Western Online Journalism 2010
MojoShift: Technological Change and Field Work
Technological innovation has fundamentally changed the nature of field work. The era of laborious editing sessions and overlarge cameras is a thing of the past. In its place is a faster more efficient industry.
“The change that’s been incremental is the speed in which information could go from the creator to a mass audience, “ said Roger Gillespie, assistant managing editor of the Toronto Star.
Gillespie added that the methods by which journalists are communicating while on the field has changed journalism. “The change has been the way information is delivered. That’s probably been a bigger change than the immediacy of information, “ he said
Mike Knoll, multi-media editor of the London Free Press has seen a dramatic change in the newsroom in the three years that he has been at the paper.
“When I started there were only three computers in the newsroom with access to the internet. Now every computer has access to the internet. Now every reporter has a phone that has access to the internet,” said Knoll.
“The thing that has probably changed our work the most is the rocket sticks which allow us to connect to the internet on our laptops out in the field,” said Knoll.
Chris Dick, a Canadian freelance photojournalist said that the integration of USB sticks into both video and photo cameras have made the editing and storage process much easier.
In terms of camera technology, Dick believes that video was the driving force behind the changes that took place in the 1990s. He credits the Canon 5D Mark 2 released only five years ago as setting the standard when it came to shooting video.
“For the longest time we were trying to get a decent still photo with a television camera. And all of a sudden a photo camera turned into a video camera,” said Dick about the Canon. Now almost every camera has the ability to shoot video and take still photos.
Dick added that the technological trends are also affecting broadcasting. “There was always an emphasis on live streaming,” Dick added.
There is an almost unanimous view that smartphones will continue to be used by mobile journalists. “I think smartphones are devices that are continuing to change. You can send photography; you could send video almost instantly. It’s a big change,” said Roger Gillespie from the Toronto Star.
“We’re seeing things happen a lot quicker and live updates given from smartphones apps. That trend is continuing,” said photojournalist Chris Dick.
Dick added that the progress varies from different markets but the change is showing no signs of slowing down. “Not so much in Toronto because they tend to be a little slower in the bigger markets. The smaller places are what drive innovation.”
The Modern Paperboy
We have posted practically every part of our project on Posterous. However, I would encourage anybody looking for our final project to navigate over to themodernpaperboy.wordpress.com - it offers a comprehensive and well-planned-out version of all our findings.
Enjoy!
MojoShift
Field Work and Technology in International Journalism
The use of technology in field work outside of North America is a fascinating phenomenon. It is intriguing to see what kinds of tools have been acknowledged and used by other countries. Turns out, the sense of urgency to get news out first, is one felt by many newsrooms across the world, and not only the ones in the United States or Canada.
Roohi Hasan, senior producer of ITV News in England believes that field work has come a long way. “When I started working 14 years ago, we had these satellite trucks that were fairly restrictive, but now it's different,” she says.
ITV News is one of the main national television news stations in England. Although they still use traditional cameras for news coverage, they also use cell phones and smaller cameras in some circumstances, like when doing a breaking news, adventure or humanitarian story.
According to Hasan, if there is a situation like a fire or a flood, it may take too long for the camera crew to get to the location, or may not be able to at all because of safety concerns. In that situation, it is a lot more practical to cover a story with a smaller camera that allows to shoot and file it to the news room.
“Our website is also very interactive. So people can post videos that they may have taken from their cell phones,” she adds.
Hasan also talked about Flip video cameras that have been given to six children in Haiti to personally document the aftermath of the earthquake.
She calls mobile journalism “definitely the way of the future.”
On the other hand, Judy Sandison, editor of SABC says that new media is being used in South Africa in a variety of ways. Multiple mobile networks are present for people to receive the news through their mobiles.
Moreover, according to Cliff Lonsdale, international journalist and instructor at the University of Western Ontario, having an Iphone or a mobile is a common thing now.
“Everyone at Reuters has one of these,” he says pointing to his very own Iphone.
He says that it is a good start for developing countries to do journalism. This is because mobiles are relatively cheap equipment that many can afford in such nations. Using mobiles has allowed the people of these countries to have a voice not influenced by Western media, and thereby, practice free expression.
However, he believes that technology in field work “can be a good thing and bad.” Lonsdale fears “superficial journalism.”
He thinks it is critical to use this technology in a manner that does not compromise understanding and delivering the context behind stories and essentially conducting good journalism.
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MojoShift: field work at its finest
Group Four -Publishing and Distribution
“There is no such thing as publishing – it’s extinct. It’s all about distribution ,and only distribution.”
