Results matching “must enhance their online”

While The Wall Street Journal struggles with advertising, it continues to diversify its offerings by delving into another realm - travel services. PaidContent reports that the WSJ officially announced Thursday the launch of WSJTravel, a website that will offer 50 travel packages to destinations including Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, and South America.

The Financial Times website is adding services to its £99 subscription, reports paidContent, as part of an attempt to 'enhance' its premium offering.

The publication, one of few which has been able to successfully charge for online content, will now add a monthly editor's newsletter from Financial Times editor Lionel Barber, "highlighting big themes for the month ahead and providing updates and insights on new site features"; a page-turning electronic edition of the paper; and 'FT Newsmine,' a Friday email "that abstracts hidden nuggets from articles".

The BBC, who yesterday announced a new initiative to grant the general public access to professional media training resources, has also revealed it will expand the content available on its news website by linking to rival sources via an aggregation-like system, reports The Independent.

The move comes after accusations headed by News Corp's chairman and CEO for Europe and Asia, James Murdoch, that the corporation, in choosing to remain free, is flooding the market and preventing competitors from expanding online and charging for their content.  The new plan would reportedly see links to commerical websites added at the end of BBC stories.  

See part 1 for discussion of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's initiative PG+

The Times of London has started a different kind of club, which does not provide any extra editorial content, but gives its members the chance to take advantage of a range of offers. These include free gifts, opportunities to save money and members-only competitions. The initiative is an expansion of the membership only Culture+, a venture launched last September, limited to print subscribers, which attracted over 90.000 active members. The Times decided that more could be done with this, and Suzi Watford, who had headed Culture+, was put in charge of the more general-interest programme Times+.

Watford told the EW that there are no specific plans to introduce extra editorial content in the future, but it was not an option that had been ruled out. It is no secret that the Times' parent company News Corp, headed by Rupert Murdoch, has plans to put pay walls around at least some online content at all its papers in the near future, but Watford gave no indication that there is a possibility that this might be linked to Times+. 

Unlike PG+, the Times offering is clearly an attempt to enhance the value of the print product, as membership is complimentary to print subscribers. "It's still first and foremost linked into subscription," Watford said.

There is a general section of Times+, and then there are two different more focused packs - Travel+ and Culture+, which offer extra awards. Each membership to Times+ includes one of these packs and the other can be bought: £25 for print subscribers and £50 for non-subscribers. The Travel+ pack includes the Sunday Times travel magazine once a month, and travel-focused offers of a higher value, such as room upgrades. The Culture+ pack offers members a regular choice of free gift, often a book, CD or DVD, and offers such as a free glass of champagne at the Royal Albert Hall.

Currently, Times+ seems likely to appeal more to Londoners than those living in other parts of the country, as so many of the offers are London-based. "That is definitely not intentional," said Watford, however, "and it's something we want to change."

Some of the offers are events that give members an opportunity for contact with the editorial staff. For example, at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, Times+ members were invited to the Times Café where they could have free tea or coffee and meet journalists. Times cartoonist Peter Brookes gave a talk at a small gallery in London for another event.

When choosing which offers to provide, "we work very closely with editorial," said Watford, "particularly on the arts events that are coming up. We run past the editorial team that partners that we are going to be working with and pay close attention to the ones that they think are going to be useful."

Currently, the site itself offers little potential for interaction, simply a 'wall' where members can post comments in the 'newsroom' area of the site. Here, members do have the chance to leave their feedback about what they like and dislike about the site. And Watford feels that the members do have a chance to network in person: "whilst the site doesn't have a community aspect, we find that at the events that we do - the readers enjoy meeting each other, as well as the writers."

Will in bring in significant revenue?

For a start, Times+ will provide some income from anybody who chooses to sign up. It seems very possible, however, that the package will be viewed just as much as an extra benefit of subscription as as a stand-alone item of value. "We are obviously keen to push subscriptions and Times+ is both a fantastic retention tool and reward for those people but also a great acquisition tool," said Watford. "If people are passionate about travel or culture then they should subscribe to the newspaper." Another probably not insignificant revenue stream, one which PG+ is also likely to benefit from, is commission when readers take up the offers that are promoted.

As well as bringing in new revenue, Times+ offers the paper a less tangible but no less valuable benefit, the chance to enhance its core, loyal community of readers. "We know that our readers and customers are passionate about the editorial content in the paper. And this just provides more ways for them to enjoy that content and more ways for them to engage with it," said Watford.

