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Following the Iranian election on 12 June, which both sides claim to have won, Iranians and the rest of the world wants to know the truth about the results, as well as wanting to follow protests and other developments. But this has proved more difficult than anticipated given the restrictions on reporting, both by Iranians and foreigners, and the occasion proved to be an opportunity for citizen journalism to show its value.

Reporting restrictions

Mainstream media has been suffering from severe restrictions in Iran, even tougher than during last year's Zimbabwean elections, foreign editor for Channel 4 News Ben de Pear told the Guardian. Foreign journalists first had to get special press cards and were closely monitored, then on the Tuesday following the election, foreign journalists were banned from reporting on the streets. The BBC's correspondent has been asked to leave the country after the broadcaster was accused of supporting rioters. And it is not just foreign reporters who are suffering: now even reporters of Iranian nationality are being confined to their offices. According to Reporters without Borders (RSF), 26 Iranian journalists, editors and bloggers have been imprisoned since June 14.

Citizen video becomes a symbol

In the absence of an abundance of professional reporters, amateurs have stepped up. One of the most watched and discussed videos to come out of the tragedy, and one which is emblamatic of the role of citizen journalism in reporting from Iran, is that of the death of Neda Agha-Soltan, a young Iranian woman who was walking near the scene of clashes between pro-government militias and demonstrators when she was shot. The video has prompted international outcry and the girl's death has since come to represent the tragedy of the conflict, a "symbol of the anti-government movement," according to the New York Times. It was taken, not by a reporter with a camera, but by a bystander on a mobile phone, and posted on Facebook and YouTube after the man sent the 40-second clip to a friend who then forwarded to friends and news sites in Europe and the US.

A Twitter revolution?

Talk of a Twitter revolution swiftly spread as Iranians and others in the country used the social network Twitter to get their news out to the world, and it has been used extensively by the media. Twitter is particularly effective as a method of spreading news as it is harder to censor, given that it can be accessed via various different applications on computers or mobile phones, as well as via the website. #IranElection has been the top trending topic on Twitter for days, with thousands of updates an hour using the hash tag to get included in the feed and direct interested observers to text, image or video content. Following a request from US President Obama, Twitter decided to delay maintenance to the site in light of the important role it was playing in keeping people informed, carrying it out during Tehran's night rather than daylight hours.

Twitter is clearly not immune to censorship, however. The following message has been passed around Facebook over the last few days amongst Anglo-Saxon users:

"FREEDOM OF SPEECH: If anyone is on twitter, set your location to Tehran and your time zone to GMT +3.30. Security forces are hunting for bloggers using location/timezone searches. The more people at this location, the more of a logjam it creates for forces trying to shut Iranians' access to the internet down. Cut & paste & pass it on."

Amateur issues

Clearly, there are problems with relying on information generated by amateurs. Benoit Hervieu of RSF told Editor & Publisher that one of the main problems is that because many people want to remain anonymous, it is harder to verify information. And indeed, it seems that much false information has been circulating. After Twitter was hailed as the voice of the revolution, a backlash quickly emerged asserting its unreliability. There is always the possibility, after all, that interested parties might deliberately try to misinform, or might be so personally involved in the debate that they cannot maintain impartiality. And one of the disadvantages of a campaign such as that mentioned above, encouraging international Twitter users to set their locations to Iran, could end up misleading journalists searching for information on the network.

So how are citizen journalism agencies dealing with these risks and challenges?

Checking for reliability is a top priority for those trying to sell their content to traditional media companies. Citizen journalism agency Demotix has obtained many images from freelancers and amateurs portraying events in Iran, including two pictures which have appeared on the front page of the New York Times. Demotix COO Jonathan Tepper emphasised that Demotix understands the importance of reliability of sources and "believes that serious citizen journalism needs to take all the ethics of traditional reporting and build on them, such as verifiability and protection of sources." All submissions go through a vetting procedure which includes looking at the metadata in photos.

