Greek journalism going online Parameters of change in the greek media landscape through online newsrooms - Master Thesis

___D U K Universitat Krems / ‘A θηνά ’ Ερευνητικό Κέντρο ( ΓΓΕΤ ) / ‘ Ιδρυμα Α . Β . Μπότση ___

POSTGRADUATE COURSE OF STUDYMASTER OF ARTS

IN“QUALITY JOURNALISM AND NEW TECHNOLOGIES”

‘

Dissertation of Master of Artsof Candidate

Angeliki Boubouka

Athens, January 30 2011(Proof version of June 2015)

Greek journalism going online

Parameters of change in the Greek media landscape through online newsrooms

Analytic Project

Master Thesis of Angeliki Boubouka / January 2011 1

Consultant / SupervisorQJ&NT: George Apostolopoulos

Additional Consultant:Andreas Christodoulides (ANA-MPA Special Advisor)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Executive Summary...........................................................................4

Introduction......................................................................................5

Literature Review..............................................................................6

Background.......................................................................................9

Research Objectives........................................................................11

Methodology....................................................................................12

Research Findings............................................................................14

a. Site models ..............................................................................14 a.1 Typology of news sites………………………………………………………………..14

a.2 Connections with parent media…………………………………………………..14a.3 Convergence and integration with relative media………………………16


a.4 The net-natives……………………………………………………………………………17a.5 The new media environment……………………………………………………….18a.6 Influence by international media…………………………………………………19

b. Financial and institutional challenges ............................................20

b.1 Business models………………………………………………………………………….20 b.2 Hits and audience measurements………………………………………………21b.3 Revenues – advertising………………………………………………………………23b.4 Advertising tax (“aggeliosimo”)…………………………………………………24b.5 The institutional deficit……………………………………………………………….26

c. Online newsroom – structure and workflow ...................................28

c.1 Location and space………………………………………………………………………28c.2 Staff……………………………………………………………………………………………..28c.3 Payments - social security…………………………………………………………..29 c.4 Press credentials………………………………………………………………………….30c.5 Signature……………………………………………………………………………………..31c.6 Working hours………………………………………………………………………………31c.7 Work flow……………………………………………………………………………………..32c.8 Multitasking………………………………………………………………………………….33c.9 Skills……………………………………………………………………………………………..34

d. Challenges to professional dynamics .............................................36

d.1 Who is journalist? …………………………………………………………………………36d.2 Hierarchy – Who’s the chief? ……………………………………………………….38d.3 What is source?…..………………………………………………………………………..39d.4 The “blogs” issue…………………………………………………………………………..40

e. Online content ...........................................................................41

e.1 Dependence from parent media…………………………………………………..41e.2 Productivity versus depth…………………………………………………………….42e.3 News agencies’ content………………………………………………………………..43e.4 Photos……………………………………………………………………………………………44e.5 Video and audio…………………………………………………………………………….45e.6 Infographics………………………………………………………………………………….47

f. Web 2.0 practices .......................................................................48

f.1 Interactivity…………………………………………………………………………………..48f.2 Sharing content…………………………………………………………………………….49


f.3 Social media………………………………………………………………………………….49f.4 User Generated Content……………………………………………………………….50f.5 Users’ comments…………………………………………………………………………..52 f.6 Archive…………………………………………………………………………………………..55f.7 Metadata………………………………………………………………………………………..55f.8 Links……………………………………………………………………………………………….56f.9 Content theft……………………………………………………………………………….…57

g. “IT phone home” (Internet Technologies as an alien) ........................58

g.1 The IT gap……………………………………………………………………………………..58g.2 IT development……………………………………………………………………………..59 g.3 Outsourcing……………………………………………………………………………………61

h. What future for the media and their workers? ..................................61

i. Need for (what) regulations?..........................................................63

Conclusions .......................................................................................65

Discussion of Findings and Conclusions – Implications .....................68

Recommendations for further research .............................................69

Appendix ...........................................................................................70 Interview points for online media executives and chief editors……..…………70 Acronyms……………………………………………………………………………………………………..76

References ........................................................................................77


Executive summary

The online transition of Greek media industry has brought structural, organizational, cultural and institutional challenges for both media organizations and media professionals. The aim of my research was to explore a wide range of these challenges and identify several changes in the media landscape. To achieve that, I focused on a number of significant news sites and studied the way their newsrooms work. I concluded that most of the sites stand as extensions of their parent traditional media organizations, within an emerging environment of increasing new media. Their newsrooms arestaffed by editors who are less privileged than their colleagues in print/broadcast editions, while workflow focuses on immediacy and multitasking. Adoption of interactivity and multimediality is growing but it is still rather poor. Innovation and a smoother transition to the digital era seems to be delayed by the lack of institutional regulations and due to the deficient IT understanding by crucial actors of the online media outlet.


Introduction

About fifteen years after the launch of the first Greek news sites, the domestic media industry is facing significant transformations inseveral levels. Dynamics of media transition into the digital era deregulate dominant structures and doubt established practices and values.

