why multimedia journalism? why now? james breiner
TRANSCRIPT
Why multimedia journalism?Why now?
James Breiner
Why now
Renren had 117 million users in March
Renren raised $734 million on New York Stock exchange in May
China has 485 million internet users
Plunging circulation
• Daily circulation in U.S. is only 43 million, down 30% from 1990
• (By contrast, Facebook grows: 151 million subscribers in U.S.)
Source: State of the News Media 2010, Internet World Stats
The big question....
How do we get paid for producing journalism?
Brief history of journalism
• It began as a personal or political project
• Industrialization began in 19th century
1837: telegraph
1858: transatlantic cable
1871: high-speed rotary press
1886: linotype in NY Tribune
19th century: mass media emerge
• Growing middle class
• Growing demand for goods and services
• Growing demand for sales channels
• Demand for advertising
• Newspapers transformed into manufacturers and distributors
Industrialization of advertising
• 70% of content of dailies was advertising
• Marriage of convenience with journalism
• Wedded monopolies of news and distribution
Mass production, mass audience
Fantastically profitable business
• Profit margins of 30-40%
• Salespeople merely answered the telephone – Warren Buffett said, your nephew could run a newspaper
• The news could barely fill the space around the ads
• Regional dailies had a global presence
Today no more monopoly, no more mass media
Readers and advertisers migrate to the Web
Big newsrooms have become economically unsustainable
Big media companies in bankruptcy or financial crisis
Water in two forms
All processes are to produce this
• Meetings
• Beats
• Deadlines
• Working hours
• Equipment
• Software
Today people want this
Not this
Journalism returns to its roots
• Niche markets, niche audiences
• Geographic or thematic focus
• Public service
• Political projects
• Entrepreneurial projects
New rules, new ideas
“If I were starting El País today, I would start it on the Web, and I would produce a print version of the Web.”
Juan Luis Cebrián, founder of El País and president of Prisa Group
Not paper but information
“The newspaper business was never about staining paper with ink. The business is the information that the newspaper manages to investigate, accumulate, explain and bring to the public.”
-- Rosental Calmon Alves, director Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas
The media environment
• The end of authority. Users have more control.
• The big media are losing influence and income to the Internet
• Big media are getting 5-10% of their traffic now from Facebook, Twitter
Old model 1-way, authoritarian
Power (political, economic, social)
Press (with a focus on public relations)
Public
Source: Jeff Jarvis, New Business Models for News
Source: Jeff Jarvis, New Business Models for News
Digital journalism batters print• U.S. has lost 17,000 full-time editorial
jobs since 2000, or 30%
• More than 100 newspapers have closed; some go digital in Detroit, Ann Arbor, Christian Science Monitor
Layoffs in U.S., England, Spain, other countries
Source: State of the News Media 2010
New York Times stock price down by 60% over five years
Source: CBS MarketWatch Bigcharts
Ad revenues plunge
• Since 2006, newspaper ad revenues have fallen by nearly 50%, or $24 billion
• Classified advertising has fallen 70% (Craigslist, Monster.com, other competitors)
• Digital dimes displace print dollars
Exceptions
Brazil
India
China
Why do you think?
10 years ago
Few sources of news and information
• Newspapers
• Handful of TV stations
• Radio produced news
Old business model collapses
Journal Register Co.´s John Paton says, “Digital First”
Old media tried buying new
• Newscorp bought Myspace for $580 million, sold for $35 million
• New York Times bought About.com for $410 million
New media valuations soar
Google bought Youtube for $1.65 billion
• Facebook is being valued at $80 billion
• Twitter is valued at $7 billion
New distributors of news
• 100 channels on cable, 500 via satellite
• Yahoo news
• Google news
• MSN.com
New platforms
• iPad and tablets
• Smartphones
• Ushahidi, Frontline SMS mapping software
Google is wiping out ad agencies
Google share of search ad $$ is 75% Share of display ads 12%, No. 3 In the auction system, the advertiser pays
less; supply is virtually infinite; this hurts media, ad agencies
Source: eMarketer research
Search engines
• Baidu, Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. are important readers online
• Big U.S. media get 30% of traffic from search engines
• You have to attract search engines
• Your site has to be readable and searchable
Ad servers know more
• Your interests, hobbies
• Groups you support, identify with
• Products, brands you like
• Shopping history (Amazon)
Old model for describing the public
• Age
• Salary
• Neighborhood
• Education
• Marital status
• Children
New model for describing audience
Aspirations Preferred brands Buying habits Passions and interests Group affiliations
Source: Jeff Jarvis, New Business Models for News
I select news, like an editor
• RSS
• Google Reader
I am the publisher
• My own blog or website
• My network of friends receives my updates
• My audience re-publishes my news
Old media outmaneuvered...
….by financial publications and entrepreneurs
New products
• Wall Street Journal sends me a digital update both at the beginning and end of the workday
• I receive a series of email newsletters from WSJ on media and marketing, technology, statistics
Financial Times business model
• They offer three subscription options– With registration, 10 articles a month
– Without registration, a few free articles
– $199 a year digital sub, 240,000 users
ACBJ model
• 40 weekly business newspapers, 250,000 subscribers
• Daily email updates, free, generate 60% of web traffic
• Printed content only for subscribers for four weeks
Wall Street Journal model• Online edition in Chinese
• Some material is free and open to public, about a third
• Annual subscription is $199 online, check that
Entrepreneurial mentality
• It´s cheaper and easier to try something than to debate about it.