Citizenside, which specializes in citizen photo journalism, has managed to get hold of some good images which have been published by mainstream media outlets, but co-founder Matthieu Stefani said that it has been "really hard" both to establish contacts in Iran and to receive images from these contacts. "The big issue is that most of the contributions we've received were sent through proxies, with most of the time no way to contact our contributors as cellphone networks don't work really well," he explained, and therefore his team is extremely cautious about what they accept. He said that the photos that the agency has been pushing most to its clients were received from known and trusted members in the UK who were sent them by close relatives in Iran.

The Observers, a project run by TV news station France 24 combining citizen journalism with professional editing, has been active in its coverage of Iran. Founder of the initiative Julien Pain told the EW that what makes their coverage particularly useful is the fact that they already had trusted contacts in Iran before the election, and hence they have fewer problems with establishing the reliability of sources of information, particularly when using proxy servers. "We worked with these people before the situation was tense," he explained, "so we know them." He gave the example of a girl who has recorded a video describing how the censorship works, with whom he and his team had already worked. Prior to any major election, Pain added, the Observers tries to enlarge its network of contacts, which in this case proved particularly useful. Even using trusted contacts, Pain said that the Observers still cross-checks information as far as possible.

Amra Tareen, CEO of AllVoices, a project that aggregates professional and amateur news on one site, has a different approach: publish everything and let the reader decide. She said that the site has received more than 1,000 submissions, in English and Farsi, since the election, gathered via proxy servers as the AllVoices site is blocked. She stressed that submissions have tackled both sides of the issue and that this is one of the most crucial aspects of citizen journalism and of her site in particular: that anyone can be heard. "we're neutral and anyone can have their voices heard on our platform--that's key for the credibility of citizen journalism; bias will undermine the concept and keep citizen journalism and citizen journalists from ever being taken as seriously as they ought to be."

Generally it seems that such a situation where media access is severely reduced has provided citizen journalism with a significant opportunity to prove its importance. Tareen commented that "we really want to use this opportunity to show that Cit-J is not only about massive amount of non-qualified content, but also good "pro-am" work that we have been promoting for years now," said Stefani.

Getting pictures on the front page of a major daily is likely to be a huge boost to Demotix in terms of fame and credibility. Tepper was clear that Demotix is trying to supplement mainstream media rather than replace it, but said that "we think our reporting can sometimes be more accurate than the mainstream media" because "most of our users record what is known to them, in their city or country" and therefore "Demotix images provide a more accurate representation of the subject from a local perspective."

For the Observers, the situation has provided an opportunity for collaboration with the TV station on an unprecedented level. Usually, Pain said, he would publish a video on the Observers website and offer it to TV, now he has been working more with programming at France 24 to supply them with videos first before putting them online, to offer a period of exclusivity. "We've really moved a step forward here," he said. "We have learnt how to work together, and it's not going to be the same any more."

Although amateur 'citizen journalists' do not have the knowledge or expertise to analyse developments the way a professional journalist could, they can certainly witness and record events, and when traditional media coverage is limited, this is a valuable service. In terms of providing a true news service, amateur contributions must be verified so that readers can trust them, which is a priority for citizen journalism agencies. As opportunities continue to arise for citizen journalism to prove its value, the mainstream media is likely to incorporate it with increasing frequency and develop new ways of working closer with citizen journalism agencies.

How is one news source, totally funded by subscriptions, to compete with another that receives government subsidies? Such is dilemma that arose when WAZ, Germany's second-largest newspaper group, dropped its subscription to the independently-run German press agency DPA in favor of government-subsidized Agence France-Presse.

As Isabelle de Pommereau points out in the Christian Science Monitor, the decision has consequences for both WAZ and DPA. Since the WAZ group started relying on AFP for all its wire coverage, "the papers' depth of German-based coverage has become undeniably more shallow." Pommereau adds that the loss of such a major client also puts financial pressure on DPA as it struggles against cutting coverage or raising the cost for its other clients.

Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger and Labour MP Tom Watson go head-to-head on Twitter, as Watson and the Daily Mail accuse the centre-left paper of going too far. Last week, the newspaper went ahead with a front-page editorial urging the British PM Gordon Brown to resign.

Daily Mail obsessed with idea of Guardian 'putsch' (in collusion with BBC?). A question of media ethics, apparently. http://tiny.cc/7Wp3M"

And so went the tweet that started it all, with Rusbridger linking to the Daily Mail article, in which Stephen Glover asks "Was it [the Guardian] trying to orchestrate events so as to secure the resignation which it had called for in its editorial?"

The National Union of Journalists has urged the new Culture, Media and Sport Minister, Ben Bradshaw to take action in the campaign to reinvigorate local journalism in the UK.  General Secretary, Jeremy Dear has also requested a meeting with the Minister to discuss the specific issue of industry job cuts.

The minister, who only assumed the role last week through a ministerial reshuffle, is under pressure from the NUJ to support an economic stimulus package designed to boost the newspaper industry.   The need for a comprehensive financial policy is evident; regional newsrooms across the UK have been subjected to sizeable staff cuts and reduced budgets as they strive to cope with the double burden of the recession and the decline in circulation.

It is becoming increasingly clear that a proportion of general news content is going to be put behind some kind of a pay wall in upcoming months. Several publishers have expressed their intentions to start charging, and several third parties want to help them do it. Journalists don't seem to want it, it seems pretty unlikely that readers would want it, so how are publishers going to succeed? Can it restore value to good journalism which is increasingly becoming a commodity? The Editors Weblog takes a look at some of the different services on offer and strategies being considered.

Journalism Online

First, Journalism Online, a start-up founded in April by industry experts Steve Brill, Gordon Crovitz and Leo Hindery, has taken facilitating charging for online content as one of its core goals. Brill made a presentation at the NAA-organised newspaper executives' meeting in Chicago on May 28 at which Journalism Online's mission was stated as enabling "news organizations to restore the optimal mix of circulation and advertising revenue necessary to finance original reporting and editing" hence giving them the chance to "realize the revenue they deserve--and can command--from readers and distributors for their digital content."

Journalism Online is marketing its proposal as an e-commerce platform. The idea is that it would make premium content from multiple publishers easily accessible to readers and allow annual, monthly subscriptions, day passes or single articles. There will also be all-you-can-read bundling options. Publishers will decide what content they want to charge for, how much to charge (though it is unclear how all-you-can-read prices will be decided) and how to charge. In the presentation, Brill suggests $50-60 a year and $5-6 a month for small to large city papers, but he stressed that this was an arbitrary choice and clearly the price would depend on how much content the publisher put behind the pay wall. He had previously suggested $15 a month for an all-you-can-read subscription.

The company maintains that implementing its system will not lead to a substantial loss in traffic or ad revenue, claiming that papers would be able to keep 88% of page views and 91% of ad revenue, as any paid content would be part of a hybrid model. In his examples, Brill demonstrates how he believes a paper could essentially double its income. Brill has also stressed that Journalism Online will incorporate lots of sampling. He told Nieman Lab's Zachery Seward that Journalism Online's assumptions are that 5-10% of current monthly unique visitors will be willing to pay for content; that 95 percent of those paying customers will choose subscriptions over micropayments; and that after subscribing, those readers will view 30-40 percent more pages than non-paying readers.

Overall, the company seems to be presenting its service as a chance for newspapers to focus on their best customers, offering a premium service to those who are prepared to pay. At the Chicago meeting, Journalism Online also emphasised the advantages of paid online content in terms of preserving the print product: it is "about the value proposition of print... about print subscriber acquisition and retention costs."

ViewPass

Another third party service was presented at the NAA-organised meeting in Chicago: ViewPass. It is the brainchild of Alan Mutter and Ridgely Evers, and could be implemented in 9 months at a cost of $6 million. The idea is that newspaper readers would be required to register once with ViewPass and it would then track their activity across participating websites.