Traditional media organizations were the first to go online launching Greek-speaking news sites, expanding their brand-names on the Internet. Their digital editions, however, have always been highly depended on their print/broadcast parents for content and funds. The online workers have also been confronted as an inferior journalistic category, with lower payments and without institutionalcoverage of their profession, due to lack of relevant regulations.Additionally, a wider news ecosystem, mainly consisting of new medialaunched during the last 2-3 years, has contributed to the rapid transformation of what we knew as a solid mass media environment. A growing number of online-only news sites started to challenge traditional media’s dominance, taking advantage of the low entry costs on the Internet and introducing even more flexible working conditions and business models.

This is happening while legacy media industry is obviously confronting the most serious crisis of the last decades. Newspaper publishers -who are also the main shareholders of major broadcast media- were already suffering from the dramatic loss of print audience when the current economic crisis came, causing further erosion in sales and advertising revenues. The recession acceleratedcost-cutting measures, salary reductions, firing staff and newspaperclosures.

On the other hand online audience is steadily increasing, reflectingthe newspaper readership decline and the rapid growth of the Internet. Yet, so far, news sites have failed to monetize their


popular digital editions by discovering revenue sources and implementing viable financial models. Media organizations still act as if print and broadcast are their core business and hesitate to invest in expensive online experiments. Several efforts to integrateoffline and online staff as well as content production mechanisms indifferent outlets have been introduced in limited scale, although workers have not always been enthusiastic about them.

Furthermore, the Internet has introduced differences concerning the online journalist’s role and his professional practices, compared tohis print/broadcast colleagues. Apart from the institutional and labor distinction between them (which seems to be a Greek paradox), online editors also have to adapt to an increased need for more openness towards their audience and to develop skills of multitasking.

Embracing interactivity and developing Web 2.0 features has been a challenge for both media organizations and their workers, contradicting the passive role they historically reserved for their audiences and the dominant top-down approach of news production within the society.

The aim of this research is to explore substantial parameters of theonline media environment transformation by identifying the nature ofcurrent changes and the effect they have on media organizations, media workers and journalism. In order to approach the way media organizations transform, I focused on online newsroom structures andpractices, arguing that their dynamics affect in multiple ways traditional media and vice versa. Understanding the extension and perceived value of this transformation might be a useful tool for academics and professionals who will try to study the way online journalism is practiced in Greece.

Literature Review

My approach is based on the concept of “media logic” introduced by Mark Deuze (Deuze, 2008), which points to specific forms and processes that organize the work done within a particular medium.“Applying media logic as a tool for contemporary mainstream newsworkmeans I examine the [1] institutional, [2] technological, [3] organizational and [4] cultural features of what is like to work in journalism. Ultimately, this approach may be a useful way to consider journalism as part of (and tied to) a broader media ecosystem, as operating on a wider context of social, economical and


technological forces, and as a profession that has its own unique ways of dealing with such influences” (Deuze, 2008)

A number of previous studies concerning structural changes in media industries around the globe indicated that what is currently happening in Greece has preceded in other countries with earlier Internet penetration, such as the USA (Kirchhoff, 2009 - Cummings, Vogl, Alvarez Casanova & Rodriguez Borlado, 2009 - Project For Excellence In Journalism: “The Changing Newsroom”, 2008 -Barnhurst, 2002), Australia (Flew, 2009), Great Britain (Thurman & Lupton, 2008- Thurman, 2008 - Hermida & Thurman 2007), Spain (Larrañaga Rubio, 2008), Denmark (Bjorn-Andersen, L.B.Rasmussen & S.Rasmussen, 2009) and Belgium (Paulussen, 2004). These studies described a variety of strategies and business models several media organizations adopted for their digital editions as well as journalistic practices appliedonline.Though Greek media owners have acted as followers of existing business models abroad, several suggestions and conclusions of the aforementioned studies have been taken in mind while designing the current research:Eight years ago, K.G.Barnhurst suggested that “print publishers use their internet presence as a low-cost place holder that guards theirU.S. market position and erects a barrier to the entry of geographical competitors and ideological alternatives in the U.S. news arena” (Barnhurst, 2002). In 2004, Paulussen concluded that “Flemish online news media do not fully explore the potential of the Internet yet” because “news organizations follow a defensive media strategy on the Internet (motivated by profit concerns), in which online journalists cannot take full advantage of those Internet-specific features that might make their Website more ‘valuable’ and, thus, more profitable” (Paulussen 2004). Two years ago, Bjorn-Andersen, L.B.Rasmussen & S.Rasmussen concludedthat “the Web 2.0 implies the need for fundamental re-thinking of the business models of the news media sector and for developing a new framework for business modelling for this sector” (Andersen, L.B.Rasmussen & S.Rasmussen, 2009). Larrañaga Rubio indicated that although “the ICTs are (…) furtheringthe increased loss of readers, especially among the youngest (…) a more intensive use of the Internet is voiced as a means to recover the audience and increase incomes through advertising. (…) [However]“low penetration level of Information Society in Spain acts as an obstacle in the development of the [newspaper] industry” (Larrañaga Rubio, 2008).