This is a significant aspect of membership clubs, the idea of being more connected to the paper. It is a motivation which only a newspaper with a strong identity can take advantage of. Both Times+ and PG+ offer their members this less concrete but important benefit: the Times, a national, quality newspaper seems to be trying to give its readers the chance to be part of something a little exclusive, sophisticated, while the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, a city paper with clout, is allowing readers to have a more personal newspaper experience.

Many feel that charging for online content outright will not work, and there is a strong likelihood that unless a paper is offering something which nobody else is giving away, its online audience may well decide it is not worth paying. Recent polls show reluctance amongst UK and US readers to pay online. A membership scheme that also offers readers something else, something that makes them feel they are getting their money's worth, while tying them closer to the paper, might well work better.

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Alan Mutter on his blog, Reflections of a Newsosaur, has published a checklist for publications to follow in their attempts to start charging for online news content.
Mutter argues that charging for particular content such as world, national, business, sports and entertainment news is not an option, though perhaps some revenue could be generated from local news if it is of a good enough quality. Niche news publications, such as those in the 'business to business realm' could probably charge users for exclusive information, as could those producing exculsive entertainment content. But apart from these publications (which is just about everyone), he says that newspapers need to totally modify their attitude toward the way and the type of content they produce before they can even contemplate trying to sell it.

Google is developing a paid online content model involving both subscriptions and micropayments that it is has proposed to the Newspaper Association of America, Nieman Lab reported. Google submitted an eight-page document to the NAA in response to the association's request for content charging solutions (available here).

Google already has an e-commerce platform called Google Checkout and the new system would be an extension of this.

The company outlines its thoughts on paid online content as follows:

Google believes that an open web benefits all users and publishers.  However, "open" need not mean free.  We believe that content on the Internet can thrive supported by multiple business models -- including content available only via subscription. While we believe that advertising will likely remain the main source of revenue for most news content, a paid model can serve as an important source of additional revenue.  In addition, a successful paid content model can enhance advertising opportunities, rather than replace them.

The document outlines Google's assumption that one of the main challenges of paid online content is to "create a simple payment model that is painless for users." It claims that it could use its expertise in e-commerce and consumer products to "help create a successful e-commerce platform for publishers." And it stresses that, given its position in Internet users' lives, it can help publishers to enable users to find the paid content via search.

Key features in Google's vision of a "premium content ecosystem" include:

• • Single sign-on capability for users to access content and manage subscriptions  
• • Ability for publishers to combine subscriptions from different titles together for one price  
• • Ability for publishers to create multiple payment options and easily include/exclude content behind a paywall  
• • Multiple tiers of access to search including 1) snippets only with "subscription" label, 2) access to preview pages and 3) "first click free" access   
• • Advertising systems that offer highly relevant ads for users, such as interest-based advertising

Using the "fast, secure" Google Checkout, consumers can store their payment information in their Google Account and use this to buy products, both digital and physical. Fraud losses are low, the document says, and tens of millions of users and several hundred thousand merchants are already registered.

Subscriptions and micropayment options

Checkout can already offer subscription payments, and the document promises that the currently "fairly rudimentary" process could be improved to be "more relevant for news and media companies." Micropayments are "in the early planning stages" but "will be a payment vehicle available to both Google and non-Google properties within the next year." The document stresses that merchant integration will be "extremely simple."

"Google believes that there is real power and benefit to publishers in providing these sorts of broad, multi-publication access passes."

The Google document expresses a preference for subscriptions over micropayments, and the company seems particularly keen on bundled packages of content: "Google believes that there is real power and benefit to publishers in providing these sorts of broad, multi-publication access passes." It notes that for such packages, publishers "will receive a revenue disbursement that is proportional to the usage of their content in the package." It is not clear whether this would be allocated per article clicked upon or depending on time spent on each site, however, and this has the potential to be an area of contention amongst publishers involved. Such packages do offer definitive benefits to the consumer, however, allowing users to move freely between publications, as they do now.

With regards to micropayments, the document states that "we do not believe it will be the norm for accessing content." However, it suggests that they could be useful for readers who want to buy single articles that are not included in their subscription, the price of which would be added to their monthly bill. It also proposes a pre-paid service.

Advertising

Continuing to promote advertising is an integral part of Google's proposal and the document states that "we believe the increased advertising opportunities will likely exceed total revenue from subscriptions." The platform would allow ads to be sold in three different ways: "directly by publishers, sold as part of the Google Content Network, or sold via multiple ad networks through our ad exchange." Advertising could be targeted, based on voluntary data from individual registration information.