Like Journalism Online, it would aim to offer readers the chance to purchase premium online content from multiple sources, with potential for subscriptions, micropayments and bundling. Essentially, the ways in which it differs is that ViewPass would be industry-owned, giving publishers the chance to (hopefully) share profits in the business itself, and it most crucially it would allow users to 'pay' for their content with their time or their information instead of with cash, because of their increased value to advertisers. In fact, ViewPass would focus on presenting readers that were attractive to advertisers for highly targeted ads. Mutter himself is not enthusiastic about charging for much online content, suggesting to Nieman Lab that it would only work for specialist content.

Circlabs

The creation of another start up was announced the day before the Chicago meeting: CircLabs, founded by Bill Densmore, Jeffrey Vander Clute, Martin Langeveld and Joe Bergeron. Its first product, code-named Circulate, aims to "offer a solution" to publishers who are experimenting with micropayments and subscriptions, suggesting that they should charge for content which is "both scarce in nature and of high utility to a segment of the audience." CircLabs is also focussed on developing opportunities for "high-value" advertising revenue, and plans to incorporate personalised news services. Further details are yet to appear.

Efforts of individual publishers

News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch has announced that all the company's newspapers would be charging within a year. It is looking at bundling content, according to chief digital officer Jonathan Miller, such as putting all the media conglomerate's New York-based content into one subscription package. One of the company's prime assets, the Wall Street Journal, is proof that paid premium content does work, although of a specifically financial nature. The paper is to expand its paid online options, with plans to introduce micropayments later this year along with a further level of premium subscriptions. Murdoch suggested that the company wants to "test" a pay model on some of its stronger properties first, and there has been speculation that the Sunday Times will be among these. The paid online content debate, although definitely present in the UK, has not been as strong as across the Atlantic, and it would be interesting to see what sort of reaction such a move would provoke.

MediaNews Group is planning to charge online under the belief that "we continue to do an injustice to our print subscribers and create perceptions that our content has no value by putting all of our print content online for free." A memo to staff from CEO Dean Singleton and president Jody Lodovic suggested that a part-paid strategy is in the works, and made it clear that the company is intending to charge for existing content rather than for new products or services.

The New York Times is apparently looking at two different ways in which it could charge for online content. The first would be somewhat similar to the Financial Times' model, whereby readers could surf the site without charge until a page-view or word limit were reached, when a 'metre' would start running and it would charge a user for the rest of their time spent. (The FT allows 10 free articles per user per month, then demands a subscription.) This would have the advantage of not putting specific content behind a paywall, and therefore not angering journalists.

The other option is a 'membership' scheme: readers would donate money and subsequently be invited into a "New York Times community," which would offer them free merchandise and other benefits. Possibly a tiered membership scheme could be implemented. When these proposals were discussed, Bill Keller told staff that a decision would be made by the end of June. The NYT is wary following its failed TimesSelect experience back in 2007 and seems determined to find a solution that will not damage its significant ad revenue.

Potential obstacles: search and antitrust

Currently many people find their news through search engines such as Google, and for articles to get good Google rankings and appear higher up in search results, they cannot be behind a paywall. Newspapers must strive to find an appropriate solution to this when they start charging: the Wall Street Journal's tactic of allowing its paid content to be accessed free via Google is clearly not fair to its paying customers, and is a definite deterrent to potential subscribers.

Antitrust regulations in the US effectively prevent publishers from coming to a joint agreement on when and how they should start charging for content. At the newspaper executives' meeting in Chicago on May 28, an antitrust lawyer was present to make sure all the discussion was legal. Poynter analyst Rick Edmonds suggested that the use of a third party "vendor" such as Journalism Online could be the solution to these concerns. Journalism Online has taken on David Boies and Ted Olson for antitrust advice.

So, is it going to work? And how?