Journalism as a profession is also challenged by new practices and by the fact that online media tend to adopt interactivity and more openness towards their audiences. J.B. Singer suggested that “onlinenews workers fundamentally challenge the already-disputed concept ofjournalists as professionals” (Singer, 2003).Describing the challenges journalists face in the digital era, Deuzeargued that “journalists today enter a workforce that is built on the heyday of the 20th century era of omnipresent mass media, but that is expected to perform in a contemporary news ecology where individualization, globalization, and the pervasive role of corresponding networked technologies challenge all the assumptions traditional newsmaking is based upon” (Deuze, 2008).Yet technologic developments alone are not sufficient for a radical transformation of editorial practices or for a wider adoption of Web2.0 practices such as interactivity and audience engagement to contribute with user generated content. Studying the adoption of multimedia and interactive technologies in US online newsrooms, Boczkowski also proposed an approach, which involves the influence of three production factors: organizational structures, work practices and representations of users. (Boczkowski, 2004)Studying several cases of emerging participatory news practices in the Netherlands, Germany, Australia and the USA, indicated that “convergence culture in journalism, relies on the readiness of both sides of the equation: participants must bring and/or build an understanding of how to operate in a news “produsage” environment just as much of as journalists must develop a sense of how to reinvent themselves as co-creators of culture” (Deuze, Bruns & Neuberger, 2007).Studying the interactivity in Spanish online newsrooms, David Domingo found that “journalists in the cases analyzed embraced interactivity as a crucial feature of their work, but in practice the professional culture and the priority given to immediacy –which fitted better the values and routines of traditional journalism- made them perceive audience participation as a problem to manage rather than a benefit for the news product, except for the case of the online-only portal. The fact that interactivity is counter-intuitive with the principles of traditional journalistic culture tended to diminish the willingness to explore audience participation”. (Domingo, 2008)In addition, a recent study of UGC in Catalan online newspapers concluded that the “journalistic benefits of comments in news do notrevert directly in the news production process. Interviewees acknowledge that they can know their users better through their contributions, but use other channels for newsworthy inputs”. (Noci,Domingo, Masip, Micó & Ruiz, 2010)


In Greek online press “the range of possible forms and expressions of interactivity are limited and uneven. The dominant journalistic culture of Greece –in combination to political and cultural traits of the country- is assumed to hinder the expected development of Webpublishing” (Spyridou & Veglis, 2008).

A series of recent studies focused on multimedia adoption and UGC initiatives in British news media. “Established news organizations are shifting towards the retention of a traditional gatekeeping rolewith regard to UGC as a way of integrating user media into a professional journalistic framework. (..) Newsroom culture, defined as the shared beliefs and values that shape employees’ thinking and behaviours, frames the approach towards UGC” (Hermida & Thurman, 2008). “A high degree of experimentation in traditional news publishers’ approaches to multimedia with no clear certainty about what will work of fail”, was revealed by interviewing senior editorsand managers of national online new sites (Thurman & Lupton, 2008). In addition “online, self-published current affairs journalism and new publications built on a preponderance of reader contributions are starting to offer alternatives to established news providers. Atthe same time mainstream sites have begun to host spaces for user generated content, although not as a direct or linear response to these so-called “grassroots” or “citizen journalism” activities” (Thurman, 2008).

Several terms used here are based on the definitions given by Deuze.“Editorial content” includes “texts (including written and spoken word, moving and still images), produced and/or edited by journalists” (Deuze, 2003). The term “convergence” indicates “the introduction of cross-media (integrated) marketing and management projects (Deuze 2004)

Typology of news sites adopted in the current research has also beenintroduced by Deuze (Deuze, 2003) proposing the following four categories:

1. “Mainstream news sites” are the ones that offer “a selection of editorial content and a minimal, generally filtered or moderated form of participatory communication (Schultz, 1999; Jankowski and van Selm, 2000, Kenney et al., 2000). This type of content is distinctive in that it can be characterized as originated (produced originally for the Web) or aggregated (sholoved from a linked parentmedium, “framed” or “deep-linked” from an external source – not in the least done by so-called artificial market actors such as searchbots and spiders [software that automatically enables internetsearches]; see Gatarski 2001). As mainstream news sites are


considered several “net native” news sources which “are generally outside of the mainstream media”.2.”Index and category sites” are the ones where” journalists offer (deep-) links to existing news elsewhere on the world wide web. Those hyperlinks are sometimes categorized and even annotated by editorial teams, thus generally featuring more or less contextualized (or contextually presented) aggregated content (see Paul, 1995)”3. Meta- and comment sites”. This category includes “sites about newsmedia and media issues in general”.Deuze also mentions the phenomenon of labeling as “new” online journalism a weblog or “blog”, which is “often highly personal online periodical diary by an individual, not on the least by a journalist, telling stories about experiences online and offering readers links with comments to content found while surfing the web (Lasica, 2001; Blood, 2002, Perseus, 2002)”. He frames them “somewhere between index and comment sites”4. Share and discussion sites. This category includes sites that utilize the potential of the internet for connectivity facilitating “platforms for the exchange of ideas, stories and so forth, often centered around a specific theme”.According to Deuze “all four types of news sites can be considered to belong to a professional domain of journalism, as the function of(most of) these sites is still the same as the main purpose of journalism according to its dominant liberal-progressive definition in elective democracies worldwide: to providecitizens with the information that they need to be free and self-governing(Kovach and Rosenstiel, 2001: 17; see also Weaver, 1998). For onlinejournalism, one could add the purpose of offering ‘Netizens’ platforms andtools to exchange the views and information needed in order to realizefreedom and self-government.”