Nicole Hanbidge, Ian Jacobs, Jared Lindzon, Kolby Solinsky, Gian Verano, Heather Young
We made a website for all you to check out:
THE MODERN PAPERBOY
It’s a metaphor, but we think it fits. The “paperboy” is a staple of the classic, traditional newspaper industry and, perhaps, the news industry in general.
· The paperboy was also the door-to-door service – it was the “distribution”.
· Now, media companies – and freelancers – must re-invent themselves. What will replace him and hers?
Our crack reporter, Kolby Solinsky, goes behind the lines for our Case Study. We focus on Black Press, a newspaper chain with its headquarters in British Columbia. Our story revolves around Black Press Digital and its website,BCLocalNews.com. We speak with web producer Marco Morelli about how community newspapers are dealing with not only their competition, but the new, aggressive online world.
By Kolby Solinsky
“Like I say, it’s an ever-changing environment and I’m sure you guys talk about it to no end in your class. To be honest it’s the younger generation that we’re trending. We’re trying to follow what they’re doing. It’s exciting for guys like you and I that are younger and have a fresh outlook on the industry, and we can be involved in some of the changes that are going on.” – Marco Morelli, web producer at Black Press
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*In line with a discussion we had in class, we believe that “print” journalism – on the Internet – must be presented in a different way than in the newspapers. It must grab the reader’s attention and it must be designed in a way that lets them flow down the “page”.
*That being said, I have written mine with some words in BOLD, some in Italics and some underlined.
*We’re looking at a new kind of “publication” now – one that satisfied eyes and cravings.
*****************INSERT YOUTUBE VIDEO ___ MAKE SURE NOT PRIVATE!!!!!***************************
In 2009, Black Press executive Josh O’Connor wrote a column that was featured throughout the company. In it, he detailed the strength of community newspapers and their advantage over large daily papers and metro papers.
“Why will community papers continue to outperform metro dailies in 2009 and beyond? They are lower cost operators of newspapers and websites, and they have a wider base of advertisers,” he wrote. “Typically, a suburban group of newspapers will have more smaller advertisers than a competing metro, and those advertisers will be less affected by national trends.”
Black Press owns and operates more than 70 community newspapers in British Columbia, and it also publishes several papers in Washington state, Hawaii and Alberta. Often viewed of as a “smaller” operation (because of their community focus), the company has managed to grow and expand its operations since 2008.
That’s because, as O’Connor writes, advertisers fund the media and Black Press has been less affected than other companies – such as the now-bankrupt CanWest – by “national trends” and like economic recession.
“Advertisers in 2009 will be looking to deliver their message to the widest possible audience at the lowest possible cost,” he wrote. “And, community newspapers are the best at providing that.”
Like all companies, Black Press is now faced with having to confront low-cost advertising and an increasingly aggressive online world. In 2007, the company launched their most recent version of Black Press Digital – BCLocalNews.com, a website that amalgamates all 70 newspapers in B.C. onto one portal.
“In the online world, traffic follows fresh content,” says Seth Long, director of new media for Sound Publishing, Black Press’s Washington affiliate. “The more fresh content you have, the more traffic you’ll get. Traffic is viral, and viral traffic translates into ad revenue. It’s dead easy to measure. Advertisers are just as attracted to big numbers, as they are repelled by stale, dated content on sites.”
While its print publications are still Black Press’s flagship business, the company’s online services have become its source for breaking news, says Black Press Digital’s and BCLocalNews.com’s web producer, Marco Morelli.
“We’re not waiting for a full news story to be written and posted online,” he says. “In print you have one or two deadlines a day, maybe, but online there’s an infinite number of deadlines so we need to meet those deadlines and people want their news now.”
On the day I speak with Morelli, B.C.’s premier, Gordon Campbell, has resigned. It’s the biggest news story of the day in the province, and it’s online news sources that are breaking the news first.
“With a story like the resignation, as soon as we hear anything – even if we only have a 50-word story online – we say there’s more to come,” he says. “We’re now building our stories online and then taking the final product, and that’s going in the newspaper.
“Our newspaper content has gone through a bit of growing pains, like every other company has. We’re going through a bit of an evolution, a change of mindset like everybody probably is.”
To that end, Black Press updates all of its social media tools with the news of Campbell’s resignation. The goal is to get the news out as fast as possible – with their company name in the byline – and they want to distribute it as widely as they can.
