Results matching “evolution of local news”

Friday 27th February saw the last ever edition of the Rocky Mountain News, after it became "a victim of changing times in our industry and huge economic challenges" according to Ricky Boehne, CEO of Rocky owner E.W. Scripps. However, now that the presses have stopped, many former staffers have migrated to the employee created I want my Rocky online-only news site.

I want my Rocky was created by Rocky Mountain News employees in December, initially to fight for the newspaper and as a "way for readers to send in their comments" explains Mel Pomponio, former Rocky Union chair and presentation editor, in a video entitled 'The Final Edition' on the new site. But it seems that the project has gone further now that the RMN is no more; many of its former journalists have begun publishing regularly on the site.

A number of US newspapers have submitted cancellation notices to the Associated Press (AP), announcing that they are dropping their contracts with the news service. Reasons range from the recent changes that the AP has made to its fee structure to its diversion from regional news. The Wenatchee World of Wenatchee, Washington, The Yakima Herald-Republic of Yakima, Washington, The Spokesman Review of in Spokane, Washington and The Post Register of Idaho Falls, Idaho, spoke to the Editors Weblog about their decision to cut back on AP content and future plans that they have.

The AP's new fee structure

The new pricing structure, approved by AP's board last year, includes state, national and international breaking news and allows newspapers to buy individual articles and other services, as opposed to its old structure of one bulk membership fee. The AP claims this will cause fee increases for only 10% of its subscribers,

But the Post Register's editor and publisher Roger Plothow refers to the new fee structure as "too rigid" and "too expensive", pointing out that the AP hasn't adapted too well to the changing newspaper industry.

Spokesman-Review editor Steve Smith mentions that he had to lay off 16 of the papers staff in December 2007 and choosing to unsubscribe from the AP ("even considering the cost of replacement services") would save the paper nearly USD$300,000 and permit it to keep 10 to 15 jobs.

"The AP's declining content contribution?" or "Focus on Local News"
 
"They do far less for us than ever before. This year, we would have had to pay extra for basic Olympics coverage once included in the basic rate. And the AP staff in Olympia, the state capitol, told us they were unable to provide statewide coverage of last month's primary election. That is simply not acceptable, not considering how much we pay," says Smith.
 
The Wenatchee World, apart from financial concerns, dropped the AP for similar reasons. It wishes to pay more attention to regional news and the AP's regional reports have "gone by the wayside," says the paper's editor and publisher Rufus Woods.
 
"We've started a free story-sharing service with other papers in our region to enhance our regional report. We do it for free and it works great for everyone," says Woods.
 
"I believe that successful news organizations are gonna be the ones that will have the strongest local content and the challenge for us is that it's more expensive to provide local content than anything else," says Jenkins.
 
Plothow predicts that smaller and medium-sized regional papers will rely less on the AP for content since most of it may be obtained through other sources or be less relevant to readers of papers like the Register. He says that in two years time, the Register will be 80-90% regional and local, with only the most important national and international news articles.

"We will take our savings and invest it into local reporting resources. For newspapers like ours, local is the only future," says Plothow.

Smith reflects a similar idea: that while his paper has international and national coverage, its focus is primarily on local and regional events. For this, the Review cannot rely on the AP, he says. Perhaps it is due to the news outlet's job cuts or the "restructuring and emphasis online and in multi-media." He also mentions that dropping the AP's online service, like audio and broadcast coverage, made no change to the Review's site traffic.

"The big question is what kind of news report resonates with readers. Given changing reader habits, it may be that an all-local paper is in our future. Or perhaps just a slimmed-down national/international report," says Woods.

Newspapers defecting to AP competitors?

The Register is replacing the AP with other services such as Thomson Reuters, the New York Times, The Los Angeles Times-The Washington Post, European Pressphoto Agency, sports providers like PA Sports Ticker and a  "reconfigured coalition of regional newspapers that share content," according to Plothow.

The Review is adapting a similar technique. It may also make use of McClatchy-Tribune's proposed network that would be set up "under their auspices" and would pay the paper for any Review content that it would use.

Tim Brettingen, the AP's chief revenue officer, said that an AP contract is "one of the great bargains in the industry," in an interview with PaidContent.org.

But Spokesman Review's Smith countered that opinion, saying, "Frankly, I think it's highway robbery. And obviously, I am not alone. I have heard from several dozen editors who have dropped or soon will drop the service for most of the same reasons. Most of the major papers in our region are opting out."
 
