Channel 4'sInnovation for the Public fund, 4ip, has joined forces with Screen West Midlands to finance a new collaborative investigative journalism website. The project welcomes public participation to clarify issues of local concern.
The project, Help Me Investigate, is primarily focused on the community; participants will be invited to pose and answer questions online relating to regional practicalities and politics, such as the cost of hospital parking for example. Its creator, Paul Bradshaw, online journalism lecturer at Birmingham City University, believes Help Me Investigate will be an instrument for residents to obtain answers, furthering the current fashion of holding public authorities and agencies more accountable through methods such as crowdsourcing. The concept of public participation and communication with the causes of accountability and influence in mind has already proved popular with sites such as ProPublica, My Street and They Work for You.
The future of printed media has become a major political issue in countries like the United States or France, even being debated in ad-hoc committees set up by the legislative or the executive powers. Discussions along the Potomac or the Seine rivers have been focusing on the impact of Internet and new technologies, or on the need for state subsidies.
Meanwhile, on the Vltava in Prague, a group of editors and reporters working for PPF Media, the recently created division of insurance and consumer banking group PPF, is already opening new ways of covering a whole country in what may be a newsroom of the future. With other journalists for the moment based in four provincial towns from the Czech Republic, they are launching the so-called "hyperlocal weekly" Nase adresa ("our address"), which combines print and online journalism with particular efforts to sustain high professional standards and get closer to the readers. "It can only work with well prepared journalists who will be trained in the Futuroom, our central newsroom," explains Roman Gallo, 44, director for PPF's media strategies and conceiver of the project. "We are also opening newscafés in our local bureaus, which will facilitate the contact between Nase adresa's journalists and the public, to enrich the content of our newspaper and of its webpages," adds Matej Husek, 33, director of news operations.
The newspoints, combining local newsrooms and Internet cafés in often small, rural towns, may be the most visible originality of this new undertaking. A few weeks before Nase adresa's launch, for instance, PPF Media's already hired staff had the chance to taste two products, the first print prototype of the weekly, and a cake likely to be served in the cafés. "The project represents a special challenge in terms of logistics, of room for storage, as we will be managing dozens of bistrot-Starbucks-like coffee shops in local newsrooms," comments Tomas Chejn, 41, the manager of PPF Media's branded cafés, a food specialist hired for his long time experience in quality catering. Petr Vitasek, 38, the director and chief editor for the Moravia region, based in the eastern Czech city of Olomouc, thinks this effort is worth the investment, because these "well located newspoints will be critical in getting Nase adresa's journalists to work closer to their readers."
But the whole project is innovative at other, multiple levels. To start with, for the first time a newspaper's birth is tightly associated to the creation of a multi-media training center - with several international partners including Google, Atex and the World Association of Newspapers/ World Editors Forum. The Futuroom will be a newsroom in charge of assisting and training in-house editors, some having no previous reporting experience, as much as a real life teaching field for future journalists. These will include a group of students within another partnership with Brno's Masaryk University, in the second largest Czech town.
Nase adresa's approach could also become a school case due to the organization of the newsroom. "I like how the Futuroom is shaped. Journalists are not confined to one theme, like health or education, but to a way of reporting, and I enjoy changing topics," says Vendula Krizova, reporter in the "Human approach team" and young (25) like many of her new colleagues. Adds Radim Klekner, 50, who joined the "Institutional team" - after working for 10 different newsrooms - to do researches on European Union institutions in particular: "Vertical structures dominate in traditional newspapers, while in Nase adresa it is more horizontal. In my case, for instance, I will be covering many European issues based on the Czech reality."
Klekner had some doubts initially, however, because he has been covering foreign news in the past 15 years. Why would he join a hyperlocal news project as an international editor, then? "There is a need for benchmarking with other European countries in all aspects of the Czech society, and with Nase adresa I will be able to give a EU presence in the remotest Czech villages", he believes. "Our role is to assess general issues like the lack of general practitioners in the country, compared to others, and connect them to specific cases brought up by the local newsrooms."
Local journalists with long intensive experience covering their community are also convinced they are working for an innovative project. Vitasek, in Olomouc, even tried a hyperlocal news concept on his own five years ago, called Olomoucky Tydenik. "It was a weekly published on Mondays and strong on local sports, like Nase adresa. We had to stop it after one year, but this time I have with me a 10-people team supported by PPF and by the Futuroom managers and trainers. Our office, in a central strategic area of Olomouc, will be a space for constant direct contact with readers and potential contributors."
Based on her 30 year experience in local journalism, Hana Vojtova, 52, the chief editor of the Teplice newspoint, in the north Bohemian city near the border with east Germany, also believes Nase adresa is a new improvement for community journalism: "We will get nearer to the people from the region, who are tired of politics and want to be informed on human interest stories," explains Vojtova, whose district is dramatically affected by problems like crime and unemployment. "We are going to cover better our readers's activities and their dreams!"
The project has attracted several other seasoned editors from all backgrounds, including Jiri Zavozda, 50, Nase adresa's head of the copy editing team. He just finished a seven year experience in major private television "Prima", as news editor-in-chief, after working more than a decade for national newspapers. "The TV experience was good because it teaches you how to write short, but I prefer print because it is less superficial," says Zavozda. There are other reasons why he joined the Futuroom. "I see my in-laws, who live in a little village in Moravia and who have only access to media not specifically targeted to them, national daily Mlada Fronta, newsweekly Tyden and the television. Only Nase adresa will inform them well on the Sunday afternoon firemen team's competitions, which are particularly popular in the Czech republic. We will get spectacular photos of fires being extinguished!"
Adds Peter Sabata, 48, the editor-in-chief responsible for the local newsroom: "I strongly believe in the hyperlocal level of information, with the combination of newspoints, and print, online journalism. The weekly will be a bridge from now to the near future, when everybody in the regions will be connected." Sabata just moved back to the Czech republic after eight years at the head of national Slovak paper Pravda's newsroom.
Other Nase adresa team members are particularly enthusiastic because of the new challenges specific to a project combining teaching and praxis, online and print journalism, so far never achieved at such a level. Ondrej Besperat, 31, who manages the photo-video team in a duo with veteran photojournalist Jan Silpoch, is well aware of the differences between shooting for a newspaper or for a website. Before joining the Futuroom, he was a photographer for national daily Hospodarske Noviny and then worked for Aktualne.cz, the successful, Internet-only Czech media outlet. "In printed media, you have to do one or two pictures a day, and you invest all your energy in the best one, while in Internet, you try more different perspectives as you know that several pictures are likely to be released for each story."
Besperat anticipates he is likely to spend two third of his time training reporters from the local newsrooms, at the beginning at least. "One of the main challenges will be to shoot sport with our standard high-end amateur cameras," he says. "The idea is not to have journalists who do everything all the time, but reporters who are multifunctional, able to provide good texts and images."
Nase adresa will also represent new challenges beyond the expertise usually expected from journalists, especially for the local chief editors who will have to look after a coffee shop part of their time. "Ten years ago I had a short experience working for Coca Cola, but this will be new because I am not at all a food and beverage specialist," laughs Vitasek, in Moravia. Krizova, who is glad to cover very diverse topics, is also ready for another type of special assignment as a young reporter. She will be asked to take care of children visiting the Futuroom - turned into a "Junioroom" or "media camp" - to learn how to write an article or produce a video footage.
PPF Media's project will be preparing new generations of journalists and not just showing new forms of getting and providing the news.
BACKGROUND The Czech Republic is a country of 10 million people living in 14 regions subdivided in 75 districts in total. Until 20 years ago, only the government and Communist Party related entities could publish newspapers. This was also the case for the regional dailies, and for more local publications at district or town levels. German group Verlagsgruppe Passau took over most of them in 1990 and after, under its Czech branch Vltava-Labe-Press which currently controls over 10 weeklies and over 70 dailies called Denik ("daily", followed by the name of the concerned locality). Nase adresa will have no direct competitors except in a few cases, because its editions will typically cover areas of 20-30,000 people while Denik and its affiliates are designed for larger groups, of over 100,000 inhabitants on average.
Financial Times editor Lionel Barber's Poynter Fellowship lecture at Yale University focused on whether the financial media should have been able to predict the global financial crisis, an issue which has already been discussed in some depth in the UK. "These are the best of times and the worst of times to be a financial journalist," he announced: "The best, because we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to report, analyse and comment on the most serious financial crisis since the Great Crash of 1929." The worst, not only due to the severe suffering of the media industry but because the "financial media find itself accused of missing the global financial crisis... failing to warn an unsuspecting public of impending disaster."
Barber addresses whether these charges add up, whether the press was "an accomplice or merely an innocent bystander." He explained that he had been questioned, along with other senior journalists, by the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee on the topic. He believes that the quality of questioning fell short, and mentioned one of the more "improbable" accusations: that the British financial press "had deliberately buried the bad news because bad news did not sell newspapers."
The Washington-based museum of news (pictured right) celebrates its first birthday
this month, although it was first opened in Rosslyn, Virginia in 1997. An initiative of the Freedom Forum, a politically neutral organization,
the "world's most interactive museum" has been hailed a success,
attracting 700,000 people since it opened - despite a $20 entry fee.