Morelli monitors the company’s Twitter feeds and Facebook pages. He has to make sure that every application is being used for its full potential. He says Twitter, especially, has been an extremely useful tool.
“We don’t want to wait for people to come to our home pages and find our news because that’s not what they’re doing anymore,” he says. “They’re waiting for the news to be spoon-fed to them. We’re trying to shove our news in their face.”
While Twitter is the darling of today’s online media coverage, Morelli warns that it has not yet permeated all news gatherers.
“It’s a focus audience on Twitter,” he says. “I know most people might know what Twitter is but they’re not all on Twitter. We realize that putting all our efforts onto twitter is not 100 per cent going to get to our audience.”
Still, Morelli says BCLocalNews.com has put most of its effort into search engine optimization. If something searches news or topics on Google, BCLocalNews.com wants their website to come up first.
Morelli says that around 60 per cent of the newspaper websites’ traffic comes from search engines.
“We have to display our content way differently,” he says. “We’re learning tricks and things online. I don’t know if we’re doing the best job yet, but we’re certainly learning and doing our best to change that.”
It’s clear that many media organizations are still trying to figure out the power of the Internet and online social media. After all, Twitter and Facebook have become entities in themselves but it’s unclear whether other tools or applications will fly or flounder.
“As soon as a new one’s developed, we’re not quick to just jump right on it,” he says. “We look at it from afar and see how it’s being used and then we attack it. There’s a lot of room for trial and error. Some things work and some things don’t.”
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Click here to see Black Press’s Twitter feed.
Click here to see the Surrey Leader’s Twitter feed. The Surrey Leader is one of Black Press’s largest papers, and is published two times-a-week with a circulation of roughly 245,000.
Click here to be redirected to BCLocalNews.com, where you can search any of their 70+ papers.
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Black Press is still most definitely a traditional newspaper company, but they are concentrating their efforts on a smooth transition to the online world.
“In terms of how much it’s grown, financially it’s grown from a six-figure product five years ago to a seven-figure product now,” says Rob DeMone, content manager for Black Press Digital in B.C. “Our greatest challenge has been the paradigm shift that needs to happen from a print-based industry that lives on weekly and bi-weekly deadlines to the immediacy of the insatiable online world that wants content all the time.
Demone also says that Black Press is constantly looking at what iPhone applications could or would help the company’s distribution. He says he’s unsure about the iPad yet, but says that in time it could also become a valuable tool for the community newspaper chain.
“It’s not the distribution of the same product, it’s different and it’s how the consumer wants it that we’re dealing with.”
Either way, Morelli is excited about what the future holds.
“It’s a fantastic time, and I enjoy being, for our company, being right at the front of it. I can walk right up to the presidents (of our company) and say, “Hey, check it out. This is new, what do you think?””
But, what about the notion that traditional publishing doesn’t exist in the online world? Is it now mainly just about distribution?
“Exactly,” says Morelli. “We publish our newspaper. We say we’re no longer just “re-publishing it online. We’re thinking of the online as a new entity.
“Obviously, there’s a lot of cross-over at this stage. But, it’s all about distribution. It’s about using all the different mediums online. Our web sites, search engines, Google News – these are all different ways to get our content to people and it’s an ever-changing world in those terms.”
UP NEXT...
Jared Lindzon focuses on an intriguing new powerhouse in the world of online publishing and distribution - YouTube. In this online world, independent journalists must make a decision: Broadcast or Podcast?
Whereas video sharing was once a difficult and expensive task, the Internet, coupled with advances in video capturing technology, has made it easy for anyone to upload and share video content. With high quality digital cameras available at a reasonable price, and lower quality digital cameras now being included in cell phones and other wireless technology, creating a video has never been simpler. Furthermore, basic video editing software has become a standard on most home computing devices. These advances in technology have had a wide range of effects. Whereas high quality videos used to be reserved only for professionals, and home videos were generally created for the sake of those in it, the simplicity of online video distribution has forever changed the way we think about film. Aided by social networking and video sharing websites, wide range video distribution has shifted from being strictly reserved for film professionals, to a hobby amongst amateurs.
With this shift has come a wide range of effects. Now that creating and sharing a video is cheap and easy, everyone from amateur filmmakers to professional media organizations are being given an opportunity to share a piece of the growing online viewership base. Newspaper organizations, which were once bound to a single medium for sharing the news, are now given an opportunity to couple their print content with videos at a very low cost. Websites like YouTube have also nurtured a new culture of amateur online video distribution.