Jenkins says that submitting a two-year cancellation notice gives the paper time to look at alternatives "that are available now" and those that "are being developed".

"When you look back two years, so many more sources would have become available in that period that it's hard to tell what will be available two years from now," Jenkins adds.

The effects of AP's pricing structure on the US newspaper industry

"The industry's going through dramatic change and we have to be open to radically new ways of doing business to stay in business. AP assumes they are a necessity but more newspapers are viewing it as a luxury and are weary of the "corporate" approach of the organization. If AP wants to partner with members in this evolution, great. If not, so be it," Woods says.
 
Smith, referring to the way in which the American media landscape is evolving, said "If more regional papers begin to share their content between themselves (as has begun in South Florida), the change to our industry will be seismic. AP has been the backbone service for more than 100 years. That could change in the next few years with AP becoming less of a provider and more of a competitor in the race to survive the new information revolution." He continued, " The mere fact that once competing news organizations -- The Miami Herald, South Florida Sun-Sentinel and Palm Beach Post for one example; a growing Northwest coalition for another -- will now collaborate signals a huge and unprecedented shift in the news landscape. And any sort of mass shift is going to boost the growth of fledgling content providers such as PA/SportsTicker. There will be some entrepreneurs who will make their fortunes with these changes. And new partnerships will grow between unlikely parties such as CNN and MLB.com."
 
The Post Register's Plothow predicted, "The AP will likely become a service for large newspapers. In the U.S. 1,200 of the 1,400 daily newspapers are under 50,000 circulation - these are the papers that will begin leaving the AP en masse over the next year or so." He concluded, "This will likely only improve local journalism, and national and international journalism is rapidly moving onto the Web. Whether that's a good thing remains to be seen."

Circulation:

Wenatchee World: 22,579 daily, 24,414 Sunday
Yakima Herald-Republic: 38,000 daily
Spokesman Review: 89,000 daily, 113,000 Sunday
Post Register: 25,500
(last audit, June 2005)

At a time when any local or national news outlet can potentially become an international online brand, and as newsrooms adapt to a 24-hour news cycle, editors can learn from The New York Times' most recent attempt to 'kill' both birds with one stone.

Last week, top execs from The Times and the International Herald Tribune announced plans to merge iht.com and nytimes.com into a co-branded international section, in order to increase both sites' reach and appeal to international advertisers.

In this two-part series, the Weblog spoke to Jim Roberts, Digital Editor at The New York Times, and Martin Gottlieb, who was appointed to the newly created position of Editor, Global Edition.

Through these moves, The Times intends to accomplish at least four ostensible goals:

Part 1:
- Build an outpost for its Continuous News Desk in Paris, and eventually Hong Kong.
- Integrate operations, streamline some resources by increasing efficiency and avoiding overlap.

Part 2:
- Reinforce its international reach and further compete against the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal.
- Use the strength of NYT's online brand while safeguarding the IHT's popular print brand name.

IHT: an outpost for the Times' continuous news

Although the proposed changes are currently undergoing a consultation process with the IHT's works council, as required by French law, the process of integration of both papers began ever since the NYT acquired full control of the IHT in 2003, and has accelerated in past months.

In Feb., NYT executive editor Bill Keller had already announced plans to integrate operations and develop an "organic, global, 24-hour news operation," in order "to create a Continuous News outpost in Paris."

In May, the IHT dropped its 142-year-old logo from its nameplate to replace it with the phrase "The Global Edition of the New York Times."

"That says, we are one, and we are," although both arms are managed separately, said Jim Roberts, digital editor at The Times.

Video: Roberts talks about the 'integration' of both newspapers. Footage was collected during an interview at the 15th World Editors Forum in Sweden.


Thanks to this outpost and the six-hour time difference, the NYT is now able to upload content to its site nearly 24 hours a day (from about 6am to 1am, New York time). The paper eventually hopes to establish a similar outpost at the IHT's Asian headquarters in Hong Kong in the next six months.

The creation of these outposts does not mean that the IHT is becoming a full-blown Paris bureau for The Times. "We have a Paris bureau," said Roberts, "and the newsroom of the IHT still has a print edition and right now they still have a website."

Integration, streamlining resources: evolution, no revolution

Since all proposed changes are undergoing a consultation process, editors couldn't give any firm preview of how workflows could be affected.

In the past, there has been "very regular contact between individual desks at the Times and corresponding desks at the IHT," said Martin Gottlieb, newly appointed editor of the Global edition. Many IHT editors come from The Times, regularly do edits on NYT pieces, and this past year IHT-written articles have appeared on nytimes.com with no distinctive byline.

