Results matching “not so bad bet”

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?"

Pess freedom in Italy has come under international scrutiny in recent weeks as a down-grading of the press's freedom status by US non-profit Freedom House has coincided with an increase in prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's aggression towards media outlets which oppose him. Leading left-leaning daily La Repubblica has even attempted to take on the premier directly, publishing a list of questions concerning his relationship with a young girl, to which it believes he owes answers. A Dutch politician has threatened to take action in the European parliament against the Italian leader because of journalistic constraints. Should a newspaper be demanding such information which concerns a politician's private life? Is the press freedom situation as bad as it seems?

The La Repubblica crusade

On May 14 La Repubblica journalist Giuseppe D'Avanzo published ten questions directed at the prime minister concerning his involvement with 18-year-old Noemi Letizia. Berlusconi's relationship with the girl gained mass media attention when, four days after the prime minister dropped in on the girl's 18th birthday party in Naples, his wife issued a press release accusing him of "consorting with minors" and pressing for a divorce. Berlusconi promptly went on a late-night political chat show to defend himself, but the holes in his story which have gradually emerged have attracted even more attention than the original incident. D'Avanzo's questions address these holes and ask the premier to come clean about the nature of his encounters with the girl. Berlusconi has not yet answered the questions and has given no indication that he intends to. The paper has put a timer on its website to indicate the days, hours, minutes and seconds since the questions were issued, and even offers them in English.

Berlusconi himself has tried to present the left-leaning paper's campaign as a left-wing plot to undermine his authority, accusing the paper of lying and adding in an interview on TV-channel Sky that he believes many readers will abandon the paper because of this. His office issued a statement saying referring to the "campaign of denigration" and saying that the paper is driven by "jealousy and hatred."  The prime minister has fought back as the story developed, with his lawyers applying for the seizure of photos taken at his Sardinian villa (where Letizia reportedly attended parties with other young women) before they could be published, and a journalist from Berlusconi's brother's Milan-based daily Il Giornale posing as a member of the foreign press to get an interview with Ms Letizia's former boyfriend in an attempt to discredit him.
 
 
The international reaction 
La Repubblica has defended its actions, with editor Ezio Mauro saying that "There are contradictions here and when the powers that be don't explain something, journalism has a job to do." And foreign journalists seem to agree. The paper also featured an interview with Bill Emmott, former editor of the Economist, who said that "for a newspaper, asking a political leader questions is not only legitimate, but part of its mission to inform the people." According to the International Herald Tribune, "for the first time in recent memory, the Italian press is shining a bright light into the dark recesses of a politician's personal life." The Times wrote that the premier's campaign against La Repubblica "looks ominously like an attempt to cow dissent rather than protect a private reputation" and that "his newspaper critics are performing a public service for a badly governed populace." A Financial Times editorial criticised the way that Berlusconi turned on La Repubblica following the questions, and stressed that part of the "danger of Berlusconi... is that of the media sapping the serious content of politics, and replacing it with entertainment."

Berlusconi has reacted with anger and scepticism to such foreign criticism. He seems to refuse to believe that papers might be acting of their own accord, announcing that "the international press's campaign is being orchestrated by an Italian group" and referring to it as a left-wing "plot." He insists that the foreign press is misrepresenting the Italian situation, and a rift in his relationship with Rupert Murdoch seems to be further deteriorating following the Times' article and others. He has accused the Times of writing critical editorials about him because his government is in dispute with News Corp. Il Giornale, owned by the prime minister's brother Paolo, ran a story discussing the FT editorial entitled "The left has also enlisted the Financial Times."

One of a newspaper's main goals should be to act as a watchdog over the government, but it is unusual for a paper to take on a country's leader so directly, particularly over a matter which is largely private. In the UK, the Daily Telegraph's recent campaign over MPs' expenses was firmly in the public interest, as it dealt with public money being used by members of parliament for personal gain. Berlusconi has been derisive of the media discussing what he says is his private life. Should a paper be putting so much focus on an issue that is arguably unrelated to the prime minister's ability to govern the country? Is this indicative of media trivialisation?

The Times editorial does not see the questions as intrusive, as they relate to Berlusconi's "public roles as politician and media magnate". The Independent's Peter Popham said that the media "cannot be accused of muck-raking on the issue because it was Mr Berlusconi himself who drew attention to the relationship" by attending the 18-year-old's party and not only posing for photographs but publicly giving the girl a 6000euro gold necklace. And the fact that a politician might have lied to the public is probably enough of an incentive to investigate.
 