From viral to instructional videos, YouTube has forever revolutionized the way we think about video sharing. YouTube offers its users the opportunity to post videos online for free that can be streamed instantly by users. YouTube has no fees, and as of recently displays HD videos, the highest quality currently available. YouTube gives aspiring video producers a medium for which they can share content, and fans a place to view, subscribe, and comment on the content.
“If YouTube didn’t exist, I wouldn’t be making videos,” said Mitchell Bank, who has over 2,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel. “If I was alive 30 years ago, I wouldn’t have gone to film school, I wouldn’t have had a camera, and I wouldn’t have had an audience, and without those things it’s pretty pointless to try.”
Bank’s testimony is not uncommon with online video contributors. YouTube has provided a medium that previously didn’t exist. Whereas the success of a film was previously geared by how much money it is able to generate, the success of non-niche YouTube videos are measured by how many “views” it receives. Each time a user streams a video, the view count increases. For example, Bank’s parody video of a Miley Cirus music video received almost 300,000 views, which is enough to be considered “viral.”
According to Bank, the goal of any amateur online video distributor is to achieve the highest view count possible.
Furthermore, social networking has aided in the distribution of viral videos. Users who enjoy a video have the ability to share the video with friends via twitter, facebook, e-mail, or other social networking.
“Facebook is great because I have friends who don’t mind when I spam the videos on their walls,” said Bank. “I’ll post a video, and a friend of a friend will see the videos and share it around and I get more of an audience and more people talking about it and getting more people on my fan page. “
According to Bank, YouTube also offers a Google revenue sharing program whereby users can get paid for the content they upload. A video must receive a certain amount of videos before its creator is asked to engage in revenue sharing. At which point the user is given their own “channel” where all of their content can be uploaded alongside Google ads. Bank says that he gets a small amount of money for each person that goes to his channel, watches a video, or clicks on an ad.
In this way, Bank is getting paid for pursuing an enjoyable and inexpensive hobby that would have never been possible without these advances in technology.
Bank has thus far been successful in creating an online community based around his videos. Like many celebrities today, Bank hopes to one day be discovered for his talent online. Online video distribution therefore not only gives him a medium for which he can share his videos, and not only pays him for those videos, but even offers him the possibility of greater success, all because of his creative talents, and the simplicity of shooting and uploading high quality amateur videos.
Similarly, journalists as of late have utilized YouTube and social media to add depth to other journalistic mediums. For example, each editor at the London Free Press is required to shoot a certain amount of video while they are putting together a print story.
“Shooting video has become part and parcel with reporting a story,” said Mike Knoll, multimedia editor for the London Free Press. “We’ve introduced video cameras, podcasts, blackberries, twitter, blogging, all of this stuff is new. The 70 or so staff members in the editorial department who have been here for years have had no previous experience with any of it.”
According to Knoll, having a multimedia editor on staff has become a must for most newsrooms.
“As subscriptions and advertising decline in print it certainly increases online,” he said. “Every newspaper wants to have the best product possible online. Having a multimedia editor is absolutely necessary.”
With the help of Knoll, the London Free Press is able to easily and affordably add content to their website. According to Knoll, online video distribution has become a standard practice in almost every newsroom.
As a result of advances in video camera technology, as well as online video distribution, the possibilities for amateurs and professionals alike is endless.
Social Media Showdown
Nicole Hanbidge
We’ve spent the past few months learning about how social media is the perfect tool to help journalists. But that’s all theory, which we all know doesn’t always hold up in the real world. I wanted to get out there and ask people in the industry how exactly they use social media to distribute their information.
tp://dl.dropbox.com/u/12657308/hanbidge_new-media-podcast.mp3
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00:00- Introduction to Podcast
00:44- Weighing in, overview of the comparison
1:35- Ben de Castro, director of digital media at the Toronto Star
3:47- Jason Hastings, campaign manager for GenNext, Think Community and The Real Issue campaigns
6:16- conclusion of debate
8:01- Extro to Podcast
Magazine Distribution
Newspaper, TV, and Radio… they’ve been the big three for so long. Now, the Internet is set to make it “all 4 one and one 4 all”. But, what about magazines? Heather Young goes in-depth and discovers that monthly publications are waiting to see what the future has in store for them.
By Heather Young
In 2006, Phillip Smith wrote an article for Magazines Canada that encouraged small magazines to use blogs to reach online readers.
A technology educator and the founder of Community Bandwidth, Smith wrote that blogs “challenge the traditional publishing paradigm of ‘we talk, you listen’.” He alluded that magazines have inherent handicaps in the publication and distribution process, such as infrequent updates and this tricky thing called journalistic integrity. So, he addressed these issues by describing advantages that blogs can offer over a magazine website that simply publishes stories.