However, there is no formal process of exchange between both newsrooms, and "There have been a couple of occasions when we've had IHT and NYT reporters covering the same thing," said Roberts.

The appointment of Gottlieb as editor of the Global Edition - note, no mention of the IHT in his title - is significant in that respect. In addition to fulfilling the role of editor of the paper, his mission will be to ensure that staff understands both papers are "two parts of one news-gathering operation, that should work in unison as much as possible in delivering the news 24 hours a day seven days a week," said Gottlieb.

A series of new editorial appointments at the IHT will be the symbols of this top-down integration. "There will be people coordinating the work of both staffs to, pretty much, make them as much as possible act as one staff," said Gottlieb.

For example, Alison Smale, who becomes European editor of the global newsroom, will be responsible for "coordinating the work of all NYT and IHT reporters in the region from the IHT newsroom in Paris," said the memo. To oversee the process, The Times also named Alan Flippen "Editor, Newsroom Organization."

It seems too early to say whether the planned reforms will lead to radical changes in workflows or content. Evolution, not revolution, said Roberts.

Currently, an IHT reporter based in Hong Kong might build upon a Times' story about the rise of airline fuel prices by interviewing Asian carriers, whose input might not have been as relevant to the core readership of the Times in the US. Likewise, an IHT story published in the Times might be fine-tuned to be more pertinent to the American audience (see the example of Der Spiegel in Part 2, looking at different newspaper approaches towards international editions).

Future workflows will likely build upon these current processes, rather than start from scratch. "It's continuing synergies that are taking place and maximizing them and regularizing them," said Gottlieb.

The planned changes can also be seen as an attempt to streamline resources - terminology often equivocated with cost cuts and layoffs. But according to Gottlieb, there are no planned newsroom layoffs at this point (this is subject to change during the next six months). It is possible that an online merger of iht.com and nytimes.com could lead to redundancies for some technical Web production positions.


Editors couldn't comment on any upcoming changes concerning the IHT's planned print redesign.

Stay tuned for Part 2, which will examine The Times' international branding strategy, and how newspapers can grow a previously inaccessible international readership.


Source: New York Times - Media Bistro - Jim Roberts, Digital Editor The New York Times - Martin Gottlieb, Editor, Global Edition

The Arab Media Group is relaunching its Al Bayan newspaper, the oldest Arabic daily newspaper in the UAE.

Changes include a new color layour, daily supplement, and two weekly supplements.

The 'Five Senses' daily supplement will carry local and global entertainment news. The weekly Friday supplement, 'Maraya', will carry news and editorial opinions on politics. The Sunday supplement, 'Masarat', will cover local and international cultural affairs.

"The relaunch comes in response to the evolution witnessed in all sectors of UAE society, as well as the unique combination of multiple cultures in the country. We recognized the need for a daily newspaper that is capable of understanding the needs of such a diverse audience," said Abdullatif Al Sayegh, CEO of AMG.

The goal of the relaunch is for Al Bayan to extent outside of the UAE and establish itself as an outlet for the region.

Source: AME Info through IFRA Executive News Service

In April 2007, French regional newspaper Le Télégramme launched an original online offer: a miniature, daily, television-type news report.

At the time, the experiment was hailed as most innovative in the French regional paper landscape. Has that particular format borne its fruits though?

Télégramme and JT Web

The paper built a studio within its newsroom at a relatively low cost, about €70,000 including two professional cameras, an editing console and lighting. The paper hired a professional broadcast journalist to produce daily video footage with professional standards (about one original report daily, sometimes two). The actual news show, dubbed 'JT Web', lasts about five minutes. It is staffed by four of the paper's journalists, who come from diverse backgrounds and desks, on a rotating basis. It is published every weekday at 5pm.

Each journalist compiles video content shot by the videojournalist, gets a share of his or her own footage or carries out short interviews with the paper's journalists, and serves as an anchor for the news report. Each underwent a 4-week training program. They attend the morning news meeting and pick out the stories that will have most visual relevance.

The JT Web has helped to expand Le Télégramme's multimedia coverage. However, the televised format of the JT Web has borne disappointing results traffic-wise. Of the roughly 40,000-50,000 daily unique visitors to the website, there are only between 1,000-3,500 video downloads, depending on the news event.

In these baby steps of online video though, editors shouldn't be excessively concerned by eyeballs, as the JT Web served more important purposes, helping to modernize the newsroom's culture.