Press freedom in Italy
 
Italy has a fairly unique media situation, which makes confrontation between a newspaper and the prime minister even more pertinent. The country's press freedom status is clearly in question. A Dutch politician who is leader of the Green Left party in the European Parliament, Judith Sargentini, has said that her party is considering taking legal action against Berlusconi because of the press freedom constraints in his country. Amongst her complaints is the fact that the premier blocks critical questions at press conferences. If a majority of the European Parliament were to agree to the initiation of legal proceedings, then the matter would come before the European Court of Justice.

US-based nonprofit Freedom House recently downgraded Italy's press freedom status from 'free' to 'partly free' for 2008. In conversation with Karin Karlekar, editor of the report, she explained that the main reasons given for this were the unusually high level of media concentration, particularly in broadcasting, threats from organised crime and others, and attacks on journalists, mainly from far right groups. During Berlusconi's former term as prime minister, the country was also given partly free ratings, and Karlekar added that the media concentration was "one of the highest levels anywhere in the world."

Daria Gorodisky, a veteran Corriere della Sera journalist who is also a union representative for the paper, told the Editors Weblog that she believes there is a "truly enormous press freedom problem in Italy" which will be "extremely difficult to resolve." She does not place blame for this directly on the government but on the fact that there are no "pure" newspaper owners, rather, those who publish newspapers also run other businesses and therefore have aims and interests aside from their papers. She also believes that the quality of Italy's journalism schools have deteriorated as more and more have sprung up. She did, however, point out that this is not the first time that Berlusconi has threatened the press.

Internet penetration is low in Italy in comparison to that of its Western European neighbours: about 48%, compared to 72% in the UK or 66% in France, for example. This low figure would suggest that many people are more likely to get their news from television and one or two newspapers, rather than the range of sources that online readers might visit. Despite this, however, Karlekar noted the country's "very vibrant and influential" blogosphere, particularly politically-orientated blogs.

Gorodisky commented that although some journalists were "very worried" by the situation, she did not think that there was enough widespread concern about Italy's press freedom status. Karlekar said that her organisation's report had sparked considerable debate and she had received both praise and hate mail from Italians. Niccolo Ghedini, lawyer to Berlusconi, dismissed the report on a TV show called Anno Zero, saying it was a private organisation and took its information from only two sources, La Repubblica and Corriere della Sera. Karlekar responded that she was "not sure where he got that" and was clear that "the range of sources is large and our authors would never just rely on one or two." She added that it was "interesting that the government felt compelled to respond in some way."
 
Karlekar did say that Berlusconi did not seem to be "exerting the same amount of influence over the broadcast media" as he did during his previous term as prime minister; there seems to be less "overt political manipulation." She was also clear that she did not think that the high media concentration had "stifled" the whole media, and drew attention to the diversity in terms of political opinion in the print sector.

Arguably there are far more important questions that the Italian press could be asking its country's leader, rather than focusing on the somewhat sordid details of his involvement with a teenage girl. But as a vital part of the press's role in a democracy is to play watchdog on the government, the fact that a paper is challenging the prime minister to clear up inconsistencies is something that must be welcomed. And even though the original issue may not be crucial in itself, the other questions it has brought up concerning use of government planes for private use, for example, are very pertinent. Given how much of the media the prime minister does control, and the fact that even the journalists who do not currently work for Berlusconi know that they may well some day, the press freedom situation could undoubtedly be worse than it is, and it is important that journalists keep fighting.

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.

In the run-up to the 16th World Editors Forum being held in Hyderabad, India March 22-25, 2009, the Editors Weblog 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 how The Guardian and Finland's Kauppalehti have integrated their newsrooms. Below, editors from around the world share their own thoughts about INTEGRATED NEWSROOMS.

AFRICA
Azubuike Ishiekwene, Executive Director, Punch Nigeria
The question of integration is not optional - it's functional. The speed and timing of integration may differ from newsroom to newsroom in countries and even within regions. But we at the Punch have found that the only way to remain relevant is to anticipate and follow the readers. A good example of this is mobile phones. With over 50 million people in Nigeria now using mobile phones and one out of every four phones being WAP enabled, our newsroom has been preparing for our next major step - delivering the news through mobile phones.

As for our journalists, we are not creating separate boxes for print and digital. We're starting with print journalists who already have a flair for the digital platform and encouraging the rest to join in the fun. At entry level, however, our preference now is for digital natives! Fortunately, we are not yet at the stage where we're compelled to fire staff for lack of digital enthusiasm. We're hoping we can convert the dinosaurs before the curtain falls!