Undoubtedly, implementing paid content is going to be a considerable challenge and is likely to involve substantial experimentation. Newspapers need to consider what exactly they would want to charge for, for example whether they could create a new paid service or put what is currently free behind a pay wall. It seems as if it would be easier to persuade people to pay for something new, rather than telling them they have to start paying for something previously free. But then people might decide that they are happy with what they get now and that they do not want to pay for anything extra. A paper with a highly developed website such as the New York Times could possibly offer basic news free but keep its interactive graphics and other more innovative content for its premium customers.

As yet, Journalism Online seems to be ahead of the pack with regards to third party services. No papers have publicly signed on but Brill told Seward that he had already spoken to about half of those at the Chicago meeting. In terms of connections and credibility of its founders, Journalism Online has a head start. ViewPass and CircLabs do seem to be onto something, however, with their focus on offering consumers as targets for higher-revenue advertising and effectively allowing them to pay for their news by looking at ads. Could these companies coexist, or is there only room for one?

A crucial factor which should not be underestimated in any attempt to charge online is ease of use for the consumer. People will be far more likely to part with their cash if doing so is simple and straightforward. For this reason, sign-in-once and all-you-can-read offers are likely to appeal. And once people are paying, the level of service should reflect this: good journalism presented attractively and accessibly. An element of personalisation would also seem worth paying for.

Can paid online content 'save' newspapers? If Journalism Online's figures are correct, it looks like it could make a significant difference to a newspaper's fortunes. The next few months will be telling in terms of experimentation and competition between proposals, but it will take some years for the definitive answer to this question to be realised.

Amidst the doom and gloom of newspaper closures and declining advertising revenue, it makes a welcome change to report on the launch - albeit online - of a news site.

Headed by Basque firm Hispa Vista, Globedia is entirely and exclusively written by the online community. According to El País, the website's aim is to "offer people information published by anyone with a desire to express and spread an idea or thought on current affairs and general interest issues."

Speaking at the Google I/O Developer Conference that took place in San Francisco between May 27-28, Google has unveiled Google Wave, a new online communication service.

Described as a "personal communication and collaboration tool," Google Wave allows users to chat and share documents including audio files, videos and photos in real-time.

NYTimes.com recently ran an ad with a difference on its home page: a digital version of NYT's front page rolled over the screen, with a date from the year 2040 and a somewhat unusual headline, "President converses with dolphin, develops new environmental plan." According to Forbes.com, the NYT "is leading a charge among big newspapers and magazines to create gripping digital ads that interweave marketing images with editorial content and respected journalism brands."

The use of such advertisements creates debate over the normally definite line between editorial content and advertising. An Australian publication has managed to tread the line between the two by creating separate magazines of such 'advertorials' to avoid mixing it with their editorial content. Whilst newspapers need to innovate to continue to generate revenue, this mixture of editorial and advertising interspersed in the main product is a worrying grey area between the two.

Source: Forbes

Following the Telegraph's publication of the expense claims of British MPs from the past five years, there has been much attention given to how the publication obtained their information, and if the process was indeed ethical. Whilst the Telegraph itself has so far remained silent on the matter and refused to confirm whether or not it paid for the data, there has been a stream of information about the origins of the data coming from other sources.

Two names have now been put forward as the intermediaries in the sale, ex-SAS man John Wick and Henry Gewanter, managing director of an American PR firm. Whilst Wick has so far been unavailable for comment, Gewanter has essentially confirmed his involvement. He is keen to clear up one of the greyer areas of the saga; "No criminal acts have occurred. No criminal charges can be brought. I don't deal in stolen goods... I can tell you it was not stolen"

Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal issued a new set of guidelines for professional conduct to its staff which, among other things, detailed the do's and don'ts of social networking. At the time, reaction to the rules was unknown, but writing on her Save the media blog, newspaper journalist, Gina Chen, clearly disagrees with the WSJ bosses.

"This is an open letter to the Dow Jones and Co.," begins the post. The author says that executives at the WSJ "fail" to grasp the point of social media and proceeds to address each specific rule, line by line.