Search

The document notes the ways that Google's search engine currently makes paid content discoverable: allowing either a preview to appear in search results if the searcher is not a subscriber, or by allowing one article free via search (the tactic the Wall Street Journal currently takes). "Search engines should know what content a user has access to," the document states, and "assuming the user has access rights, the full content should be available and exposed within 1 click from the search results page." The content to which a user does not have access would be displayed with a price.

Further distribution

The document suggests that Google News could also license and host further content from interested publishers, as it already does for various news agencies without a destination website. It also proposes helping distribute content more widely via repackaging and syndication. 


How does Google compare to the competition?

Paid online content in the near future is increasingly seeming an inevitability. In July, the NAA distributed a "request for information" to a range of companies asking for details of their paid online content solutions. As well as Google, ten others responded: CircLabs, Journalism Online, IBM, Mather Economics, Microsoft, MyWire, NewsNav, Oracle, ViewPass and YouData. The NAA has published and summarised all their proposals for the industry's perusal.

Google's proposal is particularly interesting because the company's unquestionable dominance of the search market and its existing relationship with many web-users through services such as Gmail gives it a significant advantage. Plus, it already has a news search engine, Google News. It is definitely well-placed to implement such a system.

One drawback for Google would be the fact that many publishers, due to copyright conflict particularly over Google News, see the company as an enemy rather than an ally. The document suggests that the cut taken by Google from content sales would be comparable to Apple's split on iTunes and the AppStore, which Nieman Lab points out is about 30%. Would publishers be happy to share their revenue with Google in this way?

The most similar and serious competitor to Google's proposition would seem to be Journalism Online, the venture led by Steve Brill and Gordon Crovitz. The start-up already has a detailed business plan in place, including projected revenue increase, and last month announced that over 500 publishers had signed on. So although it does not have the web presence in place that Google has, it has made considerable progress in terms of publisher awareness of its product, and intends to launch imminently. It is also promising to give member publishers feedback about how users are purchasing and reading news, in order to improve their offerings over time. Lastly, it has the advantage of not already having enemies within the industry, and the fact that its founders are from publishing backgrounds. Journalism Online's commission would be 20% of subscription revenues, according to the document it presented to the NAA.

So which proposal will emerge as a winner amongst publishers? Or will they decide to go forward with paid content alone and save on broker fees? There are definitely advantages to working through a third party: ease being prominent amongst these, for both the publisher and the user. But maybe a conglomerate as big as News Corp might have the capability to develop its own efficient system and could persuade others to follow suit.

The Associated Press is to create a news registry that will tag and track all AP content online to ensure that it is not misappropriated. It is intended that the news registry will serve as the foundation of an industry initiative to protect news content from unauthorised use online, according to a press release.

The registry will use a microformat for news that was developed by the AP and recently endorsed by the London-based Media Standards Trust, a nonprofit research and development organisation. Essentially, the microformat will encapsulate AP and member content in an informational "wrapper" that includes a digital permissions framework that lets publishers specify how their content is to be used online and which also supplies the critical information needed to track and monitor its usage, the press release specified.

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?

The Wall Street Journal's Indian homepage now hosts a new site offering a wealth of information about rural India.  The site, developed in conjunction with India Knowledge@Wharton, part of the Wharton School's online business journal, contains reporting, analysis, interviews, commentary and video. It will combine new and exclusive features with an archive of previously released material.  

"Rural India's economy is thriving despite the worldwide economic downturn, and many of India's and the world's largest companies are just beginning to realize the market's potential," said Paul Beckett, The Wall Street Journal's South Asia bureau chief. "Nevertheless, the benefits of India's economic boom have been late in arriving there, and weak governance and a lack of access to basic services remain serious problems. Business decision- makers and investors in the country and overseas require accurate, timely and independent coverage of rural India's development."

During 2006 and 2007 Gannett's local papers underwent a transformation from traditional news centres to 24-hour, local, multimedia "information centers." One of the changes that papers were encouraged to embrace was building and using databases of local information that affects the community, such as crime statistics, salaries, road works, weather stats or property and gas prices. Such databases are a highly useful source of information for both reporters and readers, and though the information is available to the public, it is often not easily accessible online. As more and more local papers develop such databases in an effort to increase their value to communities, how can they be used?

Finding stories through databases

The local databases can generate story ideas by allowing journalists to spot trends or anomalies they might not otherwise have noticed, or draw conclusions that they would not otherwise have come to. Stories about crime reports or new businesses, for example, may well come out of studying data and will always be interesting to the local community. The databases also supply plenty of evidence with which to enhance or back up stories, acting as a supplementary interactive tool.