Most importantly, as we aggregate platforms hard-nosed journalistic skills, including of course, a stubborn passion for truth, will remain valuable professional qualities.

LATIN AMERICA
Marcelo Rech, General Product Director, RBS Group, Brasil
For us, in Zero Hora and the other RBS Group newspapers, the discussion about integration is outdated. By now, we are trying to fuse, 100%, the digital and print operations inside the newsroom. We still maintain some specific jobs for print and digital, like print page designers, but whole departments have already merged.

We don't demand that someone work for the digital operation if she or he is uncomfortable with it, but the truth is that we have much more good, multimedia and innovative digital content produced by our reporters, columnists and editors than we could imagine. 

This is due to two simple reasons:
1) People know that if they avoid experimenting with digital media their careers will be under threat sooner or later.
2) I believe the first task of a journalist is being relevant - being read, watched or listened by the highest number of people, and making a difference. When our journalists realized they were becoming more relevant due the internet, they largely volunteered for work with the digital side on a routine basis.

By now, no less than 70% of the about 230 journalists of Zero Hora work with eyes on both operations. For a minority of that 70%, the unofficial group leaders, we can no longer describe their tasks as purely digital or purely print.

EASTERN EUROPE
Roman Gallo, Director of Media Strategies, PPF Financial Group
The benefits of integrating print and online journalists is that you can reach more readers and affect more users from different target groups that you could not touch through traditional media. You can use your current power (brand, loyal readers group....) to extend (or minimally defend) your position in the whole media market. And of course it is a more effective way how to run your media company.

On the other hand, the dangers of joining print and online journalists is that you can destroy your original brand. Why? To be able to succeed in different media fields you have to change the way you reach readers. Here I sense a hidden risk. During the integration process you can gradually lose losing the main characteristics of your brand. For example, if you write for the internet and your goal is speed, you may quickly lose your sense of accuracy. Step by step, this bad habit can reach your newspaper.

In conclusion, no matter which medium you use, the quality of your journalism has to correspond to your brand.

WESTERN EUROPE
Espen Egil Hansen, Editor-in Chief, Verdens Gang Multimedia, Norway
I'am generally sceptical of the idea of one media house, one newsroom. When was the last time anyone won both the 100 meter dash and marathon during an Olympic game?

Newspaper and internet are by nature so diverse that they demand completely different working methods and organizations in order to succeed. This applies at all levels: in the editorial department, sales, distribution and management. To argue that "newspaper" and "online news" are the same because both are news, makes as much sense as saying that a roaring river and a glass of water are the same because both are water.

The idea of integration is in my opinion a threat both to the printed product and for the online news site. To the printed product because the integration in a way conceals a level of costs and way of working that is not sustainable in the long run. And the threat to the online site is that it will inherit the way of working, organizing and a level of cost that is not competitive in this market.

In the publishing house of VG we have, with success, chosen the model of focus. We have two companies, two boards, to editorial departments, to chief editors, two managing directors and so on. We cooperate where appropriate for both organizations (which means a lot), but at the same time we are free to choose whatever necessary in order to succeed on our own platform. We've made some tough choices. While down-sizing by 100 people in the print organization we hired 40 more online. No one was moved from print to online. With this model of focus we've achieved the number one position online and in the print market. Both editions have for the last couple of years been very profitable.
READ ESPEN'S FULL TEXT HERE

NORTH AMERICA
Ed Greenspon, Editor-in-Chief, Globe and Mail, Canada
So far, I have not seen a single danger in joining print and digital journalists.  Like any kind of exercise that brings together people with different skills and dispositions, it seems to do nothing but generate greater creativity all round.

There is also no better way to sell digital in a traditionally print newsroom than by letting those doing it day to day serve as the ambassadors.

In fact, I would say that most journalists in our newsroom consider themselves hybrids; they are story tellers who use different media and the inherent strengths of each to convey their stories.  That said, just as there will always be the need for certain journalists dedicated to producing the print product, such is the same for our digital products, especially given the rapidly-developing technologies and story-telling techniques.

Newsroom integration can be linked to redundancies and reductions in staff, but it can also be used to meet the demands on us to produce greater volume and variety of content to satisfy more sophisticated audiences. In any case, it would be counter-productive to resist.