Following discussion of US President Obama'sapparent attempts to bypass the traditional Washington press corps and target alternative 'friendly' media,Politico has reported that New York Times and Washington Post editors were not offended that they were not picked to ask questions during yesterday's press conference in the East Room of the White House. However Charlotte Hall, president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, was disappointed at Obama's decision to skip over major newspapers, as "newspapers do the majority of watchdog and investigative reporting in the country."
Project for Excellence in Journalism director Tom Rosenstiel believes that "I think we need to watch and see if there is a larger pattern here," before drawing conclusions from this about the way that the White House views the papers and their role in the changing media landscape. But what is clear is that the new president is not content to just speak to journalists, as further demonstrated by his Internet conference held today. He will be in the East Room once again, but this time responding to questions from the public rather than the press, which are submitted online rather than in person.
Posted byJohn Burke on February 17, 2009 at 10:14 AM
The World Editors Forum invites you to join editors-in-chief from the world's most innovative newspapers as they discuss the successful strategies that have transformed their newsrooms for the digital age. Editors Weblog Webinars are interactive so you can learn from best practices and ask questions specific to the needs of your newsroom. For instructions on webinar usage, click here. For access to webinar archives, click here.
Special "How to" Webinar series To help newsrooms find cost-effective and easy-to-implement new media tools, the Editors Weblog is conducting a series of informative and practical webinars. The webinars will provide you with the knowledge to quickly adopt new strategies in your newsroom.
Tuesday 23 June at 14h00 GMT (London time) Search engine optimization for newsrooms: How to teach your journalists to write for the web With Times of London Head of Search, Drew Broomhall 1. how SEO works 2. how to teach SEO to journalists and editors 3. how to make sure SEO is being implemented and tracking effectiveness
Tuesday 30 June at 15h00 GMT(London time) Twitter for journalists: How the real-time Web can improve your newspaper's journalism With CEO of Visual Editors and international newspaper consultant, Robb Montgomery, US 1. how to use Twitter to find stories 2. how to use Twitter to virally spread stories 3. how to encourage journalists to use Twitter 4. what are some of the best newspaper strategies for using Twitter
Tuesday, 7 July at 15h00 GMT(London time) Local databases: How to dig deep into the most important community stories With Tom Callinan and Brian Butts, Cincinnati Enquirer/ Gannett, USA 1. how to create a community database for your newsroom and audience 2. how to find stories and information with community databases 3. how to improve interaction with your audience
For instructions on webinar usage, click here. For access to webinar archives, click here.
Posted byEmma Heald on January 28, 2009 at 10:59 AM
To mark the relaunch of the Editors Weblog, 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. The seventh in the
series takes a look at non-profit investigative journalism site VoiceOfSanDiego.org.
As newspapers make cuts to survive and concentrate their efforts, one of the first areas to suffer is the time- and resources- consuming field of investigative journalism. And that is where the VoiceOfSanDiego.org has stepped in; a non-profit, online-only publication focussing on quality investigative reporting for the San Diego area. The Editors Weblog spoke to Executive Editor Andrew Donahue and housing and economy reporter Kelly Bennett about their mission.
The Gap
"If there is one storyline that sums up why we exist, it is because investigative journalism on a very local level isn't being done." Andrew Donohue was clear about the role of VOSD: to fill the gaping hole in "in-depth analytical accountability journalism, the public service arm of a newspaper," that has emerged in recent years in other communities as well as in San Diego. Donohue believes that "so many newspapers are cutting back to such extreme levels that there is no way that they are getting the investigative news that they deserve and need." The problem is most severe in American cities, where for many years there has been just one newspaper with something of a monopoly on providing information, so if that paper stops launching investigations, then who will take its place? Investigative journalism has a vital role to play in local societies, exposing wrongs and pushing for change. Bennett pointed out another important element to consider: its value as a deterrent against potential corruption. She sees this as a safeguard for society, it is about "developing that reputation that there are people looking, sending a message to people in power."
"If there is one storyline that sums up why we exist, it is because
investigative journalism on a very local level isn't being done."
Balancing site readability and impact VOSD reporters are assigned to specific beats, a concept borrowed from traditional publications. Donohue explained that the VOSD journalists were constantly trying to balance the two crucial elements of their job: to keep the website lively and updated, but also to commit time to investigative reporting that can have a significant impact. Such reporting is undoubtedly time intensive if it is to be done thoroughly, which it is at VOSD. Staff are encouraged to meet with any relevant sources and to always do public records requests and fight "really hard" for documents. Bennett explained that the very nature of investigative journalism means that you never really know how a project is going to turn out, so it can be difficult to allocate appropriate resources.
Inspirational reporting
Donohue pointed out one major project, 'Redevelopment gone wrong' which has been an inspiration to him and his staff. VOSD launched three different areas of investigation into public agency the Southeastern Economic Development Corp., and over the course of a number of years "exposed a wide range of conflicts of interest, fraud and other sorts of misbehaviour." The publication's work has led to FBI and criminal federal grand jury investigation, the board of the agency has been completely revamped and the president has been forced to resign. Donohue is proud of the depth of coverage produced, of VOSD's determination to keep sticking with the story, and of course of the impact. "It can be very disheartening and very frustrating if you spend 6 months on a project and nothing actually changes," he explained. So "watching the impact of this story has been inspiring for us as journalists."
Day-to-day flexibility
VOSD has a more flexible working environment than many traditional publications. Donohue explained that as long as reporters are "producing the quality of journalism that we require," they are free to work from the office or at home, and can choose their hours. They have also tried to "eliminate the idea of deadlines altogether," explained Donohue: stories go up on the site when they are ready. Reporters are always free to propose their own stories, they are not necessarily assigned by editors. "We are firm believers in the idea that ideas bubble up from reporters' beats," added Donohue. "I would be a fool if I thought that I knew more than my reporters about their beats"
Staff: traditional experience and new blood VOSD's eleven staff are a mixture of experienced journalists who have worked in newspapers for many years, and people fresh out of college who have never reported full time before. Donohue explained that both "offer really valuable perspectives," although those who had been at traditional newspapers longer found it harder to adapt to work at VOSD. "It's fascinating to watch" the process, Donohue commented. Bennett described how staff often discuss the "rules" of traditional newspapers and decide which ones they should follow.
Non-profit allows for total focus on story impact
Both Donohue and Bennett were very positive about the advantages offered by VOSD's non-profit status. Most crucial is the simple fact that they do not have to make anyone any money; rather just make enough to support the organisation. This means, as Donohue explained, that "you measure success differently." Papers which are desperately seeking every hit they can get on their website risk cheapening their news, or moving away from their core focus. "We know what we could put on our site to get more hits," stressed Donohue, "but it would lessen the impact of our stories." The unique aspect of a non-profit, Donohue explained, is that "ultimately our success is judged by the impact of our stories: What have our stories done?" And this impact, evidently, is what is most important to investigative journalism. Bennett added that for her, "there has been some major value in being able to tell people that you are writing the story independently. For me the non-profit, independent aspect of VOSD has been part of the justification for reporting the way I do."
"Ultimately as non-profit our success is judged by the impact of our stories: What have our stories done?"
Donor money does not buy influence
One potential problem with privately funded non-profits is that those who fund them could try to influence the news that comes out of them. Donohue was clear that this has not been a problem at VOSD. "We have made it very clear that your money does not buy you influence," he clarified. "We draw the lines, and as long as we draw them clearly and boldly then there aren't problems." He explained that he himself had been sceptical of donors' motives when he first started working with VOSD, but that he had quickly come to understand that investigative journalism at its heart is a "public service institution," and that many funders were large philanthropic organisations who frequently give grants to all sorts of organisations. A recent donor was the Knight Foundation; others are local foundations that work on quality of life issues, others are "prominent citizens," or members of the community who give smaller amounts. A total of 750 people have given money.
Multimedia and reader interaction One of the great advantages of being online-only is the potential for multimedia. As Bennett pointed out, if a newspaper promotes a multimedia package to accompany a story, there will be so many steps to take to actually access it that few readers will, while as online, it is right there. She accompanies some stories with video, audio or slideshows when she feels it would add to them. Her monthly feature "People at work," which looks at a San Diego resident through the lens of their job, often includes a multimedia feature. Another benefit of working online is the possibility to interact with readers. VOSD allows comments on its opinion pieces and opinion blogs, but not on news stories or news blogs, as Donohue believes that they should "let the news stand by itself," and they do not have sufficient resources to carry out the necessary moderation of the comments. Reporters also interact in different ways with their audience, using blog postings to solicit thoughts, ideas and comments for stories, which Donohue described as "a great source of information." A regular feature called 'The People's Reporter' is very popular. Readers can send in tips and questions and a reporter will spend a day responding on a blog, and "it has led to great discussion and some more long-term stories, Donohue explained.
Competing with traditional media?
Donohue described VOSD's relationship with local paper the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was adamant that VOSD is more than just an alternative voice to supplement the Tribune's coverage, but also not a direct competitor overall. However within VOSD's chosen field of quality of life issues, the site does compete: "we always want to have the best stories and have them first." And Donohue hopes that the people of San Diego benefit from this lack of monopoly, as "the more competition there is in the media, the better it is for everybody and the better the community is served."
Is this the future for local news?