Reporters working with databases needed to be able to locate information, often by requesting it from government offices, and need to know what to do with it once they have it. For the first task, it is helpful for journalists to develop contacts and relationships with local authorities so as to access information more easily, and Brian Butts, Director of Digital and Technology at the Cincinnati Enquirer explained that his team has made a list of objections that reporters might encounter and how to deal with them.

For the second, some experience in computer-assisted reporting is crucial. The National Institute of Computer-Assisted Reporting trains journalists "in the practical skills of finding, prying loose and analyzing electronic information." It is a joint program of Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc and the Missouri School of Journalism. Clearly developers are also needed to work out the best ways to display the data.

Involving readers

As well as using the databases to assist with reporting, papers such as the Cincinnati Enquirer offer freestanding database products to readers. Providing access to a local database means that the community will hopefully come to see the paper as a more useful resource for local information as well as offering traditional news stories. Taking the data that actually affects people's lives and allowing them to use it and make sense of it is a way to enhance the role that a local paper plays in the community. Data becomes really useful when it is interpreted and made accessible, and this is what journalists should try to do for their readers. Merging data from different sources is a good start, as is making it easily searchable using different criteria.

On Cincinnati.com, for example, there are both databases that directly support news stories, and those which standalone. One of the former is that which allows readers to search by lawmaker to see how much lobbyists and their employers spent in 2008 to honor public officials and organizations connected to them. Another is a database of the smoking complaints made against local businesses, which has been a hot topic following the ban of smoking in public places that came into effect in Ohio on May 3. "How much does the boss make?" is a freestanding database allowing readers to compare the salaries of executives at public companies. The data does not have to be all new, for example the Iowa-based Gazette Online offers a wide range of data including a tornado index giving details on tornadoes from 1950 to 2008.

Looking at how to make the data accessible and interesting to readers is crucial. The Cincinnati Enquirer team have developed CinciNavigator, which allows journalists to show data geographically on maps. Users can see an overview of the city or zoom in on specific areas to see, for example, who has been arrested where in the past month, the current traffic conditions, who is applying to start a new business, where to find what restaurant, compare gas prices, which properties have recently been sold for how much. Crucially, it allows readers to make geographical comparisons. The Fort Myers News-Press allows users to search different areas of the city on a map for different types of crime, for example.

Staying up-to-date

One of the potential problems with local databases is that they become out of date very swiftly, and thus need to be continually updated to remain useful to both journalists and readers. In some cases it is possible to set up an automatic update if there is an available information feed, and this is one of the areas where good relations with the community come into play, said Butts. When reporters encounter less technologically advanced data providers, they should arrange to be supplied with regular updates.

New third party tools

Potential new tools for database journalism were recently awarded grants by the 2009 Knight News Challenge. DocumentCloud, the biggest winner of the 2009 Knight News Challenge, is a project to create a primary-source index conceived by journalists and developers at the New York Times and ProPublica. Aron Pilhofer, editor of interactive news technologies at the Times and one of the project's creators, told Nieman Lab's Zachary Seward that "It will turn documents into data." Another winner was Data Visualization, which plans to use its grant to create a suite of tools that can visually depict data and statistics: something which might be too expensive for smaller news organisations to develop alone.

How to monetise

Local databases can be monetised in a variety of ways. One is simply to license the collected, merged and analysed data to others. Another would be to incorporate targeted advertising, such as security systems around crime statistics, or estate agents around housing prices. A third option would be to allow advertising within the database tools, such as letting chain restaurants appear on a map displaying a set of data.

There are many ways in which newspapers can effectively use local databases order to provide a unique service and highlight their worth as compared to national general interest papers. In itself, the data provides little value, but when it is analysed and made searchable it is an incredibly useful resource, in terms of writing stories, building a community and making money.

On Tuesday 7 July at 15.00 London time, Brian Butts Director of Digital and Technology at the Cincinnati Enquire will be speaking at a WEF webinar on "How to dig deep into the most important community stories." More details here.

This past weekend, Google News announced a new feature to enhance its search engine capabilities. The new feature allows online readers to search for articles and headlines specific to the author that they are interested in by simply clicking on the hyper-linked text of the journalist's name.

The enhancement is designed to aid users to sift through the 25,000 news sources that Google News aggregates. This is exciting news for journalists in the way that it assists them in promoting their work as part of their own brand. The update is great news for readers who are fans of certain writers, too.