First, blogs are expected to be a gentle blend of authenticity and personal voice. They invite readers “inside the tent” by allowing the journalist’s opinion to come through. In other words, journalists don’t have to be so worried about objectivity on blogs, and readers kind of like that. They also provide a platform for deeper and more frequent analysis or updates past the publishing date. As a result, they encourage continued conversation between weekly or monthly publishing schedules. Finally, because blogs are often updated daily, they can result in better listings on search engines, which really means new readers.
All of these factors have one ultimate result: greater distribution. Blogs are either enticing regular readers to come back more frequently and become engaged in the magazine’s content or attracting new readers.
Fast-forward four years, and what are magazines doing? In theory, the successful ones are trying to do all of the above – that is, invite readers in, update more frequently, encourage conversation with readers, and find new readers - but they’re using more than blogs to accomplish these goals.
Take Time Magazine, for example. It has a full-time social network editor, and it shows. Time has a pretty robust presence with major social media outlets with over 175,000 fans on Facebook and 2.2 million Twitter followers. In fact, it’s the most followed magazine globally and is the third most followed news organization, after the New York Times and CNN (pretty good company, adds Steve Cambron, marketing director for Time, in an e-mail). It also works with sites like Digg and Stumbleupon to promote itself.
Steve Jobs asked Time to produce an application for iPad’s launch, says Cambron. It was called Project Noah, since developers had 40 days and 40 nights to create it. The application allows users to purchase and store each week’s digital issue for $4.99 per issue. On top of the print magazine, the digital issue offers photos, videos and updates from the magazine’s website.
Time also publishes applications for the three major mobile platforms: Blackberry, iPhone, and Android. Cambron believes it was the first news brand to have done so.
“As new vehicles and channels emerge for sharing, routing and selling our content, Time will be there,” says Cambron.
It all sounds great. And Time is certainly trying.
Its Twitter, however, basically functions as an RSS feed. That’s fine, but it’s not really encouraging discussion with readers. Its Facebook page is the same way. And then there’s the iPad application. Cambron says it dazzled consumers upon release, but a quick search of reviews on the internet will show that users think the app looks pretty and has great content, but they’re less than happy about the price and the lack of sharing features.
So, in theory, it’s doing all of those things. It’s trying to invite readers in, update more frequently, encourage conversation with readers, and find new readers, but it might not be succeeding. And really, if Time can’t pull it off, which magazine can?
Kim Pittaway is a freelance magazine writer and a consultant with a number of magazines for online and print issues. She says that realistically, most magazines can’t do those things, and it’s a matter of both structure and cost.
She says magazines have seen a huge increase in their web traffic. She also says there hasn’t been much of a decrease in circulation numbers. But for how long? Magazine publishers aren’t holding their collective breath.
Readers – especially younger readers – expect material to be widely available online, they expect to get most of it for free, and if they pay, they expect to get extras, Pittaway says. And because it’s what consumers expect, most magazines are publishing the majority of their content online. For free.
“We’re shooting ourselves in the foot,” she says.
Pittaway is a little more hopeful about magazine distribution when it comes to the iPad. She says the platform is more conducive to magazine reading – the interface is more appealing, and users tend to focus on one thing at a time, so they become engaged with just one piece of content at a time. And more importantly, they’re willing to pay for the iPad’s digital content.
Could the iPad be the magazine’s saving grace? Yes. Will it? Probably not.
On any platform, users expect to get more if they’re paying for the content, says Pittaway. Usually, that means additional content, like photographs and video clips. The problem, she says, is that most of the writing done for the majority of Canadian magazines is by freelancers – specifically, by freelancers who have neither the training nor the funds to produce additional content. And magazines aren’t willing to pay much, if at all, for these extras.
“Magazine publishers have presumed from the outset that they can stretch a dime into a dollar,” says Pittaway.
In other words, publishers have assumed that for a minimal investment, they could compete in a changing distribution world. And they’re slowly realizing that it actually requires real money and real time, she says.
Meanwhile, newspapers, radio news programs and television new outlets are having staff members create all kinds of additional content. Newspapers are posting videos. Radio journalists are expected to submit a written story with their pieces. And television journalists take photos, too. All of these media are encouraging staff to use Twitter and Facebook to generate interest and interact with readers – essentially, to distribute not just the story, but the brand of that organization.