Background

Print media started publishing on the Web in the middle of the ‘90s.At first they just uploaded the content of their print edition online. Most of the Greek newspapers that went online –even the onesthat go these days- passed through this phase of just redistributingthe print content. During course, they started producing original content by creating online newsrooms, usually separated from their print/broadcast newsrooms and staffed them mostly with younger and


less experienced workers, or with experienced journalists who eitherwere unemployed or needed a second job. Several media organizations invested in their news sites during the golden years of the mid-90, when they entered the stock market. Bigger newsrooms and more original production -according to the standard of traditional media- did not turn out to be viable. Onlineadvertising did not grow as expected, newsrooms shrunk and media owners adopted more conservative strategies. Funds gathered during those golden years, vanished without significant innovation left behind.

Online industry is still rather dominated by traditional media. Mostof the top sites are affiliated to news organizations who own the major newspapers and broadcasters. Online media seem far from being profitable without the support of parent traditional media; but now it’s the “parents” who suffer.Trapped in the middle of two economic crises –due to the international and lately the national recession- Greek media experience obvious structural changes during the last two years. Advertising revenues are dropping while running costs remain high and most media organizations are burdened with heavy debt loads. Thepress has relied for decades on press subsidies (επιδοτήσεις) and state ads, which have shrunk. The estimated newspaper publishing market decline in Greece was up to 20% during the period 2007-2009, according to the OECD report “The future of news and the Internet”1. Greece had the third worst performance (following the USA and the UK). In 2008, their advertising revenues represented 57% of their total revenues, makingthem more vulnerable to the decline that followed. In 2010 advertising revenues for media is estimated2 to have dropped at the levels of 1993 (-40% for TV, less for other media).

These changes are turning more and more violent during the last 6 months; cost-cutting measures include salary reductions, firing, andnewspaper closures. Media owners have started putting pressure for the implementation of operational3 or even individual employment contracts opposed to the Collective Agreements traditionally signed between media workers’ and owners’ unions. Current negotiations between the unions –still in progress since late 2010- indicate

1 http://www.oecd.org/document/48/0,3746,en_2649_34223_45449136_1_1_1_1,00.html2 http://www.themediaproject.gr/mediatheme.php?id=28863 Skai Media Group was the first to force its workers sign a 10% reduction of their salaries, applied on December 2010. Several followed, proposing reductions up to 50% until late January 2011.


publishers’ intention to move towards more integrated business models which deeply affect working conditions e.g. it has been proposed that journalists should work for different outlets (print/broadcast and online) of media organizations without extra payments or that they will have less working days during the week and get reduced payments. Regardless where current negotiations willend up, it is obvious that Greek media industry and journalism are shifting to a new era, crossing a rough path.

At the same time, a new and less institutional outlet is being formed online, competing traditional media and transforming journalistic practices and values. An unmeasured number of news sites and “news blogs” introduce formats of news and opinion contentproduction, aggregation and commenting. Some of them are believed tobe connected to investors who do not reveal their corporate identities. The fact that they recruit well known journalists and personalities to contribute with content –often without being paid- indicates that Greek journalists and professionals experiment with ways to project their professional identities online. Their empirically observable popularity might also indicate that Internet users turn to alternative information formats.On the other hand the fact that several news sites produce content through newsrooms staffed by an assumed army of undeclared workers indicates an important lack of legal arrangements and an institutional gap that neither the State nor the unions have dealt with.

About a decade ago, Papathanassopoulos concluded that media entrepreneurship in Greece is not motivated only by commercial interests but also by their scope to promote other business interests:“The entry of business people, shipping company owners and other business interests into the media scene is an important way for these interests to try to influence public opinion and to exert pressure in the political arena to the benefit of their business interests. It is obvious that Greek media owners want to have the means to put pressure on politicians because of the huge financial interests they hold, such as telecommunications, shipping, refining,etc. This pressure is useful when fighting for government contracts.This is due to the structure of the Greek economy, in which the state plays a much larger role than in developed capitalist countries and so many important decisions affecting entrepreneurs rest in the hands of politicians. Being able to influence public opinion has become an important business tool for the media owners. (…) In such a small market, with too many media outlets, it is the media owners who pay the bill in order to profit from their other


business interests in the wider economic sector” (Papathanassopoulos, 2001).This approach seems to reflect a significant part of the emerging online media environment.

Meanwhile, the audience continues its online migration for news consumption (among other uses). According to the later (March 2010) research of the Greek Observatory of Information Society4 “Trends inInternet use for communication, information and entertainment” 5, on 2008: 18% (double since 2005) of Greeks used the Internet to download/read newspapers and magazines, while the EU27 average was 25% (17% in 2005). Yet, Greeks seem more eager to quit reading printmedia and turning to online media, than the European average. Over 10% of Greeks had replaced print media with reading news online, versus 8% of Europeans who did the same.According to the same study, in 2008, 59% of Greek households had broadband Internet connections (7,3% in 2005) compared to 80% of theEE27 average (48% in 2005); 26% of Greeks used the Internet almost everyday (11% in 2005) compared to 43% of the EE27 average (48% in 2005). The study also concluded a rising popularity of blogs: About 4% (12% at the age group of 16-24) of the citizens had recently created or maintained personal blogs while 12% (32% at the age groupof 16-24) had recently read blogs.

