Results matching “europe and asia part”

Although some of the main findings of this year's Newsroom Barometer relate to trends of newsroom integration, the survey's results also revealed some major trends as to the future of the press and news in general.

The fact that a large share of editors believe the most common platform for news in the future will be online - and not print - is significant. It is also significant that a majority of them think the majority of news will be free in the future. Even more interesting though is the fact that these numbers have quickly grown since last year.

Among the main findings:

- A plurality - 44% - believe online will be the most common platform for reading news in the future, compared with 41% last year.  Thirty-one cited print (down from 35% last year), 12% mobile and 7% e-paper. The rest were unsure.
- A majority of editors - 56%- believe news in the future will be free, up from 48% from last year's survey. Only one third believe the news will remain paid for, while 11% were unsure.
- Two-thirds believe some editorial functions will be outsourced, despite frequent newsroom opposition to the practice.
- Perhaps one of the sadder findings of this year's Barometer, as only 45% of editors think journalism's quality will improve.

Looking 10 years into the future, what do you think will be the most common way of reading the news in your country?

Editors increasingly see online as the platform of reference for news in the future (44% compared to 40% last year), now significantly more so than print (30.6% compared to 35% last year).
Overall, 63% thought a type of digital platform will be the most common format, including 11.5% for mobile and 7% for e-paper, a relatively high figure combined (18.5%) for technologies that are still relatively uncommon. Results for mobile and e-paper stayed stable, indicating that news executives perceived few major evolutions in these technologies over the last year.

Do you think that the majority of news (print and online) will be free in the future?

A clear majority of respondents (56%) believe that the majority of news will be free in the future, a significant evolution, as only 47% answered 'Yes' last year. Only a third of respondents (33%) believe news will remain paid for. The future of the paid-for model - paid by users directly - is increasingly put into question, even by those who produce it.
Respondents from Western Europe, the cradle of the paid-for model, were less likely to believe in free news (48%). North American respondents were on par with the average, at 58.5%. The shift towards the free news model is more apparent when it comes to 'emerging' newspaper markets: in South America, Eastern Europe, Russia, the Middle East and Asia combined, 61% of respondents believed news would be free.

One might have expected Western European and North American editors to be more open to the free news model (after giving birth to freesheets and free online news), but many still think that users should pay for a quality editorial product.

Do you think it very likely, somewhat likely, not very likely, or not all likely that in the future some traditional editorial functions will be outsourced?

Surprisingly, nearly two thirds of respondents (64%) believed that in the future traditional editorial functions will be outsourced, despite frequent newsroom resistance to such announcements. Granted, 44% of editors thought it be merely "somewhat likely," but this shows editors are conscious of - maybe not thrilled by - the growing trend of outsourcing.

One might have expected that North Americans and Europeans (West and East) particularly believe in the outsourcing trend (as the ones primarily concerned by outsourcing due to higher staff costs), but the results pointed in the opposite direction. On average, respondents from other regions of the world were more likely to believe in the outsourcing of editorial tasks in the future.

Over the next 10 years, do you think that the quality of journalism will:

A near majority thought that journalism's quality would improve (45% versus 27% who thought it would worsen). Yet while this is positive, it also means 55% of respondents didn't affirm that journalism would improve: the finding illustrates both the relative confidence and the uncertainties of this transitional period for the newspaper industry. Furthermore, this number is slightly down from last year, when 50% of respondents thought the quality of journalism would improve.

The hardships for the North American newspaper industry continue to be felt, as a mere 30% of respondents thought that journalism's quality would improve. Similarly, Russians and Eastern Europeans (34%) and West Europeans (45.5%) were skeptical.


Read Part 1: Presentation - main results, the integrated newsroom will be the norm
Read Part 2: Multimedia, multi-skilled and integrated
Read Part 3: The future of the press
Read Part 4: Who participated in the survey?
Read Part 5: Comments by John Zogby and WEF President George Brock
Read Part 6: Threats to newspapers, areas of investment, more results

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  Abdul Hamid Ahmad, Editor-in-Chief of Gulf News, based in Dubai.