But without writing staff, magazines don’t really have anyone to do those jobs. Other media can layer these tasks into contracts, but Pittaway says that even when magazines that have freelancers they’re close with, they’re only working with them a few times a year.
Instead, some magazine editors have taken on the task.
Some editors use twitter like an RSS feed, while others try to interact with readers. A few members of the editorial staff at Cottage Life have blogs, but as Pittaway points out, they do that writing on top of pretty full job descriptions anyway. As a result, she says, the blogs may not be updated as frequently or as robustly as ones produced by newspaper staff.
And stories aren’t being distributed any more effectively.
“I really don’t think there is a solution,” says Pittaway.
There doesn’t seem to be a solution, at least, for magazines attached to their current format and without some budget increase for additional content production. Right now, print is still the backbone of the magazine’s product, she said.
I asked Pittaway what she would do if she were to start a magazine today. After a joke about having a friend stop her, she regretfully admitted that she would skip the print component. She would create a barebones website that displayed some content but would mostly be used as a platform for blogs. The real key would be publishing the content as an iPad application or for an e-reader.
For readers who are as attached to paper as magazines, don’t worry.
Pittaway imagines a world where magazines publish a higher value print product, perhaps on an annual basis. Instead of being the main medium for content, print becomes a highlight of the best of the work.
“Print versions of magazines will become the premium product. The online versions of magazines will, I hope, lean more towards apps than just a website. And there will be some kind of ongoing presence on a website or something like that,” she says.
That’s the direction we’re moving in, maybe.
But for now, magazines still rely on publication more than distribution. They still let readers come to them, and they don’t seem to be engaging consumers in discussion. If they’re updating more frequently or interacting with readers, the output doesn’t seem to be too robust.
In other words, magazines have yet to figure out a model to move forward in a world that is focused on distribution.
Police and Social Media
By Gian Verano
Police forces are constantly looking for new ways to distribute their information to the community. Some try to find innovations within traditional media formats, while others are using newer mediums like Facebook and twitter.
The ongoing socialization of citizen journalists and police will no doubt be an interesting one. But I hope that through today’s podcast you learned a bit about how similar they both can be. Social media tools are constantly evolving, and it’s this evolution that is causing the media landscape to change faster than it ever has before. These tools let anybody can be a journalist and distributor of the news – even police officers. But that doesn’t mean mainstream outlets will go extinct. They’ll just evolve along with the technology. It’s certainly an interesting time to be a journalist.
Timeline:
0:00 – 0:45 – Intro
0:45 – Show Theme: Police and the media, citizen journalists
1:47 – Interview Dennis Rivest: Medial Relations Officer, London Police
-TV Show: “On Patrol with London Police”
2:36 Relationship with traditional media.
3:34 On citizen journalists and responsibility
4:23 London Police not on Facebook or Twitter just yet
5:18 – Interview Scott Mills: Social Media Officer, Toronto Police
-Social media should be a group effort
6:14 Toronto Police as own news distributers
7:10 On citizen journalists
7:50 Negative responses on social media
8:53 – Interview Chris Hogg: Digital Journal
-Comments on Toronto Police’s use of social media
9:40 Time lag to adopt social media
10:17 Mainstream news organizations will never die
11:06 More voices are needed to make journalism profession better
12:12 – Extro
Wrap-up: Journalism is a constantly evolving field
12:55 Music: Boa- まもりたい – White Wishes
Changing the Face of Newspapers
Ian Jacobs
When change occurs, we as humans, shy away. We find comfort in our regular routines, and have difficulty embracing something new. This is true of profession’s, lifestyle’s, relationships, and fashion choices. So when the world of journalism began to shift towards the distribution of online content, naturally, the process was slow. Many newspapers such as the Detroit Free Press, the Rocky Mountain News and the Boston Globe had to either suspend operations or make major cuts to their distribution. And hundreds more closed down altogether. But now in 2010, with the realization that online content is here to stay, what are the newspapers doing to make up for lost time?
Paul Berton, the Editor-in-Chief of the Hamilton Spectator, spoke to our Journalism class in the summer. While holding up his Blackberry and iPad he said “this technology is going to change the world.” Berton indicated towards a promising future, and although hundreds of newspapers have closed down since 2009, information still reaches many facets of society.
“People want information, and that’ll never change,” he said. “But the challenge is how to present news in a simple and easy way.”
As a journalist, Berton’s first loyalty lies in getting the news to the public. But as a businessman, he has other things to worry about.
“There are tons of readers, but we just need to find out how to make money from them,” he said.
