Recently in Newsrooms and Journalism Category

Human Rights Watch has released a guidebook for the estimated 25,000 journalists traveling for to China to cover the Olympic games. The "survival guide" covers reporters' risks and rights, human rights issues outside the arena, tips on dealing with censorship and the police, protecting Chinese contacts, and the "Great Firewall" of internet censorship.

In 2001, Wang Wei, vice president of the Beijing Olympics organizing committee, said, "We will give the media complete freedom to report when they come to China."

This commitment was central to Beijing's successful '08 Olympic bid, having failed to win the 2000 Summer Games; however, China remains the leading jailer of journalists and continues to censor the internet and retaliate against citizen sources critical of the government.

The guidebook is available as a free download here.

Source: New York Times' Olympic blog, Rings

Mark Potts, author of the Recovering Journalist blog, recently wrote about the ten changes he thinks newspapers need to make to thrive. What follows is an edited transcript of his post:

What would you do if you ran a newspaper?

Somebody asked me that question recently, and it made me pull together some of the thoughts I've had recently about the problems that newspapers are having and what they might do to pull out of their current spiral. This is hardly a complete list, but here's a 10-point prescription for ailing newspapers:

1. Make the Web the primary product.
Stop pasting the newspaper onto a screen. Reorganize the newsroom so that its work appears online as quickly as possible. ... And embrace the technology: news Web sites should be full of Web 2.0 goodness like interactive maps, social networking tools, RSS feeds, distribution to mobile devices, etc. Use the medium to its fullest.

2. Local, local, LOCAL!
There are a zillion places to get national and international news, in real time. But newspapers are virtually the only source of truly local news. ... Local news is the last unique franchise that newspapers own, and too many newspapers don't seem to understand this. ... (Why do you think local community newspapers are thriving when big metro dailies are shedding circulation?)

3. If it's widely available elsewhere, don't waste time re-creating it.
Does every newspaper really need its own movie critic? A TV critic? ... Book reviews? Stories from Washington that the AP already has? ... the answer is unequivocably no. Those resources are just wastd.

4. Zero-base the news operation.
Pretend you're starting from scratch. Look at everything that's in the paper and ask tough questions about whether it's still necessary in an age when readers have multiple sources of news and information.

5. Get the readers involved.
As Dan Gillmor has elegantly argued, the audience knows more than news people do. Much more. Tap that knowledge by encouraging reader participation in as many ways as possible: contributing news and information about their communities, sending in photos and videos, commenting on everything. This can't be a token effort, and you absolutely cannot be scared or controlling about it: let the readers get involved at every opportunity. It will greatly improve the product and increase readership.

6. Lose the editorial page.
Unsigned editorials are a relic of a bygone era when newspaper barons exerted power in their community... Here's a thought: Replace it with reader opinions!

7. Expand the advertising base.
In any market, there are thousands of small advertisers that would never consider advertising in the big local newspaper. It's too expensive and covers too broad an area. But those advertisers want to reach the same people the newspaper does. Find a way to make this happen: more focused zoning, cheaper ads, ad rep pay structures that encourage selling to smaller advertisers. This is another area where community papers are running rings around big dailies.

8. Rethink the classifieds.
Craigslist, Monster.com and countless other news competitors have decimated the newspaper classifieds business. ... Anybody who's used craigslist knows how much more effective it is than paid newspaper classifieds. Look hard at your classifieds ... Yes, that may include shifting most of the classifieds online and giving them away for free, in order to keep the critical mass of classifieds that makes them useful.

9. Find new ways to serve advertisers.
What newspapers offer advertisers--display ads, classifieds--really hasn't changed much in a century. Look for ways to change that. Get into the Yellow Pages directory business online. Aggressively offer contextual advertising. Use idle newspaper delivery resources to help local businesses with their delivery needs. Use subscription lists to help businesses find customer leads. Explore interactive advertising forms that go way beyond boring banner ads. Offer data services to help businesses manage their inventories or sell things online. It's not enough to simply sell space in the paper or on the Web site. Help advertisers make their businesses more successful.

10. Take chances. Innovate. Be fearless about trying things--and killing things.
...A wise editor once said to me, there's virtually no history of research and development in the newspaper business, which is odd considering that covering the news is a daily act of research and development. Let's face it: The single biggest innovation in print newspaper journalism in the past decade or so is...Sudoku. Newspapers can and must do better than that to survive.

Source: Recovering Journalist

The Santa Cruz Sentinel (Calif.) has launched a new section - "Perspectives" - to include opinion pieces authored by local readers, as well as the Sentinel's daily editorial, letters to the editor, and syndicated national columnists.