VOSD's coverage is firmly local, and focussed very much on quality of life issues. Donohue believes that the model works, and plans to continue along the same lines, although he sees it as one of many that will be tried in upcoming years. The non-profit model may well have to be used more: "at least until news orgs find a way to make this thing work financially, it will have to be done philanthropically." He sees a future in which publications become more specialised, and in which people look to many different sources for different types of news. Most crucial is the fact that people try to come up with new ideas and carry them out, as "the thing that has been missing from journalism and the thing that has got us to this point is a lack of innovation and lack of entrepreneurial spirit."
"One thing we've learnt is that the gap we were created to fill keeps just keeps getting bigger"
And the future for VOSD?
For VOSD, Donohue hopes to grow, and eventually become "a very robust news organization, that serves almost as the metro section of a what a daily paper used to be." Maybe it will not become huge in terms of numbers, as Donohue is aware that the current model may not necessarily support a much larger staff, and "there is something to be said for being a quick, lean and efficient organisation." But as "one thing we've learnt is that the gap we were created to fill keeps just keeps getting bigger," VOSD will strive to keep up with filling that gap, and keep looking for more gaps that the traditional media is leaving behind. It may well not be a model that works everywhere, but VOSD's commitment and success show that it can work, and should be taken seriously by communities whose newspapers have lost their public service arm.
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."
Posted byJohn Burke on January 22, 2009 at 9:58 AM
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.
Posted byEmma Heald on January 21, 2009 at 3:30 PM
To mark the relaunch of the Editors Weblog, 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. The sixth in the
series takes a look at outsourcing editorial work to India.
Editorial outsourcing has frequently been presented throughout the Western world in a very negative light. The idea of trained American or European journalists and copy editors losing their jobs to workers across the world in India or Australia who will work for far less has appalled many, and others worry about a drop in quality. But is it really as bad as it sounds, or are people rejecting a good business model in favour of a misplaced emotional attachment to traditional values and a fear of change?
The Editors Weblog spoke to Tony Joseph, CEO and co-founder of Mindworks Global Media, which takes on copy editing, layout, and website optimization for clients around the world, and James MacPherson, Editor of Pasadena.now, who has taken the controversial step of hiring a staff of writers in India for his site which reports on local events in Pasadena, California.
Mindworks: an extension of client's newsdesk
Tony Joseph explained that what his teams essentially do is become an extension of the client's news desk. Each member of staff only works for one publication as part of a dedicated team, and the team keeps the same hours as the newsroom with which they are working so that they can stay in constant communication via instant messaging, phone and email. He stressed that his editors only come in after the content has been generated, and after a senior editor has decided where the article will go.
Each member of staff works as one only one publication and stays in constant communication with the client's newsdesk via instant messaging
One of the fears of editors when contemplating outsourcing is that workers will be out of their sight and hence out of their control, and mistakes will be made. Joseph explained the steps that Mindworks takes to reduce this. Two crucial principles which he described as "absolutely essential" are "zero loss of visibility and zero loss of control". The work of Mindworks' staff
is visible to everyone in the newsroom chain, as they access the client's content management system, and Joseph insists that his editors work within the client's existing hierarchies. A six to eight week alignment and training period is used to ensure that the work of the Mindworks team is fully integrated into that of the client. Various indicators are used to track the alignment process, such as headline editing; Joseph explained that in the first week of alignment 25-30% of headlines written by his staff are changed at the client's end, so they analyse and assess why these are being changed and make it part of the training.
Pasadena: doing away with reporters
MacPherson has adopted an unusual strategy for news reporting, one which he compares to the work of an intelligence agency, or newspapers in the 1920s. He has entirely separated the process of content gathering and writing. In fact, none of the people he employs could be described as 'reporters' in the traditional sense, rather he has 'observers,' who are "boots on the ground" in Pasadena, and 'writers' in India. The observers attend events and gather data, generally in the form of audio and video clips. Macpherson or his wife then put together an assignment package, containing interview transcripts, video clips, links to web resources or anything else relevant and this is then sent to the writers in India. The writers save their articles within the site's CMS, where it is checked by management before it is published. "It would be absurd," commented MacPherson, "to put anything out to the public that had not been proofread here in Pasadena."
Observers are "minimum wage workers," MacPherson explained, and the India-based writers are paid between $7.50 and $10 for each article, which usually takes them under an hour to produce. So compared to paying American journalists, this is undoubtedly a cheaper option. MacPherson was vehement that he had not hired Indian writers to replace Americans; rather he hired the Indians first, then hired five additional Americans in response to intense criticism, and was forced to let the Americans go when advertising revenue was showing no increases. Outsourcing writing "has saved our publication," he emphasised, "we wouldn't be a viable business without it."
"It would be absurd to put anything out to the public that had not been proofread here in Pasadena."
Trained journalists
Both Joseph and MacPherson only employ trained journalists for their outsourcing. Joseph clarified that his recruits are either from India's top journalism schools, or have ample experience in the field: an average of five years amongst junior staff. Many of his staff have worked in the US. MacPherson explained that he found high quality writers via Craigslist and other websites and he has six people employed on a part time freelance basis. One of his Dehli-based workers is actually originally from Orange County, California, not far from Pasadena itself.
Is outsourcing the future?
Tony Joseph is confident that his company will continue to grow: "our engagements are increasing rapidly both in terms of number and size of operations." Currently, Mindworks handles 13 or 14 titles. He believes that the outsourcing concept is "gaining momentum" as newspapers look to make cost-cuts and increase efficiency in this time of crisis.
MacPherson is considering hiring more writers in response to a "huge influx of advertising," as a result, he believes, of the fact that "small community websites are beginning to supplant print newspapers." He explained that he is developing "a proof of concept website that the industry can look to," and expressed his hope that the methods he develops can be used by small and medium size community newspapers and websites to keep "doing what they are doing and survive." As a general business model, he proposed the idea of having a few veteran journalists and editors, the kind of people who are "the heart and soul of the local newspaper," supported by 'observers' on the ground and writers, researchers and designers in India.
The Telegraph Media Group was recently the latest major news organisation to announce that it was outsourcing sub editing of some of the Daily and Sunday Telegraph weekend supplements. It is using Pagemasters, an Australian company owned by the Australian Associated Press, which counts Fairfax media among its clients. Telegraph digital editor Edward Roussel explained that his belief that "Newspaper-web companies should focus internal resources on what they do best: creating premium editorial content." Another option is to adopt a form of in-house outsourcing, such as that which Reutershas been operating for several years. It employs a team of about 100 financial journalists in Bangalore who cover Wall Street news. Editor in chief David Schlesinger justified the move by explaining that the New York journalists could now be sent out and about to cover more interesting stories. A crucial difference is that these journalists are Reuters staff and their office is a Reuters bureau, but the fact remains that they are reporting on things happening on the other side of the world, and doing so successfully.
If newspaper revenue continues to fall, people will have to look for more ways to cut costs and editorial outsourcing may well become more and more appealing, even if there is initial reluctance at the staff cuts and modified work practices that have to be imposed. From a business standpoint, it makes sense to get the work done wherever it can be done cheapest, as long as the quality is maintained, and doing things as cheaply as possible is increasingly becoming a must. As MacPherson put it, "people keep saying they don't like what I'm proposing, but what's the alternative?"
Posted byEmma Heald on January 19, 2009 at 8:24 AM
To mark the relaunch of the Editors Weblog, 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. The fifth in the
series takes a look recently revamped Tampa outlets the Tampa Tribune, TBO.com and WFLA 8.
Media General's Tampa news outlets have been leaders on the path towards integrated newsrooms for years. Now, as the financial situation at American newspapers weakens, the Tampa Tribune, TBO.com and television station WFLA8 have used essential cuts in staff numbers and resources as an opportunity to go a step further in creating a completely converged newsroom. On November 10 last year, the 'Interactive Newsroom' went into operation, in which all three platforms, print, online and TV, were further combined.
It is unclear exactly how many staff have been let go, but senior editor Dennis Joyce told the Editors Weblog that so many empty desks were being removed that there was "plenty of room to play football in our newsroom." He described the staff cuts as a "sad development", but as audience editor Susan Newman commented, there is not much time to dwell on missing colleagues as staff still have to get their product out each day. And Joyce stressed that the developments were "far more" than just a cost-cutting measure: they would have been "a good idea anyway."
Change happened fast. Joyce said that he had "never seen the likes of it", and estimated that the newsroom had been transformed in about 30-45 days. The physical layout has changed, and many staff have been assigned different responsibilities. Two floors of the news centre are being used for newsgathering, with print editors and television reporters sitting next to each other.
Separation and elimination
The crucial principle underlying the changes is the separation of content generation and distribution within the newsroom structure, while eliminating duplication in both reporting and delivery of news.
Reporters and editors have been divided into 5 work groups known as "circles" that include people from across disciplines and platforms. The 5 circles are:
Deadline (the largest)
Grassroots
Personal Journalism
Watchdog
Data (the smallest)
Part of the Deadline circle is the "Live Desk", which is the 'air traffic control centre' for the whole newsroom; it knows where all reporters and crews are at all times and what they are working on, so that it can reallocate resources accordingly. The smaller the team, the better, Joyce explained: whenever possible one or two staffers produce content for all platforms. For instance, photo and video operations have been completely converged and all staff now carry "both weapons". Sometimes print-based reporters are also sent off with a camera too.