Terry Eberle, Executive Editor and Vice President, Fort Myers News Press, Florida
The information world is rapidly changing and will continue to change at a more rapid pace for a long time. This makes it imperative for today's editors to look forward and to put systems in place to assure we remain relevant. Information is our product, the platforms we distribute this information on are less important. We must understand the audiences and we must get our needed information to them on the platform they want it. This all means that we can no longer have a staff for the print and a staff for online. One staff for print photos and one staff for video. We must be one and we must act as one. I believe to do anything less would doom us to failure.

Photos are doctored, enhanced or manipulated by news organizations on a regular basis - and not necessarily maliciously.  Sometimes a photo needs to be "enhanced;" for example, a journalist makes tonal adjustments or noise filters to more accurately reflect the environment in which a photo was shot.

Photographer Mark Hamilton offers a new way to describe "enhanced" photos that gives a reader a clear idea of what's been done.  Adopting a system that readers understand, "in terms they understand," is the next step toward "transparency" for journalism, establishing a level of honesty about process and allowing readers to "judge veracity."

Barely a day goes by at the moment without a raft of stories on the financial crisis, the US election and... the Associated Press. The Associated Press's communications team have never been so in demand, and the venerated news agency is moving dangerously close to becoming the story rather than being the one that writes about it.

The Editors Weblog spoke to Tom Brettingen, Chief Revenue Officer and Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing at the AP, to discuss bad publicity, editorial content, price structure, and editorial cuts at the agency.

EW: Have you been surprised at the reaction to the price structure changes?

TB: "Generally, and for most of the industry, what we were offering was much more content for less money and a broader license to use it. We expected people to be happy, and most people were happy, the people you are seeing in the news were people, as the economic situation got worse, who were expecting larger decreases in their rates."

EW: Why were these changes necessary?

TB: "In the beginning, the goal was not drastic rate cuts, it was more about content. We wanted to help newspapers find the content that was specifically right for them in their markets and keep rates flat in doing that. We did all the work to devise the specifics and as these discussions went on the situation in the market became a lot worse and the global economy got worse. So, now the pricing and packaging that we started off with has run into this buzz of newspaper challenges and general economic challenges and that's why you find today all the stuff in the news about us"

EW: Is the AP having the same financial difficulties as the rest of the industry?

TB: "If our customers, who are generally ad supported, are hurt by the challenges that all newspapers are facing, compounded by the global economy, then of course it affects us as well"

EW: Looking back, would you have done anything differently with regard implementing the price structure changes? Do you think communication was an issue?

TB: "Some of the clients found the new packaging unnecessarily complicated. We created one level that contained all of the Breaking News, and then separate to this we had additional levels, Premium vertical segments, such as Sports, Business, Lifestyle, Entertainment and Analysis. Our thinking was "Breaking News" would satisfy a lot of customers, but some of our clients with more specialized newspapers might want to buy additional sports and business. Breaking News did have a huge amount of sports and business, but some of it was separated into Premium categories, so only those newspapers that wanted it needed to buy it."

"If we had foreseen how much more difficult the economic situation was going to get, we probably would have jumped ahead farther and skipped some of the intermediate steps. Things were not great 2 years ago, but they weren't nearly as bad as they are now.

"I am sure that (sic: communication) was part of it.... We were making this brand new separation from Breaking News, which on its face seems straightforward enough. However, say you are looking at Sports; you get the baseball results and match report, but what about analysis and sidebars? We had that planned, but we didn't have it live in the new web platform, so newspapers hearing from us couldn't go immediately to the website and see what we were talking about."

"If we'd had more time to announce it so that we could have finished the programming so that the distinctions between Breaking News and Premium would be clearer.... yeah, we could have timed that better. We were racing to get the program built and explained so people could make their choices in time for 2009. Newspapers didn't have the ability to see the differences to Breaking and Premium, and that would be something we could have done better.

"There was a huge amount of communication, it just wasn't necessarily what everyone wanted to hear"

EW: What was AP's reaction to the business-wide and economic crisis?

TB: "Last week, as the economic situation worsened and newspapers wanted a further reduction in their pricings from us, we did two things, for the small percentages of newspapers that saw a price increase in 2009, that was called off, and then we decided to abandon the two tier model. We made it part of one package, so premium is available to everyone."

EW: What is in the future for the AP?

TB: "We are undertaking a major review of what we need to do beyond changes in 2009. That will be a wide-ranging review. There are some benefits to membership of the AP, you vote for the board, you have an ownership stake; however, maybe some newspapers would prefer to not support the co-op to that level. Maybe some newspapers would prefer to be a more straightforward customer and buy a small content package for less money. That will be something that we will be examining."