Following the Evening Standard's controversial 'Sorry' ad campaign, which came hot on the heels of its Russian takeover, new editor Geordie Greig has spoken out - and so has former editor Veronica Wadley. The publication has just revealed the second part of its publicity blitz with a 'We Promise' campaign, assuring readers that in future it will celebrate London, listen to its readers, be fair, be politically independent and be surprising.

Since Russian oligarch Alexander Lebedev bought the publication and recruited former Tatler editor Greig, the Standard has decided to take a more positive editorial line and launched a somewhat controversial 'Sorry' ad campaign apologising for its previous mistakes - for losing touch, negative reporting, taking readers for granted and being too predictable.

During a Quarter 1 earnings call yesterday, New York Times Co. President and CEO Janet Robinson addressed the newspaper industry's paid-content debate as well as the company's financial situation. She maintains that the Times' current ad supported business model is still working and that the company is exploring payment models.

Robinson revealed that after examining the business models of more than 30 online organizations to discover the most effective way to generate online revenues, executives concluded that the Times is doing well in comparison. She also points out that while digital advertising declined 8% compared to last year, the company's main website showed significant growth in display advertising. The company prefers to proceed cautiously with respect to charging for content, as blocking content could disturb progress of its online advertising advances.

The Los Angeles Times faces criticism for running a front page ad today disguised as a news column. The advertisement for NBC's news show "Southland" is printed in the lower left column under the headline "Southland's Rookie Hero." Though the top of the column is labeled "Advertisement," the paper has never before printed a front page ad, and the mock news story aspect of the ad in particular generates controversy.

There is debate as to whether the LA Times went too far, sacrificing its journalistic integrity to generate advertising revenue. According to the New York Times, president of entertainment marketing for NBC Adam Stotsky, defended the advertisement, saying the paper did not intend to fool readers and pointing out that the ad font differs from the front page font and includes the NBC logo. "I think most consumers will recognize that this is an ad," he said.

In June Gannett Co. plans to consolidate copy editing and page production of four of its New Jersey newspapers: the Asbury Park Press of Neptune, Home News Tribune of East Brunswick, the Courier News of Somerville, and the Daily Record of Parsippany. The entire regional operation will move to the offices of the Asbury Park Press in Neptune, New Jersey.

The papers' copy-editing management jobs will be eliminated then replaced with sixteen jobs in Neptune. All hiring will be from within, but the employees must transfer to Neptune. Ten managers will lose their jobs as a result of the rehiring, and they, along with workers who do not accept the transfer, will receive severance packages.

Culture secretary Andy Burnham appears to have dismissed idea of government subsidies for newspapers in the UK. In an interview with the Scarborough Evening News, Burnham said that "the government does not have the funds to chuck around" to subsidise newspapers.

He did, however, hint that "there might be a package to put together for the local press". The culture secretary recently asked the Society of Editors for its ideas on possible solutions. Burnham revealed that issues raised had included redirecting government ad spending towards newspapers, and examining whether the BBC could help.

In the first survey of its kind run by the Rosen Group, the vast majority of participants surveyed still believe newspapers are relevant.

Cablevision owned publication Newsday has revealed that it will begin charging for content on its website.  Chief Operating Officer Tom Rutledge said in a the Cablevision fourth quarter earnings call "Our goal was and is to use our electronic network assets and subscriber relationships to transform the way news is distributed... we plan to end the distribution of free Web content and make our news gathering capabilities a service for our customers."

This was the only reference for the plans to switch to a paid content format, and no further details have been given.  The move is, however, generally seen as the first against the trend for free online news from newspapers - excluding more specialist publications such as the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times who continue to charge.  Despite speculation that Cablevision could seek to cross-promote the site as part of its television package, the move is an important one.  In the ongoing debate about a return to paid online content, and speculation over potential models, it wil be interesting to see if other publications follow Newsday's example.

Source: Yahoo!, CJR, paidContent

With Twitter's seemingly unending popularity, there is an ensuing rush to discover ways to harness it for commercial ends.  There is particular discussion over Twitter's lack of an obvious business plan, and much debate on how to make money from it.  At the moment, Twitter contains no advertising or other moneymaking content despite its large user base - although the latest round of funding will be used for site development and the creation of revenue-generating products.