At the same time, online advertising spent is raising. It increased by 42% during 2008-2009, reaching a total of 57,8 million euro in Greece in 2009, according to IAB Hellas6. Considering that IAB measures only display advertising (and only among its members) the real online advertising spent -including search ads- is estimated tobe double, representing 4-5% of the total advertising spent in Greece (Kamaras)7.

Research Objectives

The current research aspires to identify and write down a variety offorms and processes that organize the work in online newsrooms of significant news sites, in an effort to contribute to the need for understanding the fundamental changes Greek journalism is going through. To achieve that, I had to give answers to the following questions:

4 www.observatory.gr5 http://www.observatory.gr/page/default.asp?la=1&id=2101&pk=435&return=1836 www.iab.gr7 Interviewed for the current research. See “Methodology”.


-How do news sites under research stand in the emerging online mediaenvironment?-How does the Internet challenge media organizations and institutions?-Which structural and organizational elements of online newsrooms differentiate (or relate) them from (to) print/broadcast newsrooms?-How is information being managed in online newsrooms and what content do they produce?-To what extend do online media and their journalists adopt interactivity and multimediality? How influenced are they by Web 2.0?-What is considered to be innovative and how do online media take advantage of Internet Technologies potentials?-What kind of financial and institutional challenges do media professionals face in the digital era?

Methodology

The core research was based mainly on interviews with journalists and executives of news sites. The content of these interviews was coded around the topics of the research objectives. Content analysisled to common approaches and differentiations in practices, assumptions and beliefs of the respondents around a variety of issues. Some of these issues where unforeseen but emerged spontaneously and repeatedly during several interviews and thereforewhere included in the findings. Identification of patterns led to conclusions about basic parametersof the changing news environment, and the evolving role of online editions in the new digital era.

The first round included open interviews with five (n=5) employees who are experiencing the changing online news ecosystem from inside,in different professional positions: management, chief-editing, working in a newsroom, advertising, IT development and unionism. Conversations with them lasted from 1 to 2,5 hours each and where around the evolvements that they identify in Greek news environment because of the Internet.The content of these interviews a) confirmed many of the peak issuesand considerations of the research objectives b) stimulated deeper approach in some of them c) enriched the questionnaire that was later on used in the interviews with executives of the news-sites under investigation.Complementary to the above, I used abstracts from two (n=2) more interviews, produced by Anna Faltaits (Faltaits, 2010): With Vassilis Koufopoulos, journalist specialized in reporting on media


business in Greece and Sofia Zafiri, journalist employed at Euro2day.gr. Those interviews were basically around business models of online media, but the abstracts excised and used here, referred to issues concerning the present research.

A second round included semi-structured interviews with nine (n=9) executives or senior editors of some of the top news websites of Greece. We can sub-group these sites into two (n=2) general news portals, two (n=2) newspaper online editions, two (n=2) financial sites, one (n=1) news sites connected to a financial newspaper and two (n=2) net native news sites. Criteria to select those websites were a) ownership connections with dominant traditional media of thecountry (domination is identified by their print sales –for newspapers- or ratings -for audiovisual media- and by empirically observable influence) b) their high profile in online audiences (hits and links to them).One out of ten (n=10) news websites that were initially selected andinvited to take part at the research did not participate: Protothema.gr, the online edition of one of the most selling Sunday newspapers of the country.Among the nine (n=9) who accepted to participate, Naftemporiki.gr replied to only a few questions, the ones that were approved by directors after examining the questionnaire. This is differentiatingNaftemporiki.gr from the rest of the sample, but I decided to acceptthis restriction, since it comes from a news website that is considered to be one of the best-structured in Greece and it was often referenced during the rest of the interviews.In all the other eight (n=8) cases, however, there were also questions that the interviewees did not want to answer, for several reasons. For example, journalists often said that they did not have a clear image about issues which are handled and monitored by the owners, the managers, the marketing or the IT department. Vise versa, some executives did not know some details e.g. concerning some practices of the newsroom. All those not given answers were also evaluated during the content analysis, because they indicate the level or disruption in news organizations.

A third round of targeted interviews included four (n=4) people who were asked to give a picture of three specific issues: 1) A Greek executive of IAB Europe and of several news and sports websites described the development of online media and online advertising in Greece 2) The president of the Association of Greek Press Photographers explained the problems that they face, 3) the marketing director of the Greek national news agency “ANA-MPA” gave information about the use of its content by online media and websites and 4) the solicitor of the Journalists’ Union of Athens


Daily Newspapers analyzed legal and institutional issues that unionists have to deal with.