Content then moves to the six "audience editors", new positions created during the last round of reorganisation. The audience editors are comprised of two print experts, two online experts and two television experts. Susan Newman, one of the six who has 22 years of television experience, defined their role as "managing the content and process in the systems to make sure that all of the platforms are publishing content that is relevant for the audience." The group studies audience metrics and "anything else that measures how content is moving online," to establish how people want different types of information at that moment. Assigning resources to stories and deciding on follow-ups is all part of audience editor responsibility, and they make sure that content is not duplicated unnecessarily from platform to platform.
The new audience editors "make sure that all of the platforms are publishing content that is relevant to the audience"
Finally, the three platform specific groups of 'finishers' are in charge of taking the content produced by the five circles and allocated by the audience editors, and preparing it for distribution on to the various platforms. As Newman put it, they are "those who have to get the product to the place it needs to be" (copy desk, designers, online producers, TV producers and anchors). Finishing groups must also collaborate to ensure that relevant content is available to other groups in an accessible format. For example, the television group would take a broadcast piece and extract quotes and stills to send to the print group.
The organisation of the newsroom's day has also been modified, with a new, cross-platform content meeting taking place at 7am each day, at the time when a "huge contingent" of reporters arrive. During this meeting, editors produce outlines of content that will be in the print edition the following day and on television that evening, and make sure they are taking advantage of their online audience during the key 7am-4pm period. Previously, this outline evolved gradually during the morning. The last editorial meeting of the day is at 3.30pm, when the focus truly switches to the following day's work.
Newman emphasised the greater efficiency within the newsroom as levels of senior management have been eliminated. "When you do want to make a change you can make it happen so much more quickly than before because there are fewer people who need to sign off on decision making." The audience editors report directly to the news leadership group, who are the three managing editors for print, online and television.
Increasingly local focus
In conjunction with reforming management of content, the focus of content has also come under scrutiny. Local news coverage is on the up. Joyce explained, "Local is pretty much where we believe our future is. The unique content that will make us valuable to our audience increasingly appears to be local news, as the audience will not get that anywhere else. That is definitely our focus." Newman added that if they do cover national news, they find the "local spin on it." She mentioned the special community pages on TBO.com for which they do "micro-reporting" in different Tampa communities and encourage user-generated content. The website allows comments on every story, and reporters sometimes use information conveyed in comments to spark further story development.
"Local is pretty much where we believe our future is, as the audience will not get that anywhere else."
Enthusisastic staff response
Reactions from staff have been generally positive, Joyce explained. "Had it been an undertaking done outside these economic times we probably would have had more angst. But when you consider the amount of staff reductions and layoffs that we have had recently, a news centre reorganization is seen in an entirely different light, people are now happy to have jobs." When it comes to integration, the group is already "way ahead" when it comes to accepting that breaking news online is essential, and people have been trained for years to learn the skills needed for working on other platforms. Newman added that people are adapting well: "There isn't a journalist who works for this company who doesn't understand that it's not about being platform specific anymore."
Success?
The obvious question that springs to mind is: is this new system going to work? Can a newsroom compensate for staff cuts and diminishing resources by reorganising? Other local newspapers are undoubtedly watching closely to see whether they should follow suit. According to Newman, "we are doing better content now, and we are not missing things," stressing that the newsroom is "giving the audience the content in the way that it will be able to consume it." However, the Tampa outlets are in a relatively "unique" situation, Joyce emphasised, as they consist of the number one local newspaper in the area, and the number one local television station. So compared with a print publication which is frantically trying to train staff to produce video for its website, they already have access to top videographers from the television side. In light of current financial problems across the industry, maximising on available resources and avoiding overlap definitely makes sense.
One potential problem could be that the generalised nature of content gathering risks eliminating any possibility of the three publications having a unique voice. But if the finishers are good enough this should not be a problem. It is too early to offer any kind of verdict on the Tampa outlets' forward-thinking approach, but their willingness to innovate and make the necessary changes to make the best use of what they have shows that they have sufficient ambition and determination to survive. As Executive Editor Janet Coats put it, "we are here to stay."
The Rocky Mountain News' staff has created a Web site to rally public support following an announcement by E.W. Scripps Co. that the Denver daily was up for sale and would close the paper if there were no buyers.
IwantMyRocky.com is a forum for readers to propose methods and "share memories" from Colorado's oldest business.
"If we can't save the Rocky," columnist at the 149-year-old paper, Mike Littwin, writes, "We can, at minimum, make some noise before we go."
Staffers have sent out emails and messages to readers and community members urging them to protest the ultimatum offered by Scripps, saying that the timing of the sale is far from optimal during an economic recession in the holiday season.
The site's function is a chance for readers and staffers to express "why the newspaper is important to them," and the role it has played in the community.
Posted byB. Pecquerie on October 28, 2008 at 3:46 PM
The Editors Weblog reported some sad news for the newspaper industry this morning: the closure of the Commonwealth Press Union (CPU) and its magazine CPQ.
For a lot of editors and journalists trained by the CPU, receiving its newsletter, or participating in its Editors Forum or the regular CPU conferences, this is painful news. It is painful not just because they have lost a partner (and frequently a sponsor), but also because the CPU was the oldest international press association in the world. The CPU would have celebrated its hundredth anniversary in 2009 - the Empire Press Union was founded in 1909 - but the board has scheduled the closure of almost all its activities on 31 December 2008.
What does the closure this historical institution mean and what will the consequences be for the current CPU members in almost fifty countries?
Who will take care of small newspapers and small organizations?
In the obituary of CPU, it is said that, very soon, a Commonwealth Press Training & Education Trust (CPTET), will take over some CPU activities, mainly focused on training. The CPU Foundation, which funds training, will be maintained, but at the moment the financing behind this structure is not yet set. But the basic idea of the CPU - through the unique and common language of English - was to create links and to network between publishers, editors and journalists from the 49 countries belonging to the CPU. The new trust will loose this ambition, even if the contrary is said on paper.
The most important challenge will be to ensure the balance between big countries/small countries, big newspapers/small organizations. Rationalization will focus on larger countries and newspapers. The real risk is if we forget the Salomon Islands, Fiji, the small African states and the Caribbean countries. Australia will take over for the Pacific, South Africa would like to support African English-speaking countries and the US and the British Foreign Office will certainly take care of the Caribbean, but the global picture will disappear.
It is true that a press association based on the Commonwealth souvenir and the thirties was maybe not the most up-to-date organization, but its death will break a worldwide community unified by common ideals and ethical views. I'm sure regional organizations will do their best for small organizations, but with very specific geopolitical interests. And for this reason, the disappearance of CPU and a global point of view on journalism is bad news.
What will be the future of international press organisations?
The death of a 100 year old association is a symbol and a signal for all other newspapers organisations. Two
years ago, the IPI (International Press Institute), encountered
significant problems but found a way to maintain its activities. But are IFRA in Germany or WAN in France (the World Association of Newspapers, including the World Editors Forum) not threatened by the evolution of the newspapers business model? Regional organizations are also potentially in trouble, such as the IAPA in the Americas, TAEF in Africa (organization for editors-in-chief) or Panpa in Oceania, and so on.
The
closure of CPU and the difficulties faced by the IPI clearly demonstrate that
the existing business model for these organizations is under threat: how long will they rely on state funds, sponsors' money, conference
fees and memberships? For instance, more and more members want to consume business
information as they consume music on their iPods: by just paying for
the specific item they want, and no more.
The subscription business
model is under attack and press organizations must anticipate this shift.
Another
problem is the development of webinars and online conferences as
competitors to the current "face-to-face conferences". Either
traditional organizations grasp these new ideas and the opportunity
they represent, or the new pure online players will. It will take time to define standards and to build up customers and
partners, but it will happen.
On Monday, MediaNews Group CEO, Dean Singleton, also chairman of the board of The Associated Press, made a speech discussing how newspaper publishers should consider consolidating and even outsourcing news operations. Several media groups, including the American Copy Editor Society, have expressed their opposition to Singleton's statements.
Singleton believes that newspapers should consider outsourcing in "nearly every aspect of their operations," according to USA Today. He believes that sending copy editing and design jobs overseas may also be called for.
Which US-based newspaper website has become so popular that it received over 140,000 user comments on one day this week? One would naturally assume, The New York Times or USA Today, but no, the distinction goes to Topix.net. Topix is a publication that does not have a newsroom, has never printed a paper version, and claims more web visitors than the Washington Post.
Topix, like YahooNews or GoogleNews, serves as an online news aggregator, collecting news from over 50,000 sources. But unlike its larger web colleagues, Topix is also a news community, bringing forums and discussion groups to every US town and city. Topix is the very definition of hyper-local; users simply enter their zip code and the news relevant to them is only a click away. The site also works with national and local news publishers in the US to help them engage their communities while simultaneously improving their revenue streams through classified publishing platforms.
This amalgamation of news aggregator, online newspaper and community website has taken American by storm, and Topix is now a hit. In July 2008, comScore Media Metrix ranked Topix.net the third largest newspaper site in the United States, right behind the New York Times and USA Today. With success like this, it seems that Topix and other news aggregators are here to stay. But what do sites like Topix mean for traditional publishers?