EW: Do you expect to increase prices after 2009 for US newspapers?

TB: "Unless something miraculous happens and turns things around, if newspapers get to where they need to go with much more success on the web, that is theoretically possible. But no, I don't see any rate increases in the foreseeable future."

EW: Why has the AP changed its tone in some AP copy? Some of AP's content is now quite opinionated, are you moving away from neutral ground?

TB: "It's an area that can be debated, but we are certainly not moving from a neutral position. We remain committedly neutral, but that doesn't necessarily mean you can't have a voice, it's a more distinctive voice. It's a different voice to that which we may have had on some of our content in the past, but there is no leaving the neutral middle ground in terms of political leanings. We are providing value to the reader, we don't go to the consumer of course: we're a wholesaler. However, if we don't interest the reader, our customers aren't going to find that much value in our content. It's not a decision to be outrageous, or voicing off... it was an incremental change to be a little more distinctive in the market place."

EW: Does the AP have any new projects or innovations in the pipeline?

TB: "If we're not going to have all the revenue that we've had in the past from US newspapers and, more than likely, a few US broadcasters, we need to replace that revenue. We have several initiatives to help us do that, and they will be in content areas. Any more detail would be premature at this stage."

EW: Do you expect staff cuts at AP? If so, can you confirm that these will not happen in editorial?

TB: "Its clearly a company where the expense is largely people, if you're going to reduce expenses, you've got to look there. We need to be sure that the cuts are done very carefully because damaging the product and damaging the quality of the product starts a spiral that we clearly have no intention of starting.

"There is no decision on not cutting editorial, but depending on the levels of cuts that is required, its unlikely that you could do that entirely without looking at where the majority of our expenses lie, which is news staffing"

EW: What do you see in the future for newspapers? What do you think they need to do to their business models?

TB: "If I had the secret potion I would get very wealthy in a hurry. There are lots of good ideas floating round out there and they almost all revolve around targeting users with information, content and services, not expecting a single product - be it print or web - to be fully satisfying to everybody you want to reach in your market. A lot of customization and niche kinds of products are the things on most peoples minds."

See also:

Exploring the content sharing model: Is this the future of the US newspaper industry?
Opinion: Is the AP threatening its own future?
US: AP suspends rate hike
US: More newspapers to drop AP
US: Tribune Co. to drop AP

This week, Editor & Publisher announced its 8th annual, "10 That Do It Right," a top ten not for the top ten best newspapers, but for ten who are doing exceptionally well in one particular aspect - from marketing to online video, investigative journalism to interactive features - "that merits consideration and maybe even emulation by their peers."

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The Journal Sentinel's top leadership is commited to maintianing their 10-person, investigative journalism team, huge for this economic climate.

Carlsbad (N.M.) Current-Argus

The Current-Argus recently implemented a new recruiting strategy for carriers -- recruit people who don't need the job (but will take it on to earn the extra $500-$700 a month). Not only did attrrition drop from almost 20% a month to nearly zero, but the paper is actually saving money.

Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch

The Times-Dispatch holds regular "Public Square" community discussions and have also hosted eight News Roundtables to hear criticism, observations, and recommendations about the paper's coverage. That's on top of the monthly Listening Tour, when Silvestri and other top executives and editors visit one of its 20 core communities to get to better know newsmakers and readers."

USA Today

USA Today's has created a social media site, "Cruise Log." "Everyone can be an author and distribute content easily, but USA Today adds the judgment and guidance that traditional journalists have always provided."

Las Vegas Review-Journal

The Las Vegas paper has launched hugely successful industry-specific job sites. Almost immediately the sites exceeded revenue projections by about 40%, earning about $40,000 a month. They paid for themselves in the first month, said Chelle Bize, the paper's recruitment advertising manager.

The Huntsville (Ala.) Times

Jon Busdeker and Chris Welch, two A&E writes for The Huntsville Times have developed a comedy routine, of sorts. The Wednesday webcast previews the Thursday addition and helps drive print sales.

"Busdeker and Welch perform parodies of Blue Man Group performances, wield mops as swords to preview movies, and exchange white-trash talking with actors from "The American Trailer Park Musical."

Portsmouth (N.H.) Herald

The Herald recently introduced The Daily Beachcomber, a free tabloid for the Hampton beach season. Hampton's beaches are a big market between the end of the school year and Labor Day. As many as 120,000 show up on a good day; the free paper has turned a 28% profit margin.

Chicago Journal.