"That's one purpose of our new/old 'Perspectives' section beginning today...we hope to bring at least a measure of discourse and insight to you, our readers," explains the editor's letter introducing the section.

To accommodate "Perspectives" the Sentinel has cut their Sunday "Santa Cruz Style" section and redistributed popular features from that section throughout the paper; among other changes, the book column has been now added to "Perspectives" itself.

Source: The Santa Cruz Sentinel

Yet another video of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, shot "off the record" in the studios of France 3 prior to his televised interview on June 3rd, has gone viral.

In this case though, the bigger issue shaking French media is whether this video should have been 'news' in the first place, or whether it's simply an example of media outlets rushing to create buzz, a phenomenon exacerbated by the rise of online news.

The video, which was first posted by the online-only news site Rue89 on YouTube, has already received nearly a million views (similar to a video of Sarkozy insulting a civilian captured by Le Parisien).

A renowned blogger, Laurent Goaguen, criticized Rue89's decision:

"I'm slightly ashamed that Rue89's newsroom release this dirty thing, acquired in dubious circumstances and that doesn't bring any information. When political engagement, sense of urgency and the race to scoops obscure, to that extent, the professional duties of journalists..."

Another blog, Caréagit, expressed its disgust for "gutter journalism."

Rue89 editor-in-chief Pascal Riché argued that "this video is rich in information concerning the President, his relations with media, and the atmosphere within France Télévisions."

According to Rue89, France 3 threatened a lawsuit if the site doesn't remove the video and give the names of staffers who leaked the footage.

Source: Le Monde - Rue89

As newsrooms increasingly seek to cut costs and embrace the concept of "mojos" (mobile journalists), some papers are going as far as to remove their journalists' desks from the office.

With the increasing use of laptops, WIFI and other technological innovations, publishers are wondering, is it necessary for journalists to have an office?

No, according to Stephen Borg, Publisher of The Record in Hackensack. The New Jersey-based newspaper is leaving its main building and relocating employees to another newspaper the company owns, The Herald News of West Paterson.

Borg is a firm believer in the concept of office "hoteling". Journalists must now make a reservation for desk time. This means there will be a lot of sharing, but 'hoteling' cuts down on the need for desks, and thus the space those additional desks would require.

Borg said, "I really view this change as "moving out into the field." He envisages mobile journalists working full-time out of the office.

With Borg's changes, the company can save some $2.4 million annually, cutting down on electricity bills, cleaning crews and all the like necessary to keep a building going.

Such innovations are arguably necessary, but it will be interesting to see how these newspapers perform after the changes have been implemented.

Click on the link below for more examples of cost-cutting/efficiency measures at newspapers.

Source: Follow the Media

See also:

UK: BBC integrates newsroom with new media on-demand production unit

US: Mobile journalism is changing the newsrooms

CNN won't go down the mobile news route

The Irish Times is one of the latest to launch a free website, after being subscription-only for around five years.

According to PaidContent.co.uk, the site itself will have richer content and will allow readers to interact more successfully with each other and with the newspaper staff.

The Irish Times is currently integrating its newsroom. "In a new world where trust and accuracy are often the casualties of speed," it will also seek to further co-ordinate print and online content.

"The move to a free Irish Times on the web follows in the recent footsteps of many leading newspaper titles in the world today, among them the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times," wrote the Times.


Source: PaidContent.co.uk through David Black, IrishTimes.com

See also:

La Tribune opens archives, another news site edges towards free
User traffic increases after the closure of TimesSelect
UK: Guardian integration/ away from editorial funnel towards dual overhead

Last week, the Romanian Senate unanimously voted a law proposal forcing media to distribute 50% of positive news.

According to its instigators, the law will help to fight against "the extraordinary harms of negative news and their irreversible effects on health and people's lives."

The Senate wishes that TV and radio news programs feature as much 'negative' as 'positive' news.

The Romanian's National Council for Audiovisual broadcasting is to validate the law - under which it will have the responsibility to decide what constitutes good or bad news.

But the Council swiftly criticized the law. "News is news, it is neither positive nor negative, it simply reflects reality," said the Council's president, Rasvan Popescu.

Press freedom organizations such as Reporters Without Borders have also criticized the proposal, comparing it to similar laws in authoritarian regimes such as North Korea.

While a number of editors may agree that the news agenda tends to be vastly 'negative', no law should seek to force the reverse.

Source: Lemonde.fr (link in French)

Tabloids' new celebrities could be politicians, instead of Hollywood stars like Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. Just as mainstream media borrow content from tabloids by writing about Hollywood starlets and the like, tabloids now borrow from media covering the political sphere.

For example, US Weekly put Michelle and Barack Obama on the cover last week while People wrote about Tim Russet.