The list of upcoming interviews will be updated as they are published (click here to view all interviews in this series). Among the other titles that have been asked to participate in these interviews are:

- The New York Times - Jonathan Landman (US)
- Financial Times (UK)
- Guardian (UK)
- Washington Post - Jim Brady (US)
- Globe & Mail - Ed Greenspon (Canada)
- The Times (UK)
- The Economist (UK)
- Gazeta Wyborcza - Jaroslaw Kurski (Poland)
- Le Monde (France)
- Die Welt (Germany)
- The Hindustan Times - Pankaj Paul (India)
- Asahi Shimbun (Japan)
- JoongAng Ilbo (South Korea)
- The Age / Fairfax - Mike van Niekerk (Australia)
- The Nation - Pana Janviroj (Thailand)
- Punch (Nigeria)
- El Tiempo (Colombia)
- Clarin (Argentina)
- Gulf News - Abdul Hamid Ahmad (UAE)

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?

Gulf News cannot be pigeonholed as either a newspaper company or a print company. It is a content provider. This means that it supplies news to print, online, radio or any other required medium. The organization will survive and sustain in this role that is its core functionality. We do have commercial printing facilities but our focus will always be news, irrespective of where it is published.

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 strongly disagree with this point of view. Firstly, more than two thirds of the world doesn't have internet access; it perhaps has some limited access to television, which leaves print or newspaper as the main medium for receiving news. While circulation may be plateauing and in some cases declining in the West, it continues to increase in Asia and Africa for the aforesaid reasons. If internet has to make an impact, there would need to be development in infrastructure, increased investment, better education and other facilities in place. So the decline in Europe and America is compensated by growth in Asia and Africa for newspapers. The year 2014 is very close; I definitely do not see newspapers losing its significance by then.

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?

Digital journalism is part of the continued journey of journalism. When television arrived, people heralded the doom of radio. Today, radio is doing very well and moving from strength to strength. One form of media helps another. Technology has helped journalism evolve and we need to adapt to the changes.

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?

Readers or users are the support system of the journalistic process. There wouldn't be any value to our work without them. Nobody can function in isolation. The increasingly active role of the reader/user in the news process is an opportunity not a threat for professional journalists. We should use the chance to educate readers so that the quality of interaction could be more professional. Ultimately there will always be amateurs and professionals in the world; people need to choose who they deal with.

Do you consider the Golden Age of investigative journalism is already past, or just beginning?

The Golden Age of investigative journalism is just beginning. As our world shrinks with increased connectivity and people's access to information increases, they are no longer satisfied with the superficial. They want more... they want to know in depth. They want to know what lies beneath the surface.

Can journalism survive newspapers?

Journalism is not dependent on newspapers for its survival. It existed from the time man learnt to communicate through images, words and sounds. Its root or seed lies in speech. When a tribesman climbed atop a rocky outcrop to call out to his people - that was journalism, he was giving them information. Among ancient Arab civilizations, poets functioned as journalists. They conveyed political messages, news, propaganda and other information through poetry. So journalism has existed for a while. Today it has found a home in print, online, television and radio. In the future it will find other means, but survive it will. Journalism will exist as long as man can talk.


Stay tuned for the next week's interviews, which will include The New York Times and the Financial Times.

Why is the content for online journalism different than print or broadcast? And why are journalists confused about what work should be entered in which contest?

The assumption that text, photos and videos are merely the "same content" online as they are in print is part of the mindset that has helped cripple U.S. paper's online efforts. The change in thinking has been considerable in recent years, but these paradigms still surface in the award season.

The monopoly on information is no longer ours alone. The business models for monopolistic control over distribution and eyeballs is busted, too.  That much we can agree on now.

Still we see comments from photographers that somehow wished that online worked like a medium they know already.

But why are we segregating what we do for print versus what we do with the Internet? Why isn't the BOP (Best of Photojournalism) Web video judged against/with video produced for TV? Aren't they the same product?