The Editors Weblog spoke to Chris Tolles, CEO of Topix, to find out his view on the relationship between newspapers and news aggregators and what newspapers can learn from aggregator methodology.
Different value propositions
Whereas some newspaper companies have been critical of news aggregators, which the newspapers accuse of "stealing" content, Tolles is positive about the relationship between newspapers and sites such as his. He views them as "different value propositions", which in this case means that newspapers provide the news while Topix provides the platform on which readers discuss the news. Because of this added value, Topix, according to Tolles, "work with, not against local journalistic efforts." He continues, "Topix harnesses the power of the population in places that newspapers can't realistically cover", keenly pointing out that by browsing Topix-hosted forums, journalists at many papers find new stories and new sources they would not have discovered otherwise.
Tolles describes Topix as "a place to engage and participate around local news and events." It's main innovation, impossible before the emergence of the Internet, is that it furnishes newspapers with a space where their readers can congregate around general subject matter and individual articles. In this sense, Tolles views Topix as a "great partner to newspapers"; not only does it provide the discussion platform, but it opens up a newspaper's content to a new audience which may have not previously considered reading the online or print edition.
Targeted content = targeted advertising
One of the areas in which Topix has blazed a trail and surprised many in the media industry is in monetising local content, the $50,000 question in today's newspaper market. Topix's targeted, local content has proved very attractive to advertisers, both local and national. Tolles reveals, "We are able to sell advertising against local audiences for national advertisers as well as being able to use our own targeting algorithms for Google's Ad Sense. We get a large uplift on the CPM rates, about ten times what newspapers not using Topix are able to get." To grow its targeted advertising success even more, Topix is increasing its direct sales staff.
Another interesting feature of the Topix business model is that all the technology is done in-house. "We have built everything used on Topix at Topix," says Tolles. Therefore, everything that is built and designed for the site is done solely with Topix in mind; there is no content management or publishing system that has to be bolted on and squeezed to fit the site's working practises or production needs. Tolles reports that "The localization and categorization technology is patent pending and ours, as is the forum platform, search technology and everything down to the open source web components like our web server and OS."
Topix is an interesting player in the news provider market and there are clearly lessons to be learnt from its scalable model and innovation. Furthermore, the success that Topix enjoys is a stark lesson to the whole industry. But still, everything hasn't been perfect. Looking back, Tolles says he "would have hired sales people earlier, and I would have focused on local (over general categories) from the get go. I would also have worked with others in the industry to give advertisers a clearer value proposition around connecting to local earlier."
As for succeeding in the crowded media space, Tolles suggests the Topix strategy for others, concluding, "I would urge any news organization starting today to figure out what they provide their audience, and then focus on that relentlessly. We did that with participation, but there are other ways to succeed..."
Posted byAlisa Zykova on August 28, 2008 at 3:00 PM
Boston.com, the online edition of The Boston Globe, intends to be more "neighborly" with its visitors by boosting its local presence through a number of social networking projects while focusing on publishing, aggregating and convening, reports NewsAndTech.com.
The site's convening tasks will be improved through the upgrading of the forum and commenting abilities for stories. Readers will be able to track other users' participation with more ease, according to NewsAndTech.com.
BoMoms, a section geared towards young mothers in the Boston area, is available with articles and forums on topics that may be of interest to them.
Boston.com's user-generated content and social networking plan also includes a deal with Good2Gether, a non-profit organization, which will link viewers with local non-profit associations.
"The whole area gives us a chance to provide a platform for cause-based marketing," said Bob Kempf, vice president of Boston.com. "We know that a lot of our major companies locally have cause-based marketing messages they want to get across."
A hyperlocal platform is planned to be launched before the end of 2008, featuring Wiki-based websites discussing a town's news and information, to be written by Globe writers and external contributors.
"Newspapers tend to take some of those separate brands and products and keep them isolated and not integrated with the core content experience," said Kempf. "We need to get that mix exactly right. I think isolating your user-generated content in one place makes for a difficult business and audience proposition."
Posted byAlisa Zykova on August 26, 2008 at 12:20 PM
User comments on websites has become standard fare for most media organizations. But according to the Poynter Institute's Bob Steele and Kelly McBride, who spoke at the Unity: Journalists of Colour Convention, news organizations must make it easy and inviting for users to comment, otherwise they may inhibit the discourse they purport to initiate.
Editor and Publisher looked into the matter in order to see the mechanisms that newspaper sites were employing when dealing with user-generated content and found a range of methods.
The research found:
-All of the top 10 US newspaper websites reviewed have mechanisms to monitor the content, be it screening comments or urging users to report offences -Some sites require registration -Some sites preview comments prior to their publication -Some used both
According to Editor and Publisher, the most "liberal" policy about user's posts is from the Wall Street Journal, since neither registration or moderation are used and readers are pushed to self-police and report offences.
The Los Angeles Times had the "most stringent" and "severely worded" rules that referred to discrimination, false advertising and interrupted online access:
WARNING: A VIOLATION OF THESE POSTING RULES MAY BE REFERRED TO LAW ENFORCEMENT AUTHORITIES.
This is exactly the kind of unappealing, and threatening phrase that Poynter's Steel and McBride warned against, saying that they could be perceived as "hostile."
Less "threatening" in tone, the Denver Post's Neighbor forum includes the following guidelines:
Think of Neighbors as a neighborhood gathering, where conversation is lively and civil. What's important to you is probably of interest to others - if your neighbors don't know about something, they will appreciate if you share your knowledge. The community and its users will decide what the site becomes, but it is not intended to be a free-for-all.
Retaining more "civility", the New York Daily News writes:
Be nice. Think about others. People often say things on boards that they would be ashamed to say to someone face to face. Please treat other users with respect.
Posted byAlisa Zykova on August 20, 2008 at 12:37 PM
The Federal Mass Media Inspection Service accused the St. Petersburg edition of Russian daily newspaper Novaya Gazeta of advocating hatred towards Georgians, warning the paper that it risks being shut down if it defies the media and extremism laws again.
The publishers of the Cleveland Plain Dealer are revamping and redesigning the paper to combat smothering economic conditions. Changes will include, among other things, a front section easy to scan through and an area for reader feedback.
"Today we are sharing in another community challenge: a tough, rapidly shifting economy that is demanding changes of nearly every big industry, small business, and individual household," Publisher Terry Egger said in a letter to readers.
"The Plain Dealer is no exception."
The Plain Dealer detailed the changes in a two-page summary. A reshuffled front section will allow readers looking for a quick scan to have easy, comprehensive access to the crucial facts. Page Two's WakeUpCall will include regular columns, an area for reader feedback, and a brand-new "Five Smart Things You Should Know Today" summary.
"If you only have a few minutes," the summary says, "This page is your watercooler study guide."
Though it went unmentioned in the release, the changes at the Plain Dealer also include trimming pages. According to Managing Editor Debra Adams Simmons, the paper will be reduced by an average of 32 pages per week.
"It plays out differently on different days of the week," Simmons said. "We are looking at fewer pages per week."
Other changes include an expanded Sunday opinion forum and a new Diversions section - featuring comics, puzzles, and crosswords - that will wrap around the daily Classifieds. Additionally, the business section will no longer be published Mondays, and will instead be available online.
The paper also produced a daily time timeline designed to give readers a peek inside the daily churnings of a newspaper.
"We'd like you to understand more about what it takes to create, build, manufacture and deliver what we call 'the daily miracle'," Egger said.
To view PDFs of the summary and the timeline, click here, and scroll down to the links near the bottom of the article.
Pierre Bellanger, founder and CEO of the French radio station Skyrock and blog network Skyrock.com, knows something about transitioning from a traditional media model to a digital one: Skyrock.com now draws 4.2 million unique visitors daily and about 7.5 billion page views monthly, and the group makes more than half of its revenues digitally.
At a conference in early June, Bellanger listed seven pointers for brands to establish and sell themselves online:
- Integrate collective intelligence: of particular importance to newspapers (see this interview with Bellanger), this means repurposing user-generated content such as comments or blogs in an add-value package for the brand. - To be an individual: the brand should be engaged in the conversation with online users. - Establish a relation of trust with users: this also entails getting rid of corporate and commercial communications, which online users can see through. - Combine conversation and advertising: a 'chief community officer' should serve both to engage the community and drive profit. - To remain useful. - To remain polite.
The web community Oma Kaupunki offers a new way of being hyperlocal, explained Reeta Merilainen, Editor-in-Chief of Helsingin Sanomat, Finland, at the fourth session of the15th World Editors Forum:
Oma Kaupunki - My Own City - was launched last august. It is a local community and search engine based on information rather than interaction. It offers local information from municipalities and companies. Users are also able to rate companies, services, restaurants etc. You can reserve a table or link info about it to a friend. Oma Kaupunki also offers local news produced by journalists.
Merilainen believes there is huge potential in readers; they have a wealth of information. But Oma Kaupunkis problem is how to get more interaction and still maintain credibility. According toMerilainen it's been a lot of hard work. They have to "clean" and structure all the information and data, but she is very happy with the result. Reeta Merilainen claims they don't make a lot of money on Oma Kaupunki, but the future still looks bright.
