Raphael insists. Le Post was designed to stand on its own. We know the younger generations consume news differently, says Raphaël, “so we’re looking for new practices.”

Put yourself in the shoes of a media publisher with an established brand name, says Rapahaël, the question is, “do I transform my brand (and take a risk) or create a laboratory to experiment?” Evidently the second option is more appealing.

Essentially, this leads back to the initial assumption. Although Le Post is independent and isn’t meant to complement Le Monde, it is the illustration of how traditional media names are grappling with new approaches to adapt to changes in news consumption.

A traditional newsroom organized the new media way:
Teaching users how to collaborate, not how to become journalists

Le Post’s basic newsroom organization is similar to newspapers.

The relatively small team (undisclosed numbers) is split between a traditional news desk, which filters news alerts and publishes short news. Part of the team also does traditional journalistic work, coming up with story topics, doing research and interviews. So there is an element of original reporting in news published by Le Post’s staff.

The roles of LePost’s journalist change according to a rotation, typical of online journalism. One of the real innovations is the creation of a “Coach” position. The Coach is essentially the readers’ editor – the new generation of the readers’ editor. (Think about it: traditionally, the readers’ editor was meant to create a link between the newspaper and its readers. Now, the readers’ editor directly links the readers’ insight into the publication.)

The Coach selects user content and edits it, when deemed publishable. He or she also gets in touch with the contributors to proceed to “necessary verifications” as to the content’s accuracy. The editorial process is very much adapted to Web 2.0 thinking though. It doesn’t follow strict and unchanging guidelines. As a user regularly posts, grows ties with Le Post’s staff, and builds credibility, editorial oversight diminishes accordingly.

After this interactive process with the user, the Coach posts the monitored content on the homepage, or, if not, gets back to the reader to explain the reasons why. Notice the choice of the word “coach,” which alludes to the pedagogical approach of Le Post.

The Coach not only gets in touch with users about stories, he also gives advice to improve those stories. Some basics that any young journalist has already heard: lack of sources, you could have added a link there, find an example…

“We teach them how to work with us,” says Raphaël. Although he reminds that “we’re not trying to make journalists out of them.”

This seems like it’s the essence of participatory journalism: getting users to contribute their valuable insight and helping them improve upon it. But without leading users to think they’re seasoned journalists simply because they made a contribution.

Certainly, participatory media “will increasingly integrate the structure of traditional media online,” says Raphaël. But the time is now to the reinvention of the journalist’s role, not to its disappearance.

As user-generated content grows, so will the need for qualified people to filter that content. “We’ve never needed journalists more than nowadays,” says Raphaël.


Don’t miss “Part 3: online-only news,” which will take a look at yet another model of online-only news, with Rue89.com, a pro-am website launched by former print journalists. Coming soon.

Source: interview with Benoît Raphaël, head of editorial operations at LePost.fr