True/Slant is a recent arrival on the online-only news scene, aiming to offer a voice not only to its 100 or so contributors, but to the reader and the advertiser also. It is not a typical news site offering breaking news, but rather features commentary, opinion and some original reporting. Based in New York, the start-up has just six full-time staff, led by founder and CEO Lewis Dvorkin who has a total of 35 years of media experience, the last 12 of which has been in online news. The other employees have a similar mix of traditional and new media backgrounds, he said. T/S is a privately held company funded by Forbes Media and Velocity Interactive Group. The Editors Weblog spoke to Dvorkin to find out more.

The five differences

Dvorkin stressed the five ways in which T/S is "very different from any other news site." Firstly, because of the tools that it gives its journalists to create their own original content in real time. Second, because of its approach to copyright: contributors are encouraged to offer their perspective "around a piece of content that might have been produced elsewhere." Third, the relationship between the contributor and the audience is different because the contributors are contractually obliged to interact with their community. The last two differences are that the journalists have a variety of salary options and that the site has adopted an unusual approach to advertising.

For entrepreneurial journalists

True/slant offers "entrepreneurial" journalists their own homepage on the web, or as Dvorkin put it, "we enable them to create their own brand of one." They must be "experienced" in a specific field such as finance, politics or health but do not have to be a journalist from a traditional background: bloggers, authors or academics are also welcome. True/Slant is not a typical news publication with an editorial line, rather the work of a collection of individuals. "We don't have any ideology here, we have 100 different contributors, 100 different voices and 100 different perspectives," Dvorkin said.

Interaction with the audience is compulsory. Apart from that, it is up to each contributor to decide what they write and when. Much of what they write is opinion and commentary, but some also do original reporting. It is easy for them to comment on other news, by simply highlighting a section of an article they find on the web and clicking a button, the highlighted text will be placed on their post with a link to the contributing site. They are able to publish photos, audio and video as well as text and can self publish in real time. Their content can be automatically posted to Twitter and Facebook at the time of publishing. There is no traditional editing process in place, Dvorkin explained. Contributors are welcome to discuss their article ideas with a member of the T/S team, but they are not edited before publishing.

Different payment options are available, depending on the amount of risk that an individual contributor wants to take: journalists can choose to receive a monthly stipend, to participate in revenue sharing or they can actually have stock in T/S. Contributing to T/S is more likely to be one of several projects that a writer is working on, rather than their main source of revenue.

Promoting journalist-reader dialogue

Readers who want to interact with journalists must register and then they can 'follow' their chosen contributors and comment on articles, being drawn into a dialogue. Contributors highlight the user comments that they feel "further the conversation." A selection of these highlighted comments are then be integrated on the home page, amongst contributors' content. Dvorkin believes that this is very important to today's news reader, who enjoys "engaging with and being part of the news life of a professional media person." He believes that the True/Slant environment can be a "powerful experience" in the way that it encourages dialogue between contributors and users, as well as between fellow users.

A voice for advertisers

True/Slant is currently relying on advertising as its sole source of revenue. As well as display advertising, the company is incorporating "a very unique feature" called T/S Ad Slant for corporate marketers. They too can have a voice on True/Slant: they can pay for their own page and have access to the same tools that a contributor has to interact with a community. "It's a more direct and engaging approach," Dvorkin commented. He explained that such pages are integrated into the larger network in a "contextually relevant way," but stressed that the pages are clearly labelled as from marketers. Will this prove more lucrative than traditional advertising?

What's next?

Dvorkin said that the site has plans to grow, hoping to add more contributors and enhance its features. He believes that True/Slant is offering consumers a different way to experience news, one that is "more in line with how they want to access and interpret information today." Breaking news can be found in abundance throughout the web. What readers do need, is experienced, knowledgeable journalists to analyse and explain the news that they find, and this is where True/Slant steps in. It is indeed likely that many readers will appreciate the chance to be part of a conversation and form a relationship with their favourite writers. And from a writer's perspective, considering the growing number of out of work journalists today as traditional media outlets are forced to make cutbacks, a site that provides them with the tools for successful freelancing could be very welcome.

Yesterday in Washington D.C. the creation of CircLabs was announced, a technology company that hopes to build a new service to finance online news, based on a personalisation strategy. Based in Silicon Valley, the founders are Bill Densmore, Martin Langeveld, Jeff Vander Clute and Joe Bergeron. Langeveld and Vander Clute announced the formation of the venture a conference entitled "From Gatekeeper to Information Valet: Work Plans for Sustaining Journalism."

CircLabs' first product, which should be launched later this year, is code-named "Circulate." It will "address the challenges of how to increase traffic to media-affiliated websites, secure relationships with online users and enhance the value of news," according to Nieman Journalism Lab's Langeveld. This will include providing "new and convenient ways for the Web to 'come to' users, including social functionality that integrates, at their option, with their social network accounts."

