The Weblog spoke to Laurent Guimier, editorial head of Lefigaro.fr, and Frédéric Sitterlé, Director of New Media for the Figaro.

Online as an opportunity to diversify into commercial services

In 2005, Figaro.fr counted only six online journalists and generated a mere €1 million in revenue. Now the Figaro group counts 450 online staffers, and its digital operations generate 15% of total revenue.

Granted, of the 450, 120 actually work under Figaro’s New Media branch, 80 of whom work in-house. About 40 are accredited journalists. So the Figaro’s real online journalist team isn’t huge, compared to the print’s 350 staffers as the newspaper group has assumed a commercial strategy online that extends far beyond the paper’s editorial content, while still revolving around newspaper services.

In recent years, the Figaro has gone through an intensive process of online acquisitions. These include sports site Sport24.com, marketplace BazaarChic, theater booking service TickeTac, and more. In effect, the Figaro group became a portal rather than a newspaper site, and a successful one at that (see organizational chart, and final section for figures).

“We think that eventually online trade will amount to a third of revenues for our new media branch,” says Sitterlé.

This digital strategy does reduce the predominance of the actual newspaper, but doesn’t undermine its centrality. The paper’s website still drives about 40-45% of total traffic to the portal, with roughly 2 million unique monthly visitors. And the newspaper remains the primary concern when branching outwards – according to Sitterlé. “We think in concentric circles,” he says.

For commercial services that are directly linked to the newspaper brand name, these are closely linked to the newspaper’s core activity. For example, Figaro.fr offers ‘Le Littré’, a collection of 20 volumes about the French language, replete with dictionary definitions, literary quotes and references to authors.

While the Figaro’s digital strategy described here sounds more businessy, it can also influence the Figaro.fr’s editorial work. Journalists can inform annex services about relevant news. Of course, the other way around, Figaro.fr is editorially independent from the Figaro’s commercial services. But if one of the commercial sites were to notice, for example, an extraordinary surge in a particular concert’s sales, this could serve as a lead for a newspaper article.

Most importantly though, “a newspaper can sell something else than editorial quality” but this strategy “is only viable on the long term if the editorial quality is sustained,” says Guimier.

Non-integrated: building print-online cooperation

Guimier, a career journalist who became head of Figaro.fr about a year ago, admits that “I am also discovering this (new media) world.” The Figaro chose not to integrate its newsrooms, and seems satisfied with the status quo. In fact, “in three years there will still be two newsrooms,” Guimier affirms. This means that a share of Web content is produced by print journalists for both editions, and that a separate online journalist team produces exclusive online content, reshaping stories to fit the digital medium.

On the other hand, the Figaro’s non-integration resulted from a “state of urgency,” rather than an ideological choice to not integrate. When the Figaro suddenly decided to relaunch its website in 2006, “exploding the current team to inject staffers in different department’s wasn’t desirable,” says Guimier. Since the print journalists were overwhelmingly in favor of having their articles be republished on the Web, a long-winded integration simply wasn’t a time-effective solution.

Only recently did the online team start working in the same building as the print team. The departments are still separate, but are down the hallway from each other. “We don’t ask ourselves the ideological and architectural question” of newsroom integration, says Guimier. Asked about the Daily Telegraph’s hub-and-spokes newsroom, which typically serves as the example for newsroom integration, “it’s a nice journalistic idea, but it might not work on the scale of the Figaro,” he replies.

This physical and organizational separation doesn’t prevent cooperation between the departments, since in theory “the Web is set on equal ground with the paper,” says Guimier – at least according to the Figaro’s organizational chart. The Figaro is not integrated, he explains, according to the restrictive definition of newsroom integration: having a unique editorial head that decides which content goes to print and online. But if one sees integration as a more general process of increased cooperation between print and online, then one could say the Figaro is “integrating.”

“I’m spending my time meeting staff and talking to journalists” from both departments, he says. According to him, “the biggest problem (in print-online cooperation) is due to lack of knowledge” of online. He hasn’t organized formal sessions to have the online team meet the print team, but seems to believe these would be helpful.

On a day-to-day basis, the Figaro’s policy towards web-first publishing is probably one of the most representative examples of the paper’s integration – or lack of.

In practice, the Figaro doesn’t have a web-first policy. The print product remains the favored platform to break news. To be more precise, the Figaro does have a web-first policy, but on a selective case by case basis. When the paper obtained an exclusive interview with then-presidential-candidate Nicolas Sarkozy, it posted it online first. When a print journalist got an exclusive about the arrest of Italian activist Cesare Battisti, on a Sunday morning, it published a short brief on its website, knowing the news would be broken by the next day. Interestingly, the news updates that followed on the website were then taken over by the Figaro.fr team, not by the print journalist.

But if a news item can still hold until the next morning, it is saved for the print edition. Just yesterday, the Figaro came out with an exclusive scoop about an insider trading offense concerning EADS. Since the scoop was so big, and because it was deemed it would hold until the next morning, the paper saved it for its print edition, which went out to the presses later than usual.

So both the print and online team must coordinate to decide whether to wait for the paper or not, depending on an article’s time sensitivity. In those cases, because of lack of a unified editorial overhead, much of the cross-department communication is done bottom-up, based on the journalist’s initiative. Within 10 days, the Figaro.fr will (finally) be transferred to the Eidos content management system of the print team, which should ease communication and resource sharing in these situations.