The Hamilton Spectator are still in the midst of revamping their use of online content. However, I spoke with Paul Chapman, News Editor at The Province in Vancouver, about what The Province is doing to promote their online content.
The culture shift that Chapman talks about is what’s preventing some organizations from changing the way they deliver news, and it’s still a point of contention in some areas at The Province.
And to reiterate what Chapman said, the speed at which headlines are distributed at has increased exponentially over the last several years, and social media such as Twitter has been the main factor in the increase.
Most news organizations have their own Twitter accounts, and Chapman told me how The Province uses Twitter and smart phones to constantly stay in touch with their followers.
The Province is one of the leading newspapers in North America to have embraced social media, and as recently as this week they launched their iPad application.
“We want to be a leader in the industry, not a follower,” Chapman said.
And while The Province have made the change from a conventional newspaper to a news organization, it has taken time to adjust. The plans to go digital were in motion in May 2010, but it’s over the last several weeks that they’ve picked up the pace. And like all big change, money has been the main hindrance.
No other profession of our time has gone through the profound change that media is going through today. The way we give and receive information is part of a new age, and the way we adapt to faster and newer technologies will determine how we as journalists, and as people, survive.
The Province is an example of one newspaper that’s successfully making the transition into a multimedia corporation, and they’re doing it with the attitude that’s needed to take us even further than change could ever imagine.
Group Five - Feedback
Cara Campbell is your guide during this series of video interviews with local journalists regarding modern feedback gathering.
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Matt Walker and Sean Leathong host this podcast filled with debate, commentary and interviews on the role of feedback in the modern newsroom.
The story of gathering feedback Lauren Pelley
How modern news organizations are engaging with their audiences
Once upon a time, you’d wake up in the morning to find a newspaper on your doorstep. You’d read the articles – selected by a team of editors – and perhaps discuss them at the breakfast table. If you were really riled up about a certain piece, you might write a Letter to the Editor. And it might get published. And that’s where the story would end.
Today, it’s a different story.
In modern newsrooms, community feedback is now an integral part of the news cycle. It’s no longer about simply delivering the news, but rather about engaging readers, listeners and viewers through various feedback avenues.
So what does that shift look like?
According to Chris Montanini, a multimedia journalist with The Londoner, the outdated, “old-school” methods for gathering community feedback were via e-mail and phone calls. With these methods, the onus is on the reader to make all the effort, while the publication can choose to ignore the feedback entirely.
But Montanini sees feedback as an “important factor” in the news process. “What we’re hoping is with stuff like the Facebook page and the website is to create more of that community atmosphere online,” he says.
In other words, the future of feedback is through online channels.
Through tools such as website commenting systems, live chats, and social media, news organizations can engage with the public like never before. Commenting options on online news stories are like letters to the editor – on speed. And tools such as Twitter allow journalists to not only receive direct feedback from the general public, but also to continue the conversation.
That’s why the National Post hopped on the Twitter bandwagon, says the newspaper’s producer of digital media, Chris Boutet, in an interview done by Media Bistro.
“In the past, the way the media and readership interacted was very guarded. Now, we’re trying to change this image by letting our readers know that there are real people behind the scenes, involved,” he explains. “When people write to us, we write them back. Twitter, and social media more generally, has the advantage of allowing people to reach out to you directly.”
Twitter is a benefit to the modern newsroom, Boutet adds. “(It’s) another channel of communication and it enables real conversations between the media and its readers.”
Stuart Thompson, the editor-in-chief of University of Western Ontario's student newspaper, The Gazette, agrees. He says social media and other tools are about getting the newspaper to be a part of someone’s life, versus something they read passively.
Twitter in particular, he adds, allows journalists to be seen as more than just faceless writers, but real, approachable members of the community.
"Before, the extent of knowing a writer would be in the byline," Thompson says. "No one would read bylines. Why would you? You'd read the story ... but now, since we started Twitter accounts, there's a name and a face so the office is no longer a scary institution."
Now, the Gazette has 17 Twitter accounts with over 5,000 collective followers. All the avatars feature the Gazette logo and a picture of the particular editor.
It's a strategy reminiscent of the city's main community newspaper, the London Free Press.
Launching numerous branded Twitter accounts was just one of the goals Steve Groves had during his time at the LFP. He was a pivotal force in bringing the newsroom into the 21st-century – especially in regards to gathering feedback.
“We started looking at digital media and social media,” he says. In his two years at the LFP, editors began to use social media like Twitter, live streams and geolocation technology.