"The lines between gossip and politics have blurred," ABC News wrote, in light of coverage of politicians like "gay American" Jim McGreevy and New York's prostitute-soliciting former governor, Eliot Spitzer.  

"There are a limited number of celebrities that people really care about, maybe a half dozen, including Britney and Lindsay," said New York Post's Media Ink columnist Keith Kelly. "There is a celebrity fatigue setting in. People are bored of the same people doing the same things, and there is no one new on the horizon."

According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, US Weekly's circulation grew by 10% to over 1.9 million between 2006-2007 while People continued to be the most popular celebrity magazine with 3.6 million in circulation, ABC News reported.

As far as content goes, politics is "as much a function of slow gossip as it is a response to a genuine interest in the presidential elections" and including Michelle Obama was "natural" since the readers are young females, according to Bradley Jacobs, US Weekly's senior editor, ABC News reported.

"We're expanding the definition of celebrity to include politics," Jacobs said.

Barack Obama's interview on the US Weekly site in March got around 253 % more page views than "an average story", according to a spokesperson, ABC News reported.

Elizabeth Bird, a University of South Florida anthropologist specializing in pop culture and media said that it's "natural" that people see political candidates as celebrities during elections and that the general public is bored of the "distasteful" celebrity stories.

A fairly optimistic statement, if one considers the continuing success of tabloid-type content...

Source: ABCNews through World News Network

With tough times for the newspaper industry - today alone, the Baltimore Sun announced it will cut about 100 jobs, Palm Beach Newspapers Inc., which owns both The Palm Beach Post and the Palm Beach Daily News, plans to cut 300 workers from its 1,350-person payroll, and The Hartford (Conn.) Courant announced they will be cutting both news pages and staff positions by 25% - more and more journalists are making the move to public relations.

"We are starting to see students that would rather study PR [than journalism], because they feel the opportunities will be better for them based on what's happening with print newspapers and other [media], that [journalism] might not be as feasible of a career for them right now," Monica Roberts, director of career development at Syracuse University's SI Newhouse School of Communications, was quoted as saying in the latest edition of PR Week. "I also have a lot of young alumni who have been out [of college] for two to three years who have been switching as well."

In the same PR Week article, Diane Lore, a former journalist, who is now in PR, explained, "The money is not there, and because of the constant filing for the online presence now, the pressure is so much higher." She continued, "No one goes into journalism for the money, but you do expect it to be fun. So if you're not having fun and not making money, then why do it?"

Lore has also started a "second life club" for journalists making the transition; the group has 50 to 60 people on their e-mail list and about 20 regulars at the "second life" meetings.

Will Shanley, who left his position as a business reporter at The Denver Post last summer to take a job in PR, said it's a career move he's seen a number of his former journalism colleagues make.

"Looking long-term," he explained, "[They] want to take some of those [journalism] skills and transfer them to a sector that might be growing instead of contracting."

Sources: Editor & Publisher, PR Week

According to the Journalism Iconoclast, beat blogging benefits journalists by giving them more free time to do core reporting.

Beat blogging allows for news to be posted, without the "man on the street" quotes that usually take up a lot of time. Instead, users can leave their own comments on articles, reply to other comments, have converstations and add a community feel to the story.

Meanwhile, instead of getting quotes from "real people" like it is common for print journalists to do, beat blogging journalists have more time to do other stories.

Source: Journalism Iconoclast through Journerdism

James Murdoch, the chairman and chief executive of News Corporation, Europe and Asia, slammed peer British publications with his comment that daily and Sunday newspaper integration was a "cost-cutting exercise" which had "diminished daily and Sunday rivals."

Murdoch made his remarks to staff after his announcement yesterday of a reorganization within News International, which will include merging ad sales departments of Times Media and News Group Newspapers and reducing bloat in the commercial management structure, but will include no editorial integration.

Although he did not name names, Murdoch's remarks were likely a jab at the Telegraph Media Group, which has recently integrated the Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph and telegraph.co.uk website.

"Around the world, many newspapers and their publishers are scaling back. Just look, for instance, at seven-day publishing projects in this country," Murdoch said in a message sent to all staff.

"In contrast, today our market-leading, challenging and innovative titles are publishing outstanding journalism written by great journalists every day of the week."

Murdoch's comments come in the midst of another rival's integration, as The Guardian and The Observer move towards a full staff merger, to be completed by the end of this year.

Contrasting Murdoch's "cost-cutting" dismissal, editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger touts the Guardian/Observer integration as one that will "unlock the creativity"  of the publications' staff, and insists that overall headcount will remain the same and "may even increase" this year.

Sources: Guardian.co.uk, Press Gazette