In detail (and in chronological order):

Open interviews were made, from March to June 2010 with:

-Stavros Drakoularakos, general manager of the news website www.news247.gr-Christos Zarifis*, chief editor of the newspaper “Metochos” (connected with the news website www.euro2day.gr)-Nasos Bratsos, unionist of “Financial Crimes” (bloc of ESIEA), journalist in www.ert.gr (the website of the National Radio and Television)-Marios Kalogeropoulos, editor/reporter (at the time of the interview working for www.zougla.gr and at the Greek National Radio)-Kostas Perifanos, IT developer at www.enet.gr

Semi-structured interviews were made, from July to August 2010, with:

-Nikos Georgiadis, chief editor/director of www.zougla.gr-Alex Hobson, director of www.skai.gr and related sites-Nikos Moumouris, coordinator of www.enet.gr-Tasos Economou, chief editor of www.kathimerini.gr-Dimitris Glistras, chief editor of www.euro2day.gr-Thanasis Mavridis, director of www.capital.gr -Ioanis Mandalidis, director of the newsroom of www.in.gr-Christos Dogas, chief editor of www.naftemporiki.gr (limited numberof questions answered)-Katerina Kitidi, chief editor of www.tvxs.gr

Targeted interviews were made from July to August 2010 with:

-Konstantinos Kamaras, IAB Europe executive (shareholder and executive of several news and sports websites during the last decade)-Marios Lolos*, president of the Union of Greek Press Photographers-Maria Papatolia*, Marketing Director of ANA-MPA (Athens News Agency– Macedonian Press Agency)-Lazaros Belitsis, solicitor of ESIEA (Journalists’ Union of the Athens Daily Newspapers)

*Note: The interviews with Ch.Zarifis, M.Lolos and M.Papatolia were taped by telephone. The rest of them were made in person, usually atworking places of the interviewees.


http://www.tvxs.gr/

http://www.naftemporiki.gr/

http://www.in.gr/

http://www.capital.gr/

http://www.euro2day.gr/

http://www.kathimerini.gr/

http://www.enet.gr/

http://www.skai.gr/

http://www.zougla.gr/

http://www.enet.gr/

http://www.zougla.gr/

http://www.ert.gr/

http://www.euro2day.gr/

http://www.news247.gr/

All interviews were fully transcribed in order to be content analyzed.

Research Findings

a. Site models

a.1 Typology of news sites

All of the sites under analysis are mainstream news sites. They produce original content and most off them also rely –more or less- on parent media‘s content. Zougla.gr and Tvxs.gr differ, first of all because they are both net native and secondly because they are not connected with traditional media in the same way that the other seven sites are. In the case of Tvxs.gr one can argue that it has characteristics of an index and category site, as it offers deep links to stories by other media and sources around the Web.

Several interviewees used news agencies as a benchmark model of several characteristics of their site: content variety, coverage speed. Others have indirectly referenced influences by the blogs especially concerning online-only sites. These influences seem to beeither structural, organizational, or concerning the work flow.

a.2 Connections with parent media

Print/broadcast and online newsrooms are closely tied. Content produced by parent media is usually dominant in the online editions,except from the cases that the traditional medium is a weekly newspaper.

-Skai.gr (since 2006) is connected to “Skai 100,3” radio and “Skai Television”. During present research, the site and the radio both belonged to the same company and TV belonged to a different one (by the end of 2010 all three formatted a single company). The main siteis also connected to a number of new and smaller ones: Woop.gr (a sports site), Ilove.gr (started as the site of the television program of Skai and at the time of the research was about to start transforming to a site of Greek touristic destinations) and some more.

- In.gr was created in 1999 and was the second online news site thatappeared in Greece, after Flash.gr. It is considered to be an autonomous medium of DOL and belongs to a different company.


Mandalidis said that its content “was always independent from the relative media, but they cooperate”. In.gr uses content from the twonewspapers (“To Vima” -daily8 and weekly- and “Ta Nea” daily), theironline editions www.tovima.gr and www.tanea.gr, the magazines (“Mummy”, “Vita” etc) and the radio station (“Vima FM”) of DOL mediagroup, as well as video from “Mega Channel” TV station (DOL is a shareholder).

-Enet.gr is the online edition of “Eleftherotipia” daily newspaper and “Kiriakatiki Eleftherotipia” weekly (Sunday) newspaper. Since its launch in 1995, it reproduced the print content (except few breaking news). It started producing original content in a beta version during the summer of 2008 and it was officially restructuredin March 2009. Enet.gr reproduces the whole print content every morning and produces original content during the day.

-Kathimerini.gr is the online edition of “Kathimerini” (daily and Sunday editions) since 2001. The site just reproduced the print content, until 2005, when it incorporated the news site www.e-one.grwhich produced original content. Its staff was transferred to Kathimerini.gr, where they started enriching the content with breaking news, special news folders and (later) multimedia content. Since then Kathimerini.gr has partly shrunk, but still combines the print with originally produced content.

-Euro2day.gr is the financial news site of Media2Day media group, which also owns www.in2life.gr (started as an entertainment “insert”of Euro2day and became autonomous in 2006), www.stoplearning.gr (offers financial courses in English, for free, in cooperation with the Stock Market), www.iatronet.gr (about health and care news) as well as “Metochos” weekly (Friday) financial newspaper.Euro2day.gr is the descendant of www.echo2day.gr which was launched around 1999-2000, during the dot.com boost. Echo2day was part of an ambitious and costly investment, aiming to expand in the Balkans through a network of correspondents (in never did). Stock market crisis affected financial media including Echo2day, which passed to his current owner and changed name.