So has it been worth all that hard work? Yes, says Reeta Merilainen. Oma Kaupunki is something that no one else can offer in the Helsinki region. It's a good way to create communities even by traditional media.
Oma Kaupunki has further development ahead including: Neighbourhood groups Votes on articles Hobby groups Today's events Going mobile Expansion of database
Oma Kaupunki is also going from local to global, in the figurative sense. The hyperlocal project My Own World is under construction and will use the same platform as Oma Kaupunki. Merilainenthinks being hyperlocal is not only about geography but also about mental proximity.There will be no Ivory Towers but close encounters with readers both virtually and physically.
Oma Kaupunki is the brainchild of Finish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat. It is the paper in Finland with 420 000 copies in circulation and 985 000 readers. 950 000 people consult the paper's website. Oma Kaupunki has been a large success in Finland with 60 000 unique visitors every week. The target is to get 100 000 unique visitors by the end of the year, a target Reeta Merilainen think will be met.
Integrated newsrooms are a great hope for us and a great excitement, said Almar Latour, Managing Editor, wsj.com. Speaking at the 15th World Editors Forum, Latour said that the integrated newsroom at the famous Wall Street Journal has been an inspiration for its journalists.
The Wall Street Journal started integrating its newsroom about twelve months ago, commencing a year of tremendous change. Since online editors and journalists were separate from print editors and journalists, they did not even know each other. Work was being duplicated and there was some competitive friction between the two newsrooms. The solution to these problems was an integrated newsroom.
Wall Street Journal editors now work side by side, creating a news factory. News move faster, there are fewer duplicated edits and print editors have started to gain online skills. There are new sections and more videos since the editors are thinking about the news online.
They focus their online attention on: Videos Images and photos Infographics Community Outreach New Projects
The new online strategy has worked. The Wall Street Journal online's unique page views has doubled.
But Almar Latour says it has been a challenge to convince reporters to spend time on activities other than writing. Not only are many reporters and journalists devoted to the written word, producing videos etc., the online edition adds to their work load. One tool to convince their journalists about the advantages of posting stories online has been their Most Popular List. This is a list that shows how many people have read the story, watched the video etc., on the web site. Reporters can now actually see that their stories are read. This creates healthy competition among the reporters. They can see if they are in the top ten for example.
At the Wall Street Journal experimentation is welcome. Reporters are given cameras and are encouraged to do what they will with them. Failure is accepted: some things have worked, some haven't. But Latour sees much promise in the integrated newsroom. For example, many journalists have learned that video compliments the written word and offers a different way of telling a story.
Latour took the example of journalist Jeffrey Zaslow. He wrote a story about a teacher with terminal cancer whose last lecture was captured on video. Zaslow posted the edited video aside his written aritcle on the website. Mr Zaslow discovered that through the video he could connect to new people. He could show something that the written word could not. People started to link to the video and it got a lot of attention. Posting it on line also generated a lot of responses from viewers. The story was later turned into a web site and a book published in 29 languages.
"We thing that eScenic is a high performance content management system," he said.
The CMS is very fast compared to Welt Online's previous system: sometimes reporters had to wait for five minutes or more before a news item was published. "It was terrible for us," said Michalsky.
With eScenic, it is now both easy and quick to publish text stories, but also multimedia content such as videos and picture galleries, or interactive features like polls, said Michalsky.
Recent upgrades in eScenic also make it easy to manage Welt Online's community platform, where users can set up profiles and upload their own content; Welt Online began this project a year and a half ago with CMS Drupal, which offered better functionalities at the time, but will soon go through the process of adapting its community platform to eScenic.
According to Michalsky, staffers at Die Welt comfortably adopted the new CMS. It took about two weeks for all editors to learn how to use it. Not all reporters need to learn how to use it, but it has been very handy for reporters outside of Die Welt's Berlin headquarters.
Rue89, an online-only news site launched in May 2007 by a group of former journalists at Libération, has been one of the year's success stories in the French media landscape (over 650,000 unique visitors monthly, Nielsen).
Its founder, Pierre Haski, will discuss the site's path to success, as well as the new ethical standards that arise on the Web, at the upcoming World Editors Forum to be held in Gothenburg, Sweden, from June 1 to 4.
According to him, Rue89 was launched in response to two crises of the press in France: the economic - structural - downturn of the daily press and the increasing disconnect between traditional journalists and their readers. "The idea was that there is (still) on the Web an essential role for journalists," said Haski. Along with his colleagues, who all had blogs, "We realized that blogs - and the Internet - were a way to reconnect and reestablish this (lost) link with readers."
Since then, the website has regularly come up with scoops and gained a solid reputation among traditional media outlets.
Haski will also discuss the new ethical issues that have arisen with online news. "The Web mustn't be a lawless, right-less arena," said Haski. "The rule ands laws that usually apply must also be applied to the Web," he said, citing the right to privacy and defamation. In other words, the - print - journalistic principles he and his team adhere to must be upheld online.
The difficulty, of course, is adapting these standards to the new practices of the Web.
A recent legal suit in France illustrates very well the range of new media issues that have yet to be resolved. In the Fuzz affair, as it is known, a French actor launched a suit against a flurry of blogs and sites, including buzz-aggregating site Fuzz.fr, after it linked back to a gossip story that claimed the actor was back in a relationship.
Fuzz.fr was eventually shut down, after the court decided it had served as a relay point for the contentious information.
Should aggregators be liable for the links posted on their site, even if generated by the community? According to Haski, although he has no definite answer, "It doesn't seem tolerable to hide oneself behind a robot that crawls the Web."
These new practices also affect traditional media's habits in some cases: a blogger, hosted by the site of the weekly Nouvel Observateur, was literally copy-pasting whole articles from Rue89. Because nouvelobs.com's traffic is significant, the blogger's posts actually ranked higher than Rue89 on Google. The blog was eventually shuttered, but only after Rue89 signaled this to the Nouvel Observateur.
"These practices are very surprising because they come from companies that are themselves very careful about their intellectual property," said Haski.
Although the blog was swiftly shut down, Haski was surprised to see that some traditional media loosen their editorial practices for content on the Web.
"Our starting point, and ending point, is that there are professional and deontological rules that exist on other platforms, which should also exist on the Web," said Haski.
"We set a rule at the start that no content would be published online if it hadn't been previously checked by a professional journalist."
The Editors Weblog is
running a series of exclusive
interviews about the future of journalism with top editors at leading
newspapers around the world. Here is the latest installment with Emily Bell, Editor-in-Chief of guardian.co.uk in the UK.
Questions: "News, journalism, newspapers: same past, different futures?"
- How long do you think you will define your company as a newspaper company or a print company?
We're not doing that already. We changed our names last year from Guardian Newspapers Limited to Guardian News and Media, so we're moving away from defining ourselves as a newspaper company. But we are still news. We are news-oriented, we are a news media company.
- At this year's World Economic Forum in Davos, a panel of futurists claimed that print newspapers wouldn't exist by 2014. To what extent do you agree with this?
I 100% disagree with that statement. 2014 is so close, of course there will still be print newspapers; it is ridiculous to suggest that. Will there be fewer print newspapers in 2014 in certain parts of Western Europe, the US, etc? Yes, most definitely.
But clearly the futurists in Davos haven't looked at newspaper markets in emerging economies like India, etc. where print products are proliferating. They are increasing faster, in basic circulation and number of titles, than they are declining in markets with more mature print readerships. It's a sweeping and very narrow generalization, which is wrong.
We will definitely have a printed product in 2014. If you said 2024 or 2034, who knows, I would say that's far too far away to guess, and it's possible not. Don't forget Arthur Sulzberger said: "I can conceive of a time when we will no longer produce the print paper." Whether he retracted it or not, it's clearly crossed his mind.
Alan Rusbridger, the editor-in-chief here, said he could foresee a time when we will be mainly a digital company and that we don't have a printed product. He actually said that the last printed presses that we bought would be the last ones that would ever be bought.
- In journalism's multi-centennial history, do you view the emergence of digital journalism as part of the continuity, or as a complete breakaway with previous forms of journalism?
It's a complete break. Not so much what happened with the advent of the Internet, but much more what's happened with various programming protocols since, what you would know as Web 2.0, which is the ability to allow the uploading of information by the local generation.
Flickr, blogs, etc. have completely changed the game, because it means all matter of information is exposed and is available to be manipulated, uploaded, reported on, etc. by a whole set of people who are no longer in control of a distribution bottleneck. Actually, what we were doing ten years ago was exploiting a Web publishing bottleneck, which was that we had the money to have the server space, the rack space, the designers - anybody can do that now.
That's completely different, it's not just another slight development of an existing cycle. - Do you believe in the increasingly active role of the user in the news process, and is it a threat or an opportunity for professional journalists?
Yes, the participation of users in news is inevitable. It is growing and is welcomed. It is a massive opportunity for professional journalists to enhance what they do. The closer you are, the more authentic you are, and the more knowledgeable you can be, then the more purchase you have with the community that will come to you, tell you things and point to your work in certain areas. I think if you don't have that, in the future as a journalist, you probably don't have much of a future.