- Will Seberger"> posted on Wired Journalists

This thinking is understandable, but unproductive. No, Web video is a different media experience in a different environment, completely. We can succeed first by serving small screens with sticky content than reproducing a cinema-experience for one-time consumption.

The assumption that photos need to run larger online or videos work better as full screen on the Web is old-line print and broadcaster thinking. In fact, chunky text, small images and user-scalable video windows work much better online.

Web video is not Television!

That is a seminar topic I have been delivering for two years now around the world. Why have so many editors and publishers been looking at the wrong models for Web video journalism? Because they haven't come to terms with the dynamics and story potential of the new tools and user expectations yet.

e.g. YouTube is the model for the experience and look at how smartly YouTube lets users scale up a video when THEY want to. Embed it share it, group it, rate it. How many of you let your users do this with your media?
The Web also makes excellent use of is a thumbnail gallery interfaces. Click on a thumb and get a slideshow or larger image. Done. Users get this.

If you are producing the same content and merely porting over - you can't succeed. Online works differently, the media user is in charge of the experience.

The Web is about 'now, not six months from now - when you decide to post up your 'Emmy award-winning' video project.  Who will be watching that work then? Contest judges? Maybe. But probably only if you tell them about it. Full-screen-only, bandwidth hogging HD video projects - who is that for - to impress the board of directors? The shareholders? The Pulitzer committee? Ask first - whose ego are you serving?

Placing undue emphasis on the work that is, let's be brutally honest, produced to impress primarily other journalists (AKA the stuff we produce to enter in contests) is harming our transition to meeting consumers' expectations. Why is it that we think that the big, time-consuming, far-flung, High-Def, special-section work is the best work we can accomplish?

Whenever I hear journalists praise the design or Flash quality of a big, expensive "award-winning" online project, I first go to the reader comments. l often see a huge disconnect from the people producing the work and the people who are supposed to be consuming it.

You'll be lucky to find many reader comments at all for some of the most celebrated stuff. Sometimes you'll be lucky to even find where the comments section is at all. Again, the complete opposite of the the YouTube video experience. If you are not connecting with your community then you are producing journalism in a vacuum and, tell me, why should that work win any awards at all?

We are in a transition and transitions are bumpy and disorienting. Getting to the point where newsrooms are producing everyday multimedia is the only foundation I know of that will accomplish the goals of getting to the promised land and still be able to produce a range of stories including doing large-scale projects.

It's just that in my world, the super-excellent, nine-month enterprise piece should run first online WHILE it is being reported and then perhaps a year later as a documentary film at Sundance. And in between the story gets better, it gains traction in the community because of the online engagement. Why can't newsrooms think like this? Awards? How about a chance to win an Oscar with your visual journalism? Hmm, Pulitzer or Oscar next year . . . . Is that enough drive for you to produce a new brand of "award-winning journalism?"
OK, looking forward to seeing you on the red carpet .

--
Robb Montgomery is the CEO and founder of Visual Editors. He has worked as a visual editor for the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune and currently advises editors in the Middle East, Asia, U.K., Europe and North America on techniques for digital journalism.

His blog: www.robbmontgomery.com

As its news operation becomes increasingly important in its role as an information company, Bloomberg plans to add at least 240 reporters in 2007, a 10% boost in staff.  Many see the increase as Bloomberg’s strategy to keep ahead of Reuters and Thomson, as well as the potential threat of News Corp as Rupert Murdoch bids for Dow Jones Co.

In the Newsroom Barometer, three questions revolved around editors’ views about the new challenges and opportunities for newspapers that have emerged with new forms of journalism, such as free papers, citizen journalism and online news. Far from resenting these forms, senior news executives embraced them.

The Newsroom Barometer also probed editors’ own predictions for the future of their newspapers and the newspaper industry. Again, unlike talks about news executives’ rigid conservatism, the study revealed editors were realistic in their assessment. Online will be the most common platform within 10 years, news will mostly be free, and opinion and in-depth commentary will increase in importance.