-Capital.gr is a financial site. Its main stakeholder is the owner of “Attica Publications” Media Group (mainly publishing magazines). The site is also connected to “Kefaleo” [=Capital], a financial weekly newspaper9. The site was launched in 2006, based on the pre-

8 “To Vima” daily suspended its print edition on December 2010 and was expected to continue only online.9 A magazine, relaunched as newspaper in 2009.


existing www.stokrally.gr10, with the addition of news content to it.“Kefaleo” newspaper is considered to be a complementary edition of the online.

-Naftemporiki.gr is the online edition of “Naftemporiki” daily financial newspaper; yet the site is not introduced as financial-only but a general news site. It was launched on 1996, among the first Greek online editions. It started producing real time news content in 2001. It is one of the few subscription news sites in Greece. It offers general news for free and a significant amount of specialized financial content (analysis, financial data and tools) for subscribers.

-Zougla.gr was launched in 2008. It was not connected to a pre-existing media organization, although it was linked to the well known, long-living TV show “Zougla”11 [still broadcasted]. Its presenter and producer, Makis Triantafilopoulos was the main shareholder of “Veto” 12, a weekly (Sunday) newspaper lunched about ayear later (November 2009). Zougla.gr and “Veto” belong to two different companies.

-Tvxs.gr, launched in 2008, was never connected to another traditional medium, but it was also indirectly connected to another well known documentary TV show, called “Reportage Xoris Sinora” [=Reports Without Frontiers]. The site was launched soon after the show was cut from the national television (ERT)13. It was created by Stelios Kouloglou, the journalist who presented the show and the name TVXS refers to “TeleVision Xoris Sinora” [=TV Without Frontiers]. Tvxs.gr was initially developed mostly as a web tv. “The aim was to mainly produce video reports, like small “reports without frontiers”, covering some of the current news. During the course we saw the audience and ourselves turning towards pure news. We focusedon that and ended up to the current model of an electronic newspaper. Our new layout, since December 2009, is more like a categorization of news and columns, promoting the news. Before that,the site looked more like a blog, although we didn’t have the mentality of a blog”.

a.3 Convergence and integration with relative media

10 Mainly addressed to stock market investors.11 Still broadcasted.12 The circulation of “Veto” was suspended on January 2011 due to dramatic sales decline during its 14 months of life.13 The program is on the air again since 2010.


Online editions of Greek media organizations mostly stand as extensions of the parent media. This reality is extended in their organizational structures and reflects a mentality of reluctance to embrace digital technologies.Many journalists of the parent media seem to be reluctant to embracethe digital editions. On the other hand, it occurs that there is no successful model of quick and smooth convergence between print/broadcast and online.

Within media organizations of the sample there usually are no independent commercial and marketing departments for the online editions; one or two members of the parent media’s departments are assigned with the task to bring advertising campaigns for the Internet. Even in cases that there are independent departments, theyare not cut off the rest of the Group, because advertising campaignsare negotiated for the brand as a whole. In more detail:-In.gr has different departments than the rest of the media group, which means “some people work for one or the other”. But they cooperate and someone can agree advertising packages with the entiremedia group-Skai Media Group has one common marketing team for all media. One person from the team deals with Skai.gr exclusively. The site also has it own commercial department (staffed by two people) and a project management team (also, two people).-Enet.gr has 1-2 people from the newspaper’s commercial department who deal with the online marketing. -Kathimerini.gr has 1-2 people form the newspaper’s commercial department who deal with online advertising and 2-3 more from the marketing department who handle the promotion of the media group through print and media.-Media2Day media group has a common marketing department for the entire group, including Euro2day.gr and “Metochos”. -Capital.gr and “Kefaleo” newspaper have a common marketing department. [Mid-2010 Capital was the second Greek newspaper14 to experiment with QR codes, in an effort to lead print audience to theonline edition.]-Zougla.gr and Veto had different commercial departments.

The model of Skai.gr was analyzed in more detail. The portal was redesigned in May 2009. Its previous version combined content from Skai Group media, using a divergence model, which led users to watcheither audio or video content. The current architecture is based on a convergence model, combining text, audio and video storytelling. The front page is separated in a main part dedicated in news (up to 52 news stories at the same time) and a secondary part which is 14 The first was “Proto Thema”.


dedicated to marketing and promotion of other group media projects. News is available through an “audiovisual library”, with live media players and audio/video files on demand. “Our strategy is mixed, there is not one model; it is an experiment (…). We are trying to build communicating vessels. Skai.gr may be the large vessel which sends traffic to the smaller ones. These relative sites are being built as stand alone brands, according to the evolving needs of the advertising market. Our core business is purely news, it is Skai.gr;and we are experimenting how we can monetize this online brand” (Hobson).

Vertical integration is already a reality in some media groups. For example Skai Media Group’s radio producers are also TV commentators and write posts for the Skai.gr blog. At In.gr convergence is getting stronger than the past. “This is something that happens gradually. For example we have sections about children and health, parts of which are [produced] in cooperation with the magazines “Mummy” and “Vita”. Other interviewees expressed their wish to see similar efforts e.g. Moumouris said that he would like to see different production departments of Eleftherotipia group “cooperating in a better way”.It is unclear, though, wherever integration is practiced, under which financial terms journalists accept to be working for differenteditions. According to several assumptions (interviewees form the first and third round of interviews) they are forced to accept that.