'Threat' is a good thing. It's not so much a threat. Now you've got the news event itself, and an immediate set of breaking news competitors like wire services, the BBC, or SkyNews in the UK. There's another band of capability roundup, people who are actually experts in the kind of events that are happening and who bring knowledge and insight and can communicate near the professionals - the professionals' job is (still) to communicate the stories and make them relevant and understandable. I don't think that's going away.
But what's happening is that there are now other people who can answer who might not be professional journalists - they might be professionals working in the world that you're writing about. It's Dan Gillmor's phrase, "There's always someone better placed in the story than yourself." If I'm a media journalist writing about what's going on at the BBC... somebody who's inside the BBC, who's not part of their press operations, could be writing with more authenticity, because I can only ever have the view of the outsider.
However, the person who's inside the BBC might not really have the requisites and right perspective to be able to draw the conclusions that perhaps an outsider might have. So I think there's some kind of a blend of insights and knowledge which skillful and professional journalists ought to be able to meld together.
The threat is journalists not being good enough at that. I think it's entirely healthy that there are specialist bloggers who are pushing journalists to be better at what they do.
- Do you consider the Golden Age of investigative journalism is already past, or just beginning?
I think it's going through a difficult transitory period. The funding now available for people to concentrate for long periods of time on single subject stories, which may or may not come to fruition, has been greatly undermined by the restructuring of professional media.
When I see institutes in the US that are funded specially for investigative journalism, those things are slightly depressing. The idea that news media can't sustain expensive investigative journalism is disappointing.
But it's not all over, there's a vacuum at the moment around serious disclosure. There are not as many (investigative) stories gaining traction, but I think in the future the tools are all there. One of the things that electronic media does is make it harder to hold onto an exclusive, because bits and pieces of the story tend to emerge from all sorts of different sources (ie: the Enron story initially broken by a Time journalist).
Once bits of the story were out there, it gathers momentum much quicker than it used to. So the value of the investigative story, as in keeping it as a brand-defining element, becomes harder and therefore a lot of businesses tend to say, "It's hard for us to keep control of the story, it's even more expensive to dig out, therefore why don't we step down our investment in it."
But there are organizations like ourselves and others such as The New York Times that are absolutely committed to making sure that doesn't happen.
![Digg](http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&&url=http://www.editorsweblog.org/multimedia/2009/04/americas_newseum_celebrates_its_first_ye.php&bodytext=The <a href="http://www.editorsweblog.org/newsrooms_and_journalism/2008/04/us_newseum_grand_opening_on_april_11.php">Washington-based museum of news </a>(pictured right) celebrates its first birthday
this month, <br /><form mt:asset-id="2633" class="mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image" style="display: inline;" contenteditable="false"><a href="http://www.editorsweblog.org/misc/Newseum.jpg"><img alt="Newseum.jpg" src="http://www.editorsweblog.org/assets_c/2009/04/Newseum-thumb-130x86-2633.jpg" class="mt-image-right" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 20px 20px; float: right;" height="86" width="130" /></a></form>although it was first opened in Rosslyn, Virginia in 1997. An initiative of the <b>Freedom Forum</b>, a politically neutral organization,
the "world's most interactive museum" has been hailed a success,
<a href="http://www.chinapost.com.tw/art/arts/2009/04/12/203963/Washingtons-Newseum.htm">attracting 700,000 people since it opened</a> - despite a $20 entry fee. <div><br /></div>&title=America's <b>Newseum</b> celebrates its first year){kind=link}
![Digg](http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&&url=http://www.editorsweblog.org/2007/08/us-900-newsroom-layoffs-in-5-m.html&bodytext=<a href="http://www.worldeditorsforum.org/">The World Editors Forum</a> invites you to join editors-in-chief from the world's most innovative newspapers as they discuss the successful strategies that have transformed their newsrooms for the digital age. <b>Editors Weblog Webinars</b> are interactive so you can learn from best practices and ask questions specific to the needs of your newsroom. <br /><font style="font-size: 1.25em;">For instructions on webinar usage, <a href="http://www.editorsweblog.org/webinarsparticipants.html">click here</a></font>.<br /><font style="font-size: 0.8em;"><font style="font-size: 1.25em;"><font style="font-size: 1.25em;">For access to webinar archives, <a href="http://www.editorsweblog.org/editors-weblog-webinars-archives.html">click here</a>.</font></font></font><br /><div align="center"><form mt:asset-id="2857" class="mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image" style="display: inline;" contenteditable="false"><a href="http://www.editorsweblog.org/assets_c/2009/05/webinar-logo-for-web-small-thumb-275x85-2856.jpg"><img alt="Thumbnail image for webinar-logo-for-web-small.jpg" src="http://www.editorsweblog.org/assets_c/2009/05/webinar-logo-for-web-small-thumb-275x85-2856-thumb-275x85-2857.jpg" class="mt-image-center" style="margin: 0pt auto 20px; text-align: center; display: block;" height="85" width="275" /></a></form></div><font color="#0000cc"><font style="font-size: 1.5625em;">Special "How to" Webinar series</font></font><br /><font style="font-size: 1.25em;">To help newsrooms find cost-effective and easy-to-implement new media tools, the Editors Weblog is conducting a series of informative and practical webinars. The webinars will provide you with the knowledge to quickly adopt new strategies in your newsroom. <br /><br />
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<font style="font-size: 1.25em;"><font style="font-size: 1.25em;"><font style="font-size: 1.25em;"><u><br /></u><font style="font-size: 0.8em;"><u>Tuesday 23 June at 14h00 GMT (London time)<br /></u></font><font style="font-size: 0.8em;"><b>Search engine optimization for newsrooms</b></font><font style="font-size: 0.64em;">:</font> <font style="font-size: 0.64em;"><font style="font-size: 1em;">How to teach your journalists to write for the web</font><br />With Times of London Head of Search, Drew Broomhall<br />1. how SEO works<br />2. how to teach SEO to journalists and editors<br />3. how to make sure SEO is being implemented and tracking effectiveness</font><font style="font-size: 0.8em;"><br /><br /><u>Tuesday 30 June at 15h00 </u><u>GMT</u></font></font></font></font><font style="font-size: 1.25em;"><font style="font-size: 1.25em;"><font style="font-size: 1.25em;"><font style="font-size: 0.8em;"><u>(London time)</u></font></font></font></font><font style="font-size: 1.25em;"><font style="font-size: 1.25em;"><font style="font-size: 1.25em;"><font style="font-size: 0.8em;"><br /></font></font><font style="font-size: 1em;"><font style="font-size: 1em;"><b>Twitter for journalists</b></font><font style="font-size: 0.8em;">: </font><font style="font-size: 1em;"><font style="font-size: 0.8em;">How the real-time Web can improve your newspaper's journalism</font></font><br /><font style="font-size: 0.8em;">With CEO of Visual Editors and international newspaper consultant, Robb Montgomery, US<br />1. how to use Twitter to find stories<br />2. how to use Twitter to virally spread stories<br />3. how to encourage journalists to use Twitter<br />4. what are some of the best newspaper strategies for using Twitter</font><br /></font><font style="font-size: 1em;"><br /><u><font style="font-size: 1em;">Tuesday, 7 July at 15h00 GMT</font></u></font></font></font><font style="font-size: 1.25em;"><font style="font-size: 1.25em;"><font style="font-size: 1.25em;"><font style="font-size: 0.8em;"><u>(London time)</u></font></font></font></font><br /><font style="font-size: 1.25em;"><font style="font-size: 1.25em;"><font style="font-size: 1em;"><font style="font-size: 1em;"><b>Local databases</b></font><font style="font-size: 0.8em;">: How to dig deep into the most important community stories</font><br /><font style="font-size: 0.8em;">With Tom Callinan and Brian Butts, Cincinnati Enquirer/ Gannett, USA</font><font style="font-size: 0.8em;"><br />1. how to create a community database for your newsroom and audience<br />2. how to find stories and information with community databases<br />3. how to improve interaction with your audience<br /></font></font><font style="font-size: 1.25em;"> <br /></font></font>
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&title=Editors Weblog Webinars){kind=link}
![Digg](http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&&url=http://www.editorsweblog.org/multimedia/2009/01/reuters_uses_social_media_to_cover_the_w.php&bodytext=<a href="http://www.thomsonreuters.com/"><b>Thomson Reuters</b></a> plans to "roll out a major social media coverage package "to enhance its coverage of the <a href="http://www.weforum.org/en/index.htm"><b>World Economic Forum</b></a> which begins tomorrow in Davos, Switzerland. Reporters will use <a href="http://twitter.com/"><b>Twitter</b></a> and <a href="http://fr.youtube.com/"><b>YouTube</b></a> to share video and updates from the Forum. <br /><br /><form mt:asset-id="2059" class="mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image" style="display: inline;" contenteditable="false"><a href="http://www.editorsweblog.org/world%20econ%20forum.jpg"><img alt="world econ forum.jpg" src="http://www.editorsweblog.org/assets_c/2009/01/world%20econ%20forum-thumb-120x110-2059.jpg" class="mt-image-left" style="margin: 0pt 20px 20px 0pt; float: left;" height="110" width="120" /></a></form>According to <b>Mark Jones</b>, 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."<br /> <div><br /></div>&title=Social media reports from the <b>World Economic Forum</b>){kind=link}