When it comes to geolocation, Groves’ perspective is that by targeting your audience, they will be more engaged with your stories, and more likely to provide feedback, sources and tips.
The newspaper’s role, Groves explains, is to create an open forum where people can communicate with each other and feed that conversation through compelling stories – because that’s the best way to stimulate discussion.
Rogers TV in London is taking this level of engagement to a new level.
“We’ve actually switched to doing more community-access programming,” says Rachel Gilbert, associate producer and videographer at Rogers TV.
That means the television station responds to community feedback by creating shows based on that feedback. “The community comes up with the show, we get it on the air,” Gilbert explains. “It’s truly community-driven.”
Overall, it’s clear this level of engagement is what readers, viewers and listeners want. More and more people are flocking to the Internet to get their news because of its interactive feedback channels. In addition, the mobile nature of online news delivery is also proving popular – over half the apps used by American adults are news-related, according to a recent Pew Research study.
So what’s the next chapter in this story? While that remains to be seen, it’s clear that the level of engagement in the news process is at a new high, and archaic forms of feedback gathering have bitten the dust.
Online commenting sections are the new pubs Meg Radford
When newspapers were in their infancy, they were a method of communication between villages. Travellers would stop by local watering holes, passing on information they picked up from previous towns. Slowly, these pubs began printing the news for their patrons.
In our modern era, however, media conglomerates own what information in printed, broadcast and transmitted on major news networks. This has led viewers, listeners and readers to complain that the voices of many are controlled by a few.
But, according to Joe Ruscitti, the editor-in-chief of the London Free Press, newspapers have never had the kind of community interaction that they have now. With the advent of online comment sections, twitter feedback and other online tools, news agencies are able to solicit the opinions of their readers. Those opinions can then be turned into stories.
“We’d be foolish not to go that way,” said Ruscitti in an interview. “First of all, the technology is there.”
Ruscitti listed comment sections, online blogs, email, and multiple twitter accounts as the ways that readers of the London Free Press can now interact with their local paper. Ruscitti says that through these tools, his newspaper is able to be much closer to the pulse of London.
“We’re not writing stories in a vacuum, because we think they’re cool stories. We’re writing stories that we hope will start conversation,” he said.
But all this interaction with the public also has its downside.
On October 8th Ruscitti wrote a column explaining why the Free Press had chosen to shut down the comment sections on stories about London’s municipal election.
He wrote, “We have decided to no longer open comments for most online local election stories -- really, could there be a better subject for an open, running debate? -- because of the way some politicians have been treated and the way in which, it appears to us, some campaign teams may be hijacking the forum to besmirch rivals.”
Ruscitti said about the incident, “Some candidates were using it to promote their own campaigns, to beat up on other candidates, to say things about other candidates that a newspaper wouldn’t print.”
That, said Ruscitti, the Free Press would not stand.
“We weren’t going to be the equivalent of leaflets candidates were sticking in people’s mailboxes.”
But, he added, it wasn’t an isolated incident.
“We shut down comments regularly, because we have the same kind of trolls any other website has: people who have their own agendas.”
On the London Free Press website, it only takes a few minutes to see what he means. Readers who get to a story too late may click on the comment section, only to find that a disrespectful few have ruined it for all. In those cases, London Free Press patrons will have to do things the old fashioned way: write an email or call the office.
But don’t be too quick to think that Ruscitti and the rest of the crew at the London Free Press are curbing Free Speech. Although the comment sections are closed down on a regular basis, this is done only after an inappropriate comment is reported by a reader. Otherwise, says Ruscitti, the comments are not moderated.
And despite the pitfalls, Ruscitti said that comment sections can often inspire an entire news story, or at least a follow-up piece.
“We’d like as many people to comment as possible, and we’d like to be as liberal as we can about allowing comments,” he said.
Why?
“When people are talking, and talking about a subject, and having an interesting conversation, it can be very fascinating. We occasionally run comments in the paper beside stories, because they’re interesting, and they’re interesting to all kinds of people.”
Ruscitti says that the aim of journalism has always been to fuel conversation less. In the end, online commenting, twitter and blogs allow newspapers to “lead the conversation less and join in more.”
And that, a flow of information where anyone can have a say, isn’t too far off from those pubs where newspapers took their first breaths.
Jason Hastings Interview 2
Here's part 2 of my interview with Jason
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Interview with Jason Hastings
I thought I'd post my interview with Jason Hastings in its entirety. He now works for the City of London, but used to run media campaigns for the United Way. Listen to find out how he uses social media to spread the word...
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Online Video Publishing
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