Entertainment website Glam seems to be one of the first companies to utilise the site to make a profit; they have set up gWire.  They created a widget, placed it on their home page and asked users to share their thoughts on the Oscars as the ceremony progressed.  They found a sponsor in Aveeno, a skin care company, and had the Aveeno logo scrolling under the widget throughout the ceremony.  In order to ensure that the platform would be appealing to their sponsor, Glam editors regulated which Tweets appeared, who was allowed to Tweet and deleted anything inappropriate.  Glam had already experimented with the process during New York Fashion Week, although they have said that gWire is not exclusive to Twitter and may be extended to incorporate other social media sites such as Facebook.

In the UK, bosses of publisher Northcliffe yesterday afternoon announced plans to create two central production hubs covering seven publications.  The proposal comes at the start of a 30-day consultation period, and could affect up to 66 press staff.  The 66 under threat also include 50 sub-editors, whose role has come under scrutiny of late due to Guardian media commentator Roy Greenslade's recent postings.  

Under the plans, the Leicester Mercury, Derby Evening Telegraph and Nottingham Evening Post would be subbed from one office in Nottingham, whilst the Hull bureau would be responsible for the Lincolnshire Echo, Grimsby Telegraph, Scunthorpe Telegraph and Hull Daily Mail.  The company has already made similar decisions with its Bristol and Stoke offices.  In an unrelated move, Northcliffe's sister company Harmsworth Press is proposing the closure of the Mercury printing plant in Leicester.

The current darling of the media industry, media pundits everywhere are mulling over the attributes of Twitter at the moment.  Some are confused and others critical although most are converted to the social networking craze - but whatever their stance, they're writing about it.  Its commercial prospects, reporting possibilities, political potential and communicative advantages are all under scrutiny.

Currently without a business model, Twitter isn't a profit-making machine. Yet.  It has just received its third round of funding, a reported $35 million.  Co-founder Biz Stone has explained that the extra capital will enable the company to further develop the site and create "revenue-generating products".  On the other side of the fence, companies are increasingly using Twitter as a form of advertising and marketing - not always in line with 'Twitter etiquette', but that's a whole different argument.  The site is particularly favoured by newspapers and other such publications.

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.

The Wall Street Journal will publish two special editions in February and May, after the inauguration editions on January 20th and 21st, focusing on Barack Obama's impact on the economy.

The first special edition, The Obama Agenda, will be published in February and will analyze the new administration's budget.  The second will be The First 100 Days, published on Thursday, May 7.  According to the WSJ this edition will "apply its insightful reporting to the first 100 days of the Obama administration and its impact on global economy and business."

Ouest-France, one of the primary newspapers printed in France, is having an image overhaul.  In a press release today, the paper's editor-in-chief Jean Luc Évin declared the publicaton's intention to become 'more practical, more local, more useful'.  With 2.4 million readers each morning, 200,000 daily visitors to their website, and 42 editions covering 12 départaments, this French daily has a huge influence over the country's west coast.

Members of the UK's regional press will debate the future of journalism training later this week, following a report by the Society of Editors Conference which found that trainees are not meeting the industry's needs in terms of news gathering and writing.

The first Journalism Skills Conference will be held in Greater Manchester on Friday, where delegates and industry leaders will discuss the lack of "core skills" in multimedia.  

The need for training to reflect the needs of "converged" newsrooms and "multi-platform" journalism will be the main focus of the conference, Hold the Front Page reports, and take "a strategic view of the issues associated with educating and training journalists.

Source:  Hold the Front Page

The English weekly paper, Tehelka, which focuses on "hard-hitting, investigative journalism," has started publishing an edition in Hindi, Tehelka Samachar.  

The Hindi edition will be a bi-weekly 84-page publication with an initial circulation of around 40,000 copies.  50 percent of its content will be translated from the English version; the rest will be original content.