"'It's a mix of hard news reporting, a little boosterism, some editorial leadership, some calling people out,' Dan Haley, the paper's founder explained. 'We're not apart from the community, we don't hold ourselves apart or above [it].'"

Haley founded the Journal to provide a voice and shape the identity of the inner-city community that was establishing itself in Chicago.

The Times, Ottawa, Ill.

"Starting a newspaper subscriber loyalty program is a no-brainer. Unfortunately, that's often as much brain power as many papers invest in creating and operating the program." The Times established a unique rewards program that actually works.

Santa Barbara (Calif.) Independent

When newsroom conflicts at the rival News-Press left the Santa Barbara community looking for a new news source, the Indepdendent stepped in. "Since the summer of 2006... the News-Press has slipped in daily circulation to 35,000, while the Independent's audited pickup every Thursday is 40,000."

Source: Editor & Publisher

With the rapid development of new media platforms, newspapers have been at the forefront of pushing through innovative and easily accessible products to satisfy their consumers thirst for twenty-four hour news. This is undoubtedly an exciting time for the newspaper industry, but how do reporters and editors on the ground feel about the changes happening in their industry?

Facts

The National Union of Journalists' survey on this issue in the UK makes stark reading: the introduction of new media has increased the workload for 75% of union members and 16% have received no training at all in new media. Reports have also emerged of journalists who routinely completed three print edition stories a day who are now being asked to provide three multi-media stories a day, with video footage and podcasts. One reporter said: "You would need to be an octopus to be able to do everything they want doing."

Positive Feedback

The survey results are worrying, however, I spoke to sub-editors and received positive feedback about the changes in the industry. Karl Smith, a sub-editor at the Daily Telegraph in the UK - a newspaper that has radically overhauled its newsroom in response to media innovations - who focuses on the print edition, told me that the change has increased dialogue between staff members and that he was comfortable with the changes.

Smith said: "Having the hub in the centre of the office makes the news conferences seem a lot less exclusive than if (as elsewhere) they're in a corner office. The web staff are right next to the print people as well - rather than off in a Siberian corner - making you permanently aware of the web product, even if you're not directly involved in it."

Andrew Higton, a sub-editor at the Daily Mirror in the UK, agreed with Smith's positive feedback. He said that the shift has involved a change in culture but that he has adapted well: he now thinks "print" and  "web" and keeps them quite separate.

Communication is key

I spoke to Mike Van Niekerk, Editor-In-Chief, Online, Fairfax Media in Australia about how he managed his team during the integration process. He spoke bluntly about the difficulties that the company faced in the early days, stating: "About eight years ago, when we introduced online video reporting at theage.com.au and wanted to piggyback on our print entertainment reporters interviewing movie celebrities there was a strong negative reaction. Print staff stopped work for a meeting to reject this approach, and any integration with online in the newsroom. One newsroom leader said, "If I had wanted to go into the TV business I would have joined a television station, not a newspaper"."

Reflecting on these times, Van Niekerk said: "It was entirely our fault for not introducing the changes through proper consultation and explanation, for dealing with the fears - some justified - and misunderstandings of our colleagues."

Lawrence Shaw, an NUJ representative dealing with new media, told me that how media companies are handling their staff through these changes is, "a real issue for the NUJ".  He said: "It is still unfortunate that in many places changes come from on-high with little consultation with staff..."

The lack of communication is not the only problem.

Drop in Standards

A drop in standards brought about by a rush to embrace the new technology is another concerning development at some media organisations. A local newspaper reporter in the North of England reports that he was given a camcorder, told to go into the office broom cupboard, drape some material behind him and simply read his article out straight to camera. Such reports indicate that some media organisations are perhaps missing the point. This new technology can make the news come alive, but it is pointless to use it unless it really contributes to the story.

Moving Forward

I asked Van Niekerk how Fairfax moved past their initial problems, he said: "The most important part of the process has been more effective communication, which is how it should have been from the beginning."

Fairfax Media also utilized the Unions as a method to communicate with their staff.  In 2007, "the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance began to take a fairly pro-active approach to understanding and dealing with the changes. The company's journalists as a whole are now more engaged and finding the rewards of new skills and new opportunities."

Van Niekerk said that it is an ongoing process and that they are still working on it, however, the lines of communication between the newsroom and Editors are now open.

Shaw argues that it is best to deal with staff concerns upfront rather than allowing bad working practices and resentment to set in.

It seems clear that just as there has been a synergy between online editions and print editions with newspapers, there needs to be a synergy between editors and their newsrooms. Communication and training are quite clearly the key, and if handled correctly, it allows the newsroom to focus on delivering the news.