While in-depth exchanges between print and online don’t seem to be that frequent, “print journalists feel at home in the offices of Figaro.fr,” Guimier says. For each section of Figaro.fr, a team leader (who partakes in the print’s morning editorial meeting) serves as a correspondent and bridge with the print sections. Figaro.fr has also created a new position to help cross-department communication (and could be creating more). For this they appointed a 20-year Figaro print veteran, who happens to know most people across both newsrooms, and essentially serves as a print-online mediator.

A daily newsletter listing most-viewed stories, currently being sent out to the online team only, will also be sent out to print journalists to make them aware of their online influence (these results will eventually be included on the last page of the print paper too).

Non-integrated but – no, and – prone to new media

But the best way to get print journalists to contribute to Figaro.fr was by shooting video interviews with these journalists (the videos turned out to be extremely successful with online readers too).

Like other forward-thinking integrated newspapers, the Figaro.fr has made headway in terms of video and multimedia offerings. The online team recently created a Figaro group on Facebook. It would be too easy to presume that because a newsroom is non-integrated, its digital operations are considered a secondary detail.

Figaro.fr currently equips about 25 online journalists with Nokia N93 mobile multimedia devices (other recent examples: Fairfax, Hindustan Times). The journalists have no mandatory multimedia requirements, and their video shootings are based on initiative alone.

The paper is also in the process of building an in-house video studio “to produce content of broadcast quality,” says Sitterlé. A significant investment, which cost a few hundred thousand euros. The paper conducted video training this summer for its journalists, in partnership with the journalism university ESJ de Lille.

“But video is just one of the formats on the web,” reminds Sitterlé. “We don’t want a process of realignment on a specific medium,” since the quality of online is precisely its multimedia nature.

The Figaro, although it’s a national, is also gaining ground on the local-hyperlocal side of things (although this isn’t a priority either). During the presidential and legislative elections, it had great success by offering a local search engine, which enabled users to find results according to a candidate’s name or locality. After the first round of the presidential elections in April, Lefigaro.fr drew 760,000 visitors in one day, in much part thanks to the search engine (see illustration). The Figaro has similar projects to for the next municipal elections – but these are kept secret for the time being. Figaro.fr also plans to roll out Scope before the end of the year, which will provide local listings for outings, restaurants and cultural events.

On the other hand, the Figaro’s attitude towards blogs and user-generated content is clearly less trusting than, say, all major US papers. Figaro.fr doesn’t boast any blogs, and comments are only enabled on a few select articles. Nor does it plan on boosting either offering in the near future (although it could be considering journalist blogs). “There is no pressure to include comments,” says Guimier.

Even more so, the strength of user-generated content (UGC) lies “within the editorializing of UGC, not UGC on its own,” says Guimier. “Is it valid to collect readers’ opinions on every single topic and aspect?” While the point of view may seem strongly worded, this is also the stance of several ‘new media’ news sites, such MinnPost.com or Rue89.com - even LePost.fr, which is pretty much open to most user content, but always with editorial oversight.

In other words, the Figaro would rather collect some views and insight from readers and shape them into a journalistic piece than simply publish the scratch material. In line with this policy, the Figaro has two full-time online journalists who are dedicated to the “valorization of content published” by users. Comment moderation is externalized, as is the case for many papers, but these two journalists spend their day looking at user comments, trying to pick valuable ideas and content from users.

Figaro.fr is currently preparing a TV show in partnership with France 2, which will be produced using reader contributions collected on the website. But these contributions will be geared to a pinpointed, pragmatic topic: “how would you save the school system?”

Sitterlé also reminds that the Figaro group has been toying with user-generated content outside of the newspaper. Sport24.com for example is produced and edited in great part by users.

Non-integrated in a non-integrated market

Above: unique monthly visitors to French press websites / portals in May 2007 (Nielsen NetRatings)

Major French newspapers are typically non-integrated, so Figaro’s own newsroom organization is by no means surprising. Its online traffic is smaller than that of its archrival, Lemonde.fr, but with a strong growth rate “we think one day the curves will cross,” confides Sitterlé.

About le Figaro.fr:
 
- 2 million unique visitors in March 2007, 2.4 million in April, peak at 3.1 million in May due to the presidential elections (Nielsen NetRatings)
- 80 million page views in March 2007 (Cyberstats)
- +48% unique visitors between January and June 2007. The Figaro brands itself as the most dynamic French news site.
- 4 million unique visitors to the Figaro portal, average for 2006 (Nielsen NetRatings)

- 450 online staffers for the Figaro group
- 40 accredited journalists working for Figaro.fr, half on news

- Diversified commercial services strategy (Le Monde is more centered on its core newspaper offer)
- Digital operations make up for 15% of total revenue
- High advertising CPM (rate) for online ads, about three times that of competitors

The Figaro’s print edition has fared relatively well too, considering the newspaper industry’s hardships. Its print circulation grew 3.2%, up to 331,922 copies in mid-2007. Subscriptions are expected to increase 7% to 9% by the end of the year. And “the losses of the daily are decreasing and are compensated by the good results of magazines, supplementary products, and the Web,” says Francis Morel, General Director of the Figaro, in a Le Monde article.

One must figure the non-integrated – but cooperating – newsroom still works, although it makes cross-department communication trickier.

The next part of this series on non-integrated newsrooms will take a look at the Figaro’s sworn competitor, Le Monde.

Source: Frédéric Sitterlé (left), Director of New Media Figaro.fr, Laurent Guimier (right), editorial head Figaro.fr