Video fueled newsroom convergence

The 'JT Web' was launched with two main purposes. One was to "surf on the growing enthusiasm for video news coverage" that was emerging on all the major international news sites, said Olivier Clech, Digital editor at Le Télégramme. Secondly - and as importantly in Clech's view - the JT Web was a good way to engage in cultural change within the newsroom (which isn't integrated but Clech would like it to be), by creating curiosity amongst journalists.

"Video was a lever to trigger evolution," he said. It was both used to fulfill the audience's needs and made journalists " realize that multimedia was inevitable." This doesn't mean that all of the paper's 200 journalists will regularly produce multimedia coverage, but the JT Web was a good way to make them more Web-friendly.

For the last municipal elections in March 2008, the Télégramme organized diverse video coverage to complement its print and online stories. Video interviews were shot with editors of the paper's local editions ("100% print people") to discuss the details of the elections. On election day, the Télégramme gathered spontaneous reactions from voters and politicians, and provided video analysis from its main offices.



Newspaper video: towards on-demand, news YouTubes

According to Clech, the JT Web's televised news format was a good way for the paper to tackle video, since it required a rigorous and structured approach. But it doesn't fall in line with the expectations of the online audience, "which is a more of a consumer of short video sequences." Most Web users seek short and diversified on-demand clips. The JT Web may have also suffered from insufficient visibility on the homepage, lack of broadband penetration and a relatively slow server.

In the future, the JT Web could be scrapped, or perhaps the Télégramme will save this format for talk shows, profiles or select news items. The TV news report format simply doesn't bring enough people. And there seems to be a disconnect between waiting on videos of 'hot' breaking news until the 5pm news report, instead of publishing them immediately.

Clech couldn't give too many details, but the paper is working on its next set of video offerings, which could include a larger selection of on-demand video clips, which users could freely browse. Content would be more systematically indexed to make it easy for readers to find and share. Sounds familiar? Perhaps there could even be some participatory features...

Last but not least, Clech reminded: "Let's not focus on the platform, and instead keep doing our jobs." That's the secret.


Stay tuned for Part 2, with an interview with Ian Vaile, Director of Digital Productions at Fairfax Media in Australia.

Source: Olivier Clech, Digital Editor-in-Chief at Le Télégramme

Angry- and misinformed- online readers at the Daily Echo in Bournemouth succeeded in setting the paper's news agenda.

The Echo ran a story about seven local councilors on a twin-town visit in Israel when eight students were killed at a Jerusalem university. Online readers responded with a barrage of comments accusing the councilors of wasting tax payer money for leisure trips.

In the wake of the online comments, the Echo conducted interviews with the councilors, and ran a story revealing that the trip had been privately funded.

"Whereas previously [the readers] might not have been motivated to put a pen to paper, it's so much easier to hit a button on a computer," said Nick Rowe, Web Editor for the Echo. "It's the evolution in the way we communicate."

The episode at the Echo is a prime example of two-way communication between media and audience, a development which was recently identified by blogger Paul Bradshaw as one of the top 10 trends in journalism.

Source: HoldTheFrontPage


 

A Washington Post piece written by David Simon, entitled “Does the News Matter To Anyone Anymore,” has caused quite a lot of uproar among the public and news industry insiders. Is the general audience as removed from news as some may claim, and “isn't the news itself still valuable to anyone?”

Media coverage of cyclone Sidr, which devastated Bangladesh, left hundreds of thousands homeless and killed at least 3,100, has been extensive, as is now the tradition in cases of major natural catastrophes. However, in comparison to coverage of the recent Californian wildfires, one can also wonder whether the differences in coverage of these two events can be representative of the digital gap widening.

The Naples News in Florida is often hailed as one of the United States' most forward-looking papers. With a newsroom that works first for its website, then the paper edition, and a daily local-news webcast which is also broadcast on television, it could even be said that the Naples News is one of the first papers to not consider itself just a newspaper. Editor Phil Lewis recently wrote an editorial documenting the evolution of the paper. 

The Los Angeles Times traces back the evolution of newspapers’ view of bloggers. In the past, they “wanted nothing to do with bloggers,” but now newspapers “are posting and plugging them and even sharing advertising revenue.”

For many major dailies, the current trend of newsroom integration seems like a natural evolution nowadays. The Editors Weblog has regularly showcased best examples of newsroom integration and has advocated that papers follow the trend. Yet many, if not most, newspapers continue to function well while keeping a non-integrated organization. So the question is: do papers have to integrate? In this first piece of a three part-series investigating non-integrated newsrooms, the Figaro.fr managers explain to the Weblog how online fits in the group’s strategy.