Source: National Union of Journalists - Shaping the Future

Reetta Meriläinen, editor-in-chief of the Helsingin Sanomat in Helsinki, Finland, will discuss the paper's print and online hyperlocal strategies at the upcoming World Editors Forum in Gothenburg, Sweden, from June 1 to 4.

The Editors Weblog is carrying a few 'teaser' interviews featuring speakers of the upcoming Forum.

Meriläinen's presentation focuses on three essential aspects of hyperlocal news:

- hyperlocal is not only about geographic, but also mental proximity - covering issues that are close to readers' minds:
Newspapers "often think of hyperlocal as just a geographic term but it isn't just that," she said. Instead, "We are here to serve people and to try help them in their everyday life."
For example, if there's a problem with city traffic or issues about daycare, the Helsingin encourages people to voice their concerns and submit questions, such as "How to find daycare for my children." These questions are then forwarded to the mayor's office, daycare facilities, and any relevant policy group. The Helsingin also creates many forums to connect people around those issues.

- focus on hyperlocal news to build a community:
A soft news story with local focus can help build a strong community of readers, as was the case when the Helsingin wrote about Bubi, the owl that landed on the goalpost during a local football game - and stayed to watch the game.
Helsingin Sanomat's website features its own local service site, "Oma kaupunki," which means "my own city." This section of the site combines local and hyperlocal news, with reader services and forums. In effect, it's perfect for local search, both for news and as a local guide, according to Meriläinen. In the future, the Helsingin plans to open this platform to user-generated content.

- hyperlocal means moving from virtual encounters to real encounters:
Last summer, the Helsingin led a print and online campaign to restore the Kaisaniemi park in Helsinki, which was dangerous and badly kept. The paper encouraged people to find ideas for the park and submit them. It also organized events "to keep the park alive," including a fun fair, complete with stands, balloons, food and games, and a panel discussion about the issues. Whereas the paper expected between 1,000 and 2,000 people, a massive 5,000 showed up. This event helped to build a real relationship amongst the community, and the ideas that emerged during the whole campaign were sent to the municipal county. There are now plans for improvement of the park.

Reetta Meriläinen, editor-in-chief of the Helsingin Sanomat in Helsinki, Finland, will discuss in detail the paper's print and online hyperlocal strategies at the upcoming World Editors Forum in Gothenburg, Sweden, from June 1 to 4.

For its relaunch, the Editors Weblog is running a series of exclusive interviews with some top editors at leading newspapers around the world about the future of journalism. We kick off the series with Jim Brady, Executive Editor of Washingtonpost.com.

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)


"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?

To be honest, I don t think the company defines itself that way anymore. The Washington Post company made a statement about 3 months ago saying it was rebranding itself as a media and education company, since the Education division is now a bigger revenue-maker. Even within the newspaper division, which is still called 'newspaper', there is the website and the print product. There was another change last week to rename the company 'Washington Post Media'. WPNI and the print Washington Post are still separate subsidiaries within Washington Post Media.

- 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?

Statements that broad are bound to be wrong. The Washington Post will absolutely exist in 2012, as will other big newspapers like The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. I do think you're already seeing midsized and smaller papers deciding to go the Web-only route. If you look at current online revenues, all newspaper companies are still struggling to make money on the Web. But since the publishing costs online are microscopic compared to print, and with newsprint costs going up many newspapers are figuring they can save a lot of money by going online-only.

Again, such a broad statement is absolutely wrong. But there will be a lot of newspapers in the next 5 years that go web-only, in the US at least.

- 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?

I think it's part of the continuity. New forms of delivery come up and previously existing forms need to adapt to these changes. There are now new forms of journalism and storytelling through video, picture galleries, databases and more. It's just a different way to deliver information. But in the past print, TV and radio have all figured out how to adapt and reposition themselves when new channels have emerged. Digital neither compromises nor changes the standards for journalism.

- 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?

It's an opportunity. You can want to be a journalist to do the craft, but there is also an element of public trust in the mission. One of those two words is 'public'. We are in a position to allow the public in the process a little bit, so I don t see how that can be a bad thing. In some cases the interaction is a little nasty and confrontational, but I don't see how this interaction can be bad. All things have to be explored, and have to be collected. In the future, we will have both professionals and readers who can contribute to the newspaper. There is a distinction between both and it is important that the distinction remains, but engaging the audience is crucial to our success.