-- David Cohn, spot.us
“Create something that you want to exist in the world, something that interests and inspires you. You have to have confidence in your gut feelings.”
• “Plant the seeds and watch what grows. Let the audience tell you what the product should be.”
-- Evan Williams co-founder de Twitter
Low barriers to entry
“The majority of new projects are going to fail, and so what? The cost of failure is low.”
-- Dan Gillmor, Arizona State, guru of citizen journalism
News Entrepreneurs
Forget about the MBA
“Instead of making strategic plans, you should experiment.”
-- Clay Shirky, NYU
News Entrepreneurs
Media environment
• Focus is more local, in geographic or thematic niches, hyperlocal sites
• Nonprofit media are emerging – Minnpost, Texas Tribune, Voice of San Diego, West Seattle Blog
The media environment
• Immediacy. If your site lacks breaking news, people leave.
• Users dictate where, when and on what platform they consume news.
• Newspapers publish news now, on the web, not in their next edition.
The new face of journalism
Brian Stelter
• Established CableNewser at age 19
• Attracted audience, blog aggregator
• Broke news, exclusives, on tips
• Executives, journalists leaked scoops to him
The new model
• Independent journalist
• Depended on audience for news, tips
• He was self-made, a nobody from nowhere who created value
More than 70,000 followers on Twitter
Brian, ¿Serás mi amigo en Facebook?
How print media can prosper
• Explain
• Synthesize
• Deepen
• Analyze
• Put in context
Skills needed for digital journalists
-- How to create multimedia products
-- How to write for the Web
-- How to manage online communities
Survey of 43 large Latin American newspapers by Guillermo Franco
Mobile journalist, myth and reality
• Mojo, mobile journalist, who does everything
• Not fair and barely possible
New language of multimedia
• Video
• Audio
• Interactive graphics, maps
• Still the essence is storytelling
The question is...
• What is the best way to tell a story?
• What can we publish immediately and what can we hold for tomorrow
News Divine, Cuentas Pendientes, El Universal
Two-way communication
• Everyone has a voice on the Web
Sharing culture
Democratization of media
OhMyNews of South Korea
2.3 million monthly visits
225 articles per day from 70,000 citizen journalists
55 editors
Crowdsourcing
Free, uncontrolled communication
The media no longer control:
-- the message
-- the time to publish
-- the brand
Your business stinks
His crime
The reaction in Facebook
The reaction, raise money
Restult: Twitter sender freed
Trend toward integration
Survey of 700 editors and newspaper executives from 120 countries in 2008, by Reuters, World Association of Newspapers, Inter American Press Association
86% believe newsrooms will be integrated in five years.
VG Group of Norway
Source: Periodismo Integrado, Ramón Salaverría, Universidad de Navarra
Source: Periodismo Integrado, Ramón Salaverría, Universidad de Navarra
Three distinct models
• VG Group of Norway, no duplication
• Politico.com, enormous online audience but all its revenues from print
• Malaysiakini.com the English subscriptions allow free versions in Chinese, Tamil and Malay
Lessons of The Daily Telegraph
• Support of top executives was essential
• Editors had to be tenacious
• A small team committed to change works well
• There is time for training; the operation won´t fall apart
• Communicate the new media reality
-- Editor Chris Lloyd
The Daily Telegraph
• “We give people what they want, when they want it and in the form they want it”.
-- Will Lewis, director
(In other words, “It´s the audience, stupid.”)
Manchester business weekly
• I arrived at 7 each morning in order to have the news fresh at 9 a.m., long before the daily, Manchester Evening News
• email update went out at 12.
• All the news feeds were automatic from the stock markets and other news sources
Integration at El Clarín
• 35 people trained in three months
• One central desk for all platforms
• A desk for breaking news
• Digital journalists were sent to “infect” every section
– Source: Darío Datri
Zero Hora in Brazil
• 8 newspapers, 19 radio stations,18 television stations
• Training was voluntary, 26 journalists started blogs
• Of 240 journalists, 70-80 work for both print and digital, 34 only online
• 24 photographers, and all shoot video
Cultural change at El Tiempo• From one deadline to 24/7
• The role of the journalist is to tell stories in whatever medium works best
• We´re not manufacturing newspapers but producing news for our audience
The audience wants news in various formats and moves easily among platforms
-- Guillermo Franco, editor, ElTiempo.com
De Volksrant, Holland
• "If you see that the organization puts the Internet in the center of the newsroom, you make it clear that it is the most important channel to serve.” Cultural change is the most important driver of integration.
– Jan Hart, Editor
People, processes, platforms
• Training after an analysis of needs and skills
• Create a profile of skills needed
• Processes, flow of information
• Compatibility, simplicity, speed, costs
Processes
• Why do we have this meeting, who has to be in it and why?
• Create a flowchart of news and photos to understand the processes
• Have deadlines that coincide with peak use; have meetings aimed at serving peak use
Train the people
• Do a survey of their skills and interests
• Match people´s skills with jobs
• Create a wiki with resources, documents, news updates, training materials
• Communicate fully and frequently
• Have a daily activity bulletin
Not more work, but different
• Your job is to generate news for all platforms
• Why? To serve the audience
• How did you learn how to use a cellphone, a computer, a fax machine?