A panel discussion held earlier this month by the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association concerning the pay versus free online subscription models has served to fuel the debate raging over this current predicament for the newspaper industry.  This time, the benefits of the online version of the Arkansas Democratic-Gazette have come under scrutiny from media consultants and journalists wary of its pay wall model.  

The Democratic-Gazette, alongside its higher-profile counterpart the Wall Street Journal, is often hailed as a future model for newspapers looking to charge for their content.  The paper operates a pay wall system, in operation since 2001, whereby viewers must pay in order to be able to read a full article.  The supporters of this system use the example of the low-key paper as a fine example of a publication profiting from its on-going transformation into a digital product.  

Yesterday, the recently founded Media140 held its first Twitter and microblogging conference. Held at London's Southbank Centre - a venue in the heart of the UK capital synonymous with innovation - the event largely focussed on the effects that Twitter and micoblogging are having on the news gathering process and was attended by journalists from Guardian.co.uk, TimesOnline, TechCrunch, BBC, Aljazeera, Reuters and Sky News.

Kicking off discussions, associate editor of the Sunday Herald and author of 'The Play ethic', Pat Kane, opened up the conference with a keynote presentation on the way breaking news services were dramatically changing the face of journalism: "Reading a newspaper on a street corner might be seen as banal. What's becoming just as banal is producing news on that street corner," said Kane. You can access his slideshow from the presentation here.

The Internet has affected newspapers in many ways, and though recent focus has concentrated largely on falling revenue due to reduction in print advertising, it has also given papers the chance to greatly expand their story-telling capabilities. As well as just words and pictures, there are now numerous different ways to enhance a story: through video, audio, slideshows, interactive maps and graphics, and more. But are newspapers making full use of the opportunities that the Internet offers to change the way that they produce their stories?

Upendra Shardanand, CEO and founder of Daylife, wrote in Paid Content about his belief that journalistic storytelling is "stuck in a rut." He describes how publishers he meets are eager to revamping many parts of their business such as distribution, and how do generate revenue, but "one aspect of their businesses that very few seem to question is the actual craft of writing and telling stories." The Internet offers so many opportunities that he feels journalists do not take advantage of, rather they leave it to sites such as Outside.In and Everyblock who "treat content like data and tear it apart just to reassemble it into infinitely browsable, non-linear experiences." He compares this process to the way that Amazon has "revolutionized" shopping.

Nick Jones, former BBC political correspondent talked about the advantages of newspapers' video use in a panel with Lain Dale and Paul  Staines at the Foreign Press Association.

Jones said that audio and video material, when used properly on newspaper websites, brings journalism to a new and better level. "Newspapers are making money out of video and audio. They are buying up exclusive material obtained in dubious circumstances - but it is getting good ratings," he said.

This week Marty Kaiser, editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, will become the new president of the American Association of News Editors (ASNE). However, since ASNE canceled its annual convention, which was scheduled to begin April 26 in Chicago, the ceremonial passing of the gavel will not take place, and Kaiser will not have the opportunity to address ASNE members with a speech.

In an interview with Poynter, Kaiser mostly stresses that ASNE must take a leadership role in the future of journalism, to protect it in a time of crisis. "Our industry's business model is broken," he says, "but we as journalists have an obligation to protect, nurture and build trusted news coverage that is necessary to our democracy." He believes that newsrooms and companies need a goal to rally around, and that goal should be to concentrate on what journalism can do for communities. Editors and journalists must continue to fight: "The urgency could never be greater to take chances, be creative and use new technology to be more meaningful."

Given the current economic climate in Great Britain, there was much interest as Alistair Darling delivered his budget speech today - and naturally there was much use of new media in the coverage.

In an unusual move, Gordon Brown chose to release a message the day before the budget was announced - but even more unusual was that he chose video to do it. Whilst the video does show the Prime Minister's willingness to use multimedia, it hasn't been well received by media pundits. The Guardian describes it as "uncomfortable viewing: restless swaying mixed with some dense policy details and a lot of forced smiling".

A Pew survey found recently that many online journalists are worried that with the rise of the Internet, journalistic values are changing. The majority showed they think journalists are being less prudent, working faster and losing their clout. The most recent questioning of these changes was in an article by Regina McCombs, on April 1, in which she casts doubt on the presence of music in photojournalism projects.

The main dilemma lies in the fact that music usually creates an emotional pull in a story. If journalists use music is it still journalism or is it now an opinionated work of art? "The problem is not that music doesn't work, it's that it works too well," said Al Tompkins, Poynter's broadcast and online group leader. The temptation to use music is hard to ignore, it adds a whole other level to a story, but is it the correct level?