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

Two ways to answer that: if you look at how newspapers staff investigative journalism nowadays, there is lot to worry about. Investigative journalism is considered like a luxury they can't afford to have. The Post has an investigative unit and I can't see that going anytime soon. But, coming back to the previous question, if journalists allow readers, not to investigate for them, but to help them flag and acquire easily accessible information, it makes investigative journalism easier to do than it was fifteen years ago, when the journalists had to make dozens of phone calls and go down to the public library. The ability of readers to participate in collecting the sheer amount of information can help investigative journalism.

The key is matching enough journalists working to the readers to take advantage of all the information out there. Once we figure out the sticky question of revenue models for the web, hopefully there'll be a building back up of newsrooms, as well as for the investigative staff, that have suffered in past 5 years.

User comments are becoming more and more popular on online news sites. Even the NY Times is now allowing moderated comments on selected articles. However, do these comments have a place in controversial breaking news stories?

Le Monde’s print and online teams are non-integrated, and it’s only this year that the paper began mapping out a concrete plan to further collaboration – not integration. Yet this relative ‘belatedness’ doesn’t prevent Le Monde and LeMonde.fr from being considered by many as the French quality newspaper of record, and being second among national news sites for time spent and first for number of unique visitors. Why isn't Le Monde integrated? How does it keep both operations running smoothly? The Weblog interviewed Alexis Delcambre, editor of LeMonde.fr, and Philippe Le Coeur, who coordinates the relationship between print and online.

Africans need to help themselves to achieve transparent, comprehensive reporting, was the conclusion of “Reporting Africa for Africans and the world”, a debate at the 14th World Editors Forum today.

TimesofOman.com is the leading English-language news portal in Oman. The print newsroom counts 30 staffers, whereas the online version only counts three. The website, which was re-launched in November 2006, receives on average 80,000 views per day. Cariappa A A, web editor of Times of Oman, explains how such a small team can put up a quality website daily, through efficient time management and adapted content.

In this era of reader interactivity, user-generated content, self-regulated news and exponential bloggerism, everybody – including newspapers – seems to have fallen for the craze. So what about the negatives of this revolution?

‘The last issue of the New York Times’ was published by Italian daily La Stampa deputy editor Vittorio Sabadin on January 19. Two weeks later the book was sold out.

Sabadin retraces the history of the challenges that newspapers have faced in the last 30 years, and their responses. The author provides the reader with working solutions and with the reasons for their success. He comes to a conclusion that is rather surprising when worded by a journalist:  “It is not a tragedy if the printed newspaper dies; what needs to be saved and will last is good journalism”.

Editorsweblog brings you Sabadin’s most relevant insights.

Former Economist journalist and current Wired editor Chris Anderson has released his long awaited book about the new online economy entitled "The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More." The book's main theme is that mainstream hits will fade in importance while niche content gains through the choice that the Internet provides; exactly the reason why the long tail does not apply to newspapers.

Online newspaper advertising may be growing in leaps and bounds, but the present and future flow of ads to newspaper websites could be in jeopardy due to trends and technologies.

Bill Emmott, the outgoing editor of the weekly The Economist recently commented on the success of his newspaper suggesting that dailies had contributed significantly, but not in the way one would hope. Having helped to double the paper's circulation to over 1 million during his 13-year tenure, Emmott said that the tendency of daily papers to print more "entertainment" news while sacrificing hard facts and insightful editorials left the analytical Economist a niche for educated readers craving intelligent journalism. To see if others in the industry felt that newspapers were straying from their core function, The Editors Weblog asked several newspaper men and women to react to Emmott's comments:

 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!

Whew! What a turbulent year for the newspaper industry. One would think that after so many developments, positive and negative, that the storm would be ebbing. But 2005 may be just the beginning.

Below are eight trends that the Editors Weblog feels will have major effects on newsrooms in 2006:

1. Print/Online integration becoming the norm
2. Threats against investigative journalism growing
3. More transparency needed
4. Breaches appearing in the free news ideology
5. News agencies competing with newspapers
   
6. Social networking: advantages for newspapers
   
7. Mobile TV threatening mobile news
8. News organizations becoming entertainment companies

Explanations are followed by links to previous related postings. 

Please feel free to comment and add your own ideas.

Happy New Year to all!

 

"I think people would pay for content they value and trust. I'm prepared to pay for breaking news," said Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of the advertising group WPP, at a conference in New York. Well, he might be ready, but the majority of Internet newsreaders are not. 

An interesting article by Michael Massing debating whether US journalists are failing in their responsibility to produce hard nosed reporting and uncover the truth for their readers.