The Newsroom Barometer also gave editors and senior news executives a chance to reveal their priorities within the newsroom. Most (innovative) editors wanted to retrain their journalists in new media, although a good share also stuck to traditional strategies such as hiring more journalists.

435 senior news executives from around the world answered the Newsroom Barometer (there are 10,000 daily newspapers worldwide). The respondents participated in the survey on the Zogby International website, and, on the whole, were representative of editors worldwide.

In this section, John Zogby, CEO of Zogby International, and Jeff Jarvis, new media proponent and founder of Buzzmachine, comment on the results of the Newsroom Barometer. Both found that editors’ optimism and open-mindedness to new media was a clear indication that newspapers were embracing the digital revolution, yet Jarvis fears that may not be enough…

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) is planning to launch its overseas websites in a range of foreign languages, in an effort to increase its reach outside of the U.S. (and eventually buy the Financial Times?). Within its core market, WSJ has launched a trendy ad campaign targeting women and younger readers.

Many newspapers now have “most e-mailed” boxes on their Web sites, but the BBC has further developed the feature with its “Most Popular Now” page that ranks the most viewed stories and video clips, breaking the hour-by-hour listing down by different regions around the world.

 The Editors' Weblog has compiled a provisional list of the newspapers that have printed some or all of the cartoons since 30 September 2005, date of publication of 12 cartoons of the prophet Mohammed in Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten. Even provisional, this list is the most exhaustive on the internet, thanks to members of the World Editors Forum and to bloggers close to the EW.

The main conclusions are:

- to our knowledge, more than 130 national or local newspapers (excluding the student newspapers and online publications) published some or all of the 12 cartoons (sometimes just a pohtography) in approximately 50 countries . It also means that around 1,7% of the dailies around the world - 8,300 paid-for dailies according to World Press Trends 2005 - made the difficult decision to publish the cartoons.

- Europe was the continent where the most newspapers published the cartoons: at least 70 papers. It is not surprising that the Netherlands was the country most involved in the controversy (after Denmark)... a few months after the assassination of the film maker Theo Van Gogh by an Islamist activist. Same thing in France after the veil debate and the November 2005 riots.

- Within Europe, the first publications to reprint the cartoons in January-February 2006 were in general right-wing publications, for example ABC in Spain, Die Welt in Germany and Corriere della Sera in Italy. Then more leftist publications followed suit, for example Libération and Le Monde in France.

- Surprisingly, Arab and Muslim newspapers were also involved in the controversy from the very beginning, with the first reprint on 17 October 2005 (see below)! More than 12 Arab and/or Muslim newspapers published the cartoons. The decision to publish provoked terrible consequences for the editors-in-chief of these publications. Same consequences for some directors of television in Sudan and Algeria. 

- How to define the position adopted by American, British, Canadian and Australian newspapers? Media responsability, political correctness or self-censorship? The most surprising is not the position defined in many editorials (from The New York Times to The Guardian), but this strange impression of unanimity and consensus: only three regional newspapers on more than 1,400 newspapers in the States and zero newspaper, but a student daily in the UK for taking the risk...

- And what in the rest of the world? Nothing. Almost the desert for the publication of the cartoons in the Americas (apart Brazil), Africa (apart South Africa) and above all Asia (apart New Zealand). As if this controversy was only between Europe and the Arab world and if blasphemy was still relevant in regions as Asia and the Americas: not only about Mohammed, but about all religious issues.

My conclusion: the geography of the publication of the Danish cartoons tells us a lot about our democracies: what is allowed, what is forbidden... and what is taboo. In fact, it's more geopolitics than geography!

Yesterday, as the Wall Street Journal's European and Asian edition relaunched in a new design and a compact format, the two editions also started partnerships with major Asian and European newspapers. A new section, called "Across Europe" and "Across Asia" respectively, features content from each five major newspapers in the area, reports Media Week. The sections appear on the European and Asian home page of the Wall Street Journal and are a further attempt to integrate the print and online versions of the paper.

The Wall Street Journal</