Australian publication brisbanetimes.com.au has unveiled its new look website. The Fairfax owned site was launched in April 2007 and has undergone the redesign to celebrate its second birthday. In order to enhance its local coverage and publish breaking news instantly, the website now shares a content distribution system with smh.com.au, theage.com.au and WAtoday.com.au.

Fairfax Digital general manager, Jane Huxley explained "this redesign is the first in a series of enhancements we are making to brisbanetimes.com.au this year. Beyond promoting further brand consistency across the Fairfax Digital network, the redesign is part of Fairfax Digital's strategy to strengthen our video and mobile offerings, for the benefit of our viewers and advertisers alike."

Could the non-profit model be the saviour the newspaper industry has been looking for? This question was prompted by a New York Times op-ed on 28 January, which proposed that America's "most valued sources of news" should become non-profit institutions funded by endowments. Animated responses to this article, both positive and negative, have appeared throughout the media since: from Steve Coll writing for the New Yorker who suggests that the rise of non-profits is verging on an inevitability, to Roy Greenslade in the Evening Standard who believes that the obliged political neutrality will be the stumbling block, to Jack Shafer of Slate who feels there is "something disconcerting about wanting to divorce the newspaper from market pressures." The Editors Weblog spoke to Paul Steiger, Editor-in-Chief and President of ProPublica, one of the largest American non-profit news ventures currently in existence, to find out more about how the non-profit model works for them. As a former managing editor of the Wall Street Journal, Steiger has plenty of experience in the for-profit side of the industry as well.

How ProPublica works - free articles for partner papers

New York-based ProPublica uses its funding to support 28 staff, who produce investigative reporting which is then given, not sold, to news outlets. Editors and reporters decide which stories they want to pursue, and after beginning investigation into the issue, they will offer the story to a relevant publication. If the original choice of partner does not want it, ProPublica will find somebody else. Steiger said that ProPublica articles have appeared in about 20 newspapers, including the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, "a bunch of websites", as well as television news channels, such as CNN or CNBC. Stories appear on the ProPublica website shortly after publication by the chosen partner: ProPublica promises an appropriate period of exclusivity but Steiger explained that many partners are happy for the story to appear on ProPublica either immediately, or a matter of hours later. The site will always link to the partner that has the story, which is publicity for the partner and means that "people coming to our site will always know what we are up to."

Stories with moral force
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The general criteria for stories are those which "shine a spotlight on abuse or power of failure to uphold the public interest," according to Steiger. Reporters have broad beats, such as the effectiveness of government spending, health care, energy and the environment, voting rights or the impact of the legal system on the poor. These are national issues, which sometimes veer into international territory, but can also have a local focus. Steiger described one of the most important projects in the past year: an investigation of the risk to the water supply of deep drilling for national gas, which is undoubtedly a national and even international issue. But because reporters discovered a crucial government decision pending in New York state which would have put legislative and regulatory protocols into place to give the industry carte blanche to drill wherever it chose, ProPublica offered the story to the local Albany Times Union, and hence grabbed the attention of the governor and legislators. Government policy was consequently changed.

Propublica searches for stories that "shine a spotlight on abuse of power or failure to uphold the public interest"

Embracing multimedia, enhancing impact

ProPublica has embraced online distribution. The newsroom has "a huge online focus," stressed Steiger, "much larger than I expected when I got into this." He explained that the organisation has had "tremendous success" with outfits such as Politico or the Huffington Post, "they have given great distribution to some of our stories." Steiger is also enthusiastic about the multimedia advantages of online reporting: "the awareness of how online graphics and online interactive elements can enhance a story and enhance its impact is penetrating through the entire group," he commented. The older staff from print backgrounds are learning rapidly from the younger reporters with online backgrounds, " because that's where so much of the energy and the growth is."

Money doesn't buy you influence

One of the potential problems with privately funded non-profit news organisations is the risk that those who fund them might try to influence the news that comes out of them. Herb Sandler of the Sandler Foundation, ProPublica's principle founder, is also chairman of the ProPublica board, which leads an outsider to question his influence over the reporting.  Steiger was clear that "he and the board have agreed that they will have no advance knowledge of what we decide to cover. They will see it on the day of publication." Steiger ensures that reporters are shielded from influence from the board: although board members are invited to offer story ideas, Steiger emphasised that "these are to be funnelled only through me or through managing editor Stephen Engelberg so the reporters won't feel pressured by getting a call from a director." The Sandler Foundation has made a multi-year funding commitment. Other funders are the MacArthur Foundation, the Atlantic Philanthropies and Mary Graham's personal foundation.