![Digg](http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&&url=http://www.editorsweblog.org/analysis/2008/10/aggregate_connect_engage_topixnets_hyper.php&bodytext=Which US-based newspaper website has become so popular that it received over 140,000 user comments on one day this week? One would naturally assume,<i> The New York Times</i> or <i>USA Today</i>, but no, the distinction goes to <a href="http://www.topix.net/topix/about">Topix.net.</a> Topix is a publication that does not have a newsroom, has never printed a paper version, and claims more web visitors than the <i>Washington Post</i>. <br /><br />Topix, like <i>YahooNews</i> or <i>GoogleNews</i>, serves as an online news aggregator, collecting news from over 50,000 sources. But unlike its larger web colleagues, Topix is also a news community, bringing forums and discussion groups to every US town and city. Topix is the very definition of hyper-local; users simply enter their zip code and the news relevant to them is only a click away. The site also works with national and local news publishers in the US to help them engage their communities while simultaneously improving their revenue streams through classified publishing platforms. <br /><br /><form mt:asset-id="1105" class="mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image" style="display: inline;" contenteditable="false"><img alt="Topix-screenshot.jpg" src="http://www.editorsweblog.org/Topix-screenshot.jpg" class="mt-image-left" style="margin: 0pt 20px 20px 0pt; float: left;" height="166" width="300" /></form>This amalgamation of news aggregator, online newspaper and community website has taken American by storm, and Topix is now a hit. In July 2008, <a href="http://www.socialmediaportal.com/PressReleases/2008/08/Topix-Grows-to-the-Third-Largest-Newspaper-Website-According-to-comScore.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2fSearch%2fDefault.aspx%3fTag%3dcomScore"><b>comScore Media Metrix</b></a> ranked Topix.net the third largest newspaper site in the United States, right behind the <i>New York Times</i> and <i>USA Today</i>. With success like this, it seems that Topix and other news aggregators are here to stay. But what do sites like Topix mean for traditional publishers?<br /><br />The Editors Weblog spoke to <b>Chris Tolles</b>, CEO of Topix, to find out his view on the relationship between newspapers and news aggregators and what newspapers can learn from aggregator methodology.<br /><br /><b>Different value propositions</b><br /><br />Whereas some newspaper companies have been critical of news aggregators, which the newspapers accuse of "<a href="http://www.editorsweblog.org/special.php?IncludeBlogs=1&order=date&query=stealing&=OK">stealing</a>" content, Tolles is positive about the relationship between newspapers and sites such as his. He views them as "different value propositions", which in this case means that newspapers provide the news while Topix provides the platform on which readers discuss the news. Because of this added value, Topix, according to Tolles, "work with, not against local journalistic efforts." He continues, "Topix harnesses the power of the population in places that newspapers can't realistically cover", keenly pointing out that by browsing Topix-hosted forums, journalists at many papers find new stories and new sources they would not have discovered otherwise.<br /><br />Tolles describes Topix as "a place to engage and participate around local news and events." It's main innovation, impossible before the emergence of the Internet, is that it furnishes newspapers with a space where their readers can congregate around general subject matter and individual articles. In this sense, Tolles views Topix as a "great partner to newspapers"; not only does it provide the discussion platform, but it opens up a newspaper's content to a new audience which may have not previously considered reading the online or print edition. <br /><br /><b>Targeted content = targeted advertising</b><br /><br />One of the areas in which Topix has blazed a trail and surprised many in the media industry is in monetising local content, the $50,000 question in today's newspaper market. Topix's targeted, local content has proved very attractive to advertisers, both local and national. Tolles reveals, "We are able to sell advertising against local audiences for national advertisers as well as being able to use our own targeting algorithms for Google's Ad Sense. We get a large uplift on the CPM rates, about ten times what newspapers not using Topix are able to get." To grow its targeted advertising success even more, Topix is increasing its direct sales staff. <br /><br />Another interesting feature of the Topix business model is that all the technology is done in-house. "We have built everything used on Topix at Topix," says Tolles. Therefore, everything that is built and designed for the site is done solely with Topix in mind; there is no content management or publishing system that has to be bolted on and squeezed to fit the site's working practises or production needs. Tolles reports that "The localization and categorization technology is patent pending and ours, as is the forum platform, search technology and everything down to the open source web components like our web server and OS."<br /><br />Topix is an interesting player in the news provider market and there are clearly lessons to be learnt from its scalable model and innovation. Furthermore, the success that Topix enjoys is a stark lesson to the whole industry. But still, everything hasn't been perfect. Looking back, Tolles says he "would have hired sales people earlier, and I would have focused on local (over general categories) from the get go. I would also have worked with others in the industry to give advertisers a clearer value proposition around connecting to local earlier." <br /><br />As for succeeding in the crowded media space, Tolles suggests the Topix strategy for others, concluding, "I would urge any news organization starting today to figure out what they provide their audience, and then focus on that relentlessly. We did that with participation, but there are other ways to succeed..."&title=Aggregate, connect, engage: <b>Topix.net</b>'s hyper-local news strategy ){kind=link}
![Digg](http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&&url=http://www.editorsweblog.org/analysis/2008/05/rue89_a_year_of_online_success_and_the_n.php&bodytext=<form contenteditable="false" mt:asset-id="537" class="mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image" style="display: inline;"><a href="http://www.editorsweblog.org/rue89-logo.jpg"><img alt="rue89-logo.jpg" src="http://www.editorsweblog.org/rue89-logo-thumb-230x119.jpg" class="mt-image-left" style="margin: 0pt 20px 20px 0pt; float: left;" height="119" width="230" /></a></form><a href="http://www.rue89.com/"><b>Rue89</b></a>, an online-only news site launched in May 2007 by a group of former journalists at <i>Libération</i>, has been one of the year's success stories in the French media landscape (over 650,000 unique visitors monthly, <b>Nielsen</b>).<br /><br />Its founder, <b>Pierre Haski</b>, will discuss the site's path to success, as well as the new ethical standards that arise on the Web, at the upcoming <a href="http://www.wansweden2008.com/articles.php?id=114">World Editors Forum to be held in Gothenburg</a>, Sweden, from June 1 to 4.<br /><br />(<a href="http://www.editorsweblog.org/analysis/2007/09/part_3_onlineonly_news_rue89co.php">See our previous interview with Haski</a>, who details the pro-am news process of the Web 2.0 site.)<br /><br />According to him, Rue89 was launched in response to two crises of the press in France: the economic - structural - downturn of the daily press and the increasing disconnect between traditional journalists and their readers. "The idea was that there is (still) on the Web an essential role for journalists," said Haski. Along with his colleagues, who all had blogs, "We realized that blogs - and the Internet - were a way to reconnect and reestablish this (lost) link with readers."<br /><br />Since then, the website has regularly come up with scoops and gained a solid reputation among traditional media outlets.<br /><br />Haski will also discuss the new ethical issues that have arisen with online news. "The Web mustn't be a lawless, right-less arena," said Haski. "The rule ands laws that usually apply must also be applied to the Web," he said, citing the right to privacy and defamation. In other words, the - print - journalistic principles he and his team adhere to must be upheld online.<br /><br />The difficulty, of course, is adapting these standards to the new practices of the Web.<br /><br />A recent legal suit in France illustrates very well the range of new media issues that have yet to be resolved. In the <b>Fuzz</b> affair, as it is known, a French actor launched a suit against a flurry of blogs and sites, including buzz-aggregating site Fuzz.fr, after it linked back to a gossip story that claimed the actor was back in a relationship.<br /><br />Fuzz.fr was eventually shut down, after the court decided it had served as a relay point for the contentious information.<br /><br />Should aggregators be liable for the links posted on their site, even if generated by the community? According to Haski, although he has no definite answer, "It doesn't seem tolerable to hide oneself behind a robot that crawls the Web."<br /><br />These new practices also affect traditional media's habits in some cases: a blogger, hosted by the site of the weekly <i>Nouvel Observateur</i>, was literally copy-pasting whole articles from Rue89. Because <b>nouvelobs.com</b>'s traffic is significant, the blogger's posts actually ranked higher than Rue89 on <b>Google</b>. The blog was eventually shuttered, but only after Rue89 signaled this to the Nouvel Observateur.<br /><br />"These practices are very surprising because they come from companies that are themselves very careful about their intellectual property," said Haski.<br /><br />Although the blog was swiftly shut down, Haski was surprised to see that some traditional media loosen their editorial practices for content on the Web.<br /><br />"Our starting point, and ending point, is that there are professional and deontological rules that exist on other platforms, which should also exist on the Web," said Haski.<br /><br />"We set a rule at the start that no content would be published online if it hadn't been previously checked by a professional journalist."<br /><br /><br />Haski will speak at the <a href="http://www.wansweden2008.com/articles.php?id=114">World Editors Forum, to be held in Gothenburg</a>, Sweden, June 1-4. Other <a href="http://www.editorsweblog.org/special.php?tag=Gearing%20up%20for%20Gothenburg&IncludeBlogs=1">preview interviews available here</a>.<br /><br />Source: <b>Pierre Haski</b>, founder <a href="http://www.rue89.com/">Rue89.com</a><br /><br /> &title=<b>Göteborg</b>: <b>Rue89</b>: a year of online success and the new ethics of the Web){kind=link}