VoicesofSanDiego.org was launched three years ago and has successfully established itself as an example of a non-profit web-only news site. In a Q & A with Media Life, executive editor Scott Lewis explains the particularities of these online, local ventures.

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 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 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.

Didier Pillet is the Director of Information for France’s daily with the highest circulation, the regional paper Ouest France. In a Q&A with Editors Weblog, he talks about the paper’s 14-month-old ‘Newsroom blog,’ how he manages his work as a journalist alongside regular postings and interaction with readers, and how the blog fits into the paper’s strategy.

“Is the newspaper industry dying? Not now. On an average day, roughly 51 million people still buy a newspaper, and 124 million in all still read one,” says the US State of the News Media 2007 report. Despite this positive introduction, the report’s findings point towards challenging times for the newspaper industry.

One of this year’s major trends in newsrooms was the generalized evolution of the newsroom itself, into what was dubbed ‘integrated newsrooms’. Gannett came up with its own innovative version though, the Local Information Center (IC). The Editors Weblog interviewed one of the main engines of this venture, Jennifer Carroll, Vice President of New Media Content at Gannett Corporation.

Web-first policies have come under scrutiny for the balance between getting a story published quickly and getting the right, fact-checked, edited story published. Newspapers often struggle through this delicate balance when deciding what goes on-line when. That’s to say nothing of the sometimes not so invisible division between print and on-line departments. Neil Chase, Continuous News Editor at the New York Times, talks to the Editors Weblog about their continuous news-desk and why it’s a model that works not just for the on-line product but benefits the print product and journalists too.

Nowadays, nobody is surprised to find a couple of enlarged color pictures on the cover of their daily newspaper – as well as inside the middle-pages. In fact, readers would probably holler at a serious newspaper that doesn’t bother with graphic incentives and catchy visuals. Besides the reasons for this readers’ expectancy – evidently adequate pictures just make the paper look better – why have photos become essential in producing a quality paper? More exactly, how do today’s pictures contribute to making their newspaper not only look better, but be better?

In an era of rising, nearly generalized, citizen journalism, some websites are going further than giving a voice to users and paving the way to the future of journalism and news content. A future that would not only be user-generated, but also customized to target tastes and interests. Among those progressive websites, Newsvine’s innovative process puts it in a leading position (alongside others such as NewsTrust).

The latest audit shows that newspaper circulations in the US are down 2.8% year-on-year. Internet readership, however, has been exploding 20-25% by some counts. It may be true that the Internet has extended the reach of newspapers across the globe, but it is also contributing to a change in readership habits for which newspapers are not fully prepared.

It's no secret that the Internet is rapidly and radically changing the traditional news landscape of top-down journalism. For over a century, the pipes through which information is distributed have generally been one-way. Now that everyone has a voice on the Internet, the pipes have been siphoned and the flow has become reciprocal, causing a monumental change in news production and consumption. Having tracked these transformations, New York University professor Jay Rosen and PressThink blogger has embarked on an ambitious project to mold a new form of journalism adjusted for the digital media world.

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!

 

"It's no coincidence that the rise of citizen-based journalism experiments is occurring at precisely the same time as the failing business model of traditional media is causing painful downsizing in newsrooms everywhere," blogs Ken Sands at The Media Center. Sand's posting lists a few projects testing the "everybody's a reporter" theory, including the most recent, South Carolina's BlufftonToday.com, which promises a blog and photo album to every community member. Steve Outing, senior editor at Poynter, says that "(Bluffton) is exactly how the newspaper industry should be experimenting with citizen journalism." Although Sands still sees citizen journalism as "too early in its evolution," he does predicts that someday, understaffed newsrooms may have to recruit and train citizen volunteers to cover hyper-local events. But what about compensation? CnetNews.com reports that GetLocalNews.com, a US company that covers 6,000 local news sites, is developing ways to remunerate its contributors using advertising revenues. As of now, it sees the possibility of paying citizen reporters USD 2-5 per 1,000 page views, not too much, but its a start. "I think the writing for free thing is kind of demeaning to content producers," commented Edgar Canon, chief exec of GetLocalNews.

What does all of this citizen mumbo-jumbo mean for traditional editors? Sands says that editorial jobs could change significantly, adding the task of aggregating to their already full schedule. Check out our previous posting on the emergence of the Citizen Media Editor.

Sources: The Media Center, CnetNews.com