"The board have agreed that they will have no advance knowledge of what we decide to cover. They will see it on the day of publication."

So, is this a model that could be implemented more widely?

Paul Steiger explained that his day-to-day job at ProPublica was no different because of the non-profit element of the site. So, is this a model that could be implemented more widely? It is clear that the business model that has supported newspapers until now no longer works. Instead of desperately trying to save and adapt the current business model, is it time for a new one altogether? The authors of the New York Times piece, David Swensen and Michael Schmidt, both from the Yale's investment fund, believe that "As long as newspapers remain for-profit enterprises, they will find no refuge from their financial problems... By endowing our most valued sources of news we would free them from the strictures of an obsolete business model and offer them a permanent place in society, like that of America's colleges and universities." A shining example (outside the US) of a paper not pressured by making money for shareholders is the Guardian, which is owned by a trust, and has been subsequently less affected by the recent financial downturn. The paper's website almost always tops the list of British newspapers in terms of reader numbers, and generally boasts more than the New York Times. The privilege to work without extreme financial pressure is something which would undoubtedly benefit the world's newspapers. One crucial point would be to ensure a long term endowment, as having to frantically search for funding every year would apply the same pressures as for a for profit.

An obvious issue to address is the cost: huge endowments would be needed to fund a large national newspaper. ProPublica has annual operating costs of around $10 million, which supports a staff of only 28. To support a newspaper such as the New York Times, you would need a $5 billion endowment, according to Swenson and Schmidt, or $2 billion for the Washington Post, according to Coll. Steiger's response was "how many people are there who have $5 billion to step up and set up an endowment, even for a wonderful property like the New York Times?"

"How many people are there who have $5 billion to step up and set up an endowment, even for a wonderful property like the New York Times?"

And he has a point. For a start, there is the question of what news is worthy to fund. Investigative reporting such as ProPublica's is one thing: asking people to fund journalism in the public interest seems a reasonable request.  Finding people to fund an entire newspaper - including sections such as entertainment, sport and crosswords  - seems harder. Steiger does, however, see some future for non-profit newsgathering. "I do think that it's possible that non-profit operations can play an expanded role and can fill in some of the gaps. But can the concept turn around a fundamental destruction of the basic business model of metro newspapers? No it can't." This is true: non-profit journalism is a way to prop-up existing structures, but will only make newspapers dependent on outsiders rather than encourage them to develop new ways to survive on their own. It does seem that many of the arguments for endowments are to ensure that newspapers not only survive, but survive just as they are now. Maybe this is the wrong way, maybe in fact they need to change.

Maybe newspapers need to change more fundamentally?

Jack Shafer makes the valid point that the capitalist system is what allowed the great newspapers to achieve success in the first place. "The Times, the Post, and the Wall Street Journal earned their reputations by competing in the marketplace, not by stroking philanthropic billionaires or foundations," he argues. Their dynamism and adaptability allowed them to gain their dominant positions in the market; to remove the financial impetus for such growth could have a detrimental effect on their innovation and efficacy in news distribution. It would also, crucially, change the way that they measure their success: an increased focus on story impact could be a positive outcome but this is not relevant for many types of news.

Newspapers need to change and develop, as they have over many years, in terms of what they cover, how they cover it, and how they reach their audience. The Internet has truly revolutionised the way people follow the news, and endowments should not be a means to stifle necessary change that should follow. Other strategies must also be investigated, such as an industry-wide decision to implement payment for online news. But for now, if newspapers are to function effectively, whether in print or online, as a crucial part of a democratic state, they need to find a way in which they can maintain sufficient staff and resources. Maybe a partially-funded model is the solution, at least in the short term: whereby the arguably more democratically valuable reporting is supported and protected by an endowment, leaving the papers to find a way to make up the rest of the revenue needed for other reporting and further costs. And hopefully out of these endeavours a new more durable business model could emerge. At least for the immediate future, there is an organisation like ProPublica to provide vital proactive investigative journalism to the American public.

Thomson Reuters plans to "roll out a major social media coverage package "to enhance its coverage of the World Economic Forum which begins tomorrow in Davos, Switzerland.  Reporters will use Twitter and YouTube to share video and updates from the Forum. 

According to Mark Jones, global community editor at Thomson Reuters, "We want to turn the coverage around, by asking delegates what they think the biggest issues facing the global economy are, then use social media to let the public offer their opinion."