Integration models are usually tried in small groups. They are either early adaptors of news technologies willing to enter new models voluntarily, or privileged/promoted journalists of a media organization. Working for more than one outlet of the same medium seems to be either a way to adapt to the convergence era and surviveas pioneers or an opportunity to grow the impact of their personal brand name.

a.4 The net-natives

Both Zougla.gr and Tvxs.gr carry the weight of the brand-name of their creators. They are both directors of the sites and their professional status is reflected in the sites’ content and philosophy. They were the first Greek news sites connected to certain well-known journalists, but not the last. Editors in chief of both sites were asked to give the term that, according to them, describes best the media they work for and who they consider to be competitors.


Georgiadis defined Zougla.gr as an “electronic newspaper”. Kitidi defined Tvxs.gr as an “electronic newspaper with video”, though it contains a lot of videos.Regarding competition, Georgiadis said that a competitor of Zougla.gr is “anybody that gets close to the uploading speed that weare committed to reach. It could be a blog, an electronic newspaper,a simple site, a radio, a TV [station] or a news agency”.Kitidi does not think that Tvxs.gr competes –in terms of journalism-neither with mainstream media nor with established online news sites. “Internet does not stand at the same level with newspapers, TV and radio [stations] because it has to combine information of allthree and it has to be faster and give overview cover with analysis and reports for all the stories that come up”. She also distinguishes the content of Tvxs.gr from the content of the mainstream media‘s online editions: “We try to produce more quality content. Newspaper sites mostly reproduce the content of the newspaper and then they try to cover news, but not so much with original reportage for the site itself. (…) We also differ from online-only news sites [she mentions the examples of Zougla.gr and In.gr] because we give weight to different stories, we have a concrete character”. As for the blogs, she believes that they work very differently, in the basis of anonymity and in the way they treat news.Tvxs.gr gives special weight to its “netizen” platform, called “community”, where signed users can upload multimedia and editorial content.

a.5 The new media environment

Different types of news sites have evolved during the last couple ofyears, surrounding mainstream media which dominated the online news market for about fifteen years. There are no official records of howmany these sites are, since the State, unions and institutions have failed to define what a “news site” is. Yet interviewees identify several types of sites and I attempt a categorization according to basic common characteristics attributed to them. -Online-only news sites: Sites producing original editorial content,through newsrooms. Kamaras used the term “dot.com” (comparing them to the American competitors of traditional organizations) although amore accurate term might be “dot.gr”.-Brand name sites: Sites directly referring to certain well-known Greek journalists (more often some TV presenters), producing original news content or opinion/analysis. They also have newsrooms.Zougla.gr and Tvxs.gr were among the first launched fitting this category; others followed.


-Opinion sites: Community sites run and edited by groups of journalists, many of whom are well-known. They mainly produce opinion and analysis.-News blogs: Sites usually launched on blogging platforms and protected by anonymity. They usually do not reveal details about their structure or identity. They often employ editors. They proclaim freedom of information by uploading unfiltered journalisticinformation, complaints etc. -Journalists’ personal blogs: Weblogs or sites declared or attributed to certain journalists, reproducing their work or additional content of their published workThere is a wide variety and differentiation of quality and content. Several among them are compared to news blogs, as an indication of poor quality and controversial practices.

A variety among them, are often mentioned by interviewees as vehicles of corporate and political interests. All interviewees converge in identifying a “jungle” environment of shadow online media, where no law is applied, traditional journalism rules are annulled, working conditions are fluid and revenue streams are obscure. They often refer especially to sports sites, general news sites or the so-called “news blogs” that employ tens of workers but declare and pay for the insurance of only few of them. The fact thatsport news sites where some of the first who went online and were rapidly multiplied, is explained either by the fact that the majority of the internet users were men or by the fact that they arefinanced through online betting (legal and illegal). Financial news sites have also known a significant growth, partly due to the stock market boost of the late ‘90s.

Several among them –even some of the online-only news sitesdo not publish their corporate identities, avoiding audits. A number of sites are believed to have offices registered abroad (in Cyprus or elsewhere), so that they don’t have to comply with Greek labor laws and taxes. They are said to be mainly sports and financial sites. This trend seems to extend to general news sites that launched during 2010. Yet, there are no relevant official records and no authority is known to register or monitor them in any way.

a.6 Influence by international media

International online news brands seem to be closely observed by someexecutives. A number of them mentioned as examples their appreciation for the online editions of The New York Times, The Washington Post, the BBC, the Financial Times, The Guardian or CNN.


What they have mentioned [at least twice among the sample] appreciating about them is: [a] the way they transfer their traditional content online, [b] the way they mix traditional journalism with social media and multimedia, [c] their special editions for devices like smart phones and the “iPad”, [d] their financial models, [e] their communities, [f] their layouts, [g] the features and tools they offer to their audience.

Some of the interviewees mentioned more specific examples of influence:-Euro2day’s structure enriched its news content and structure, influenced by international financial sites. “About 2-3 years after launching, we changed our management system (editing, back-end database etc) and software. We added elements and features which made it more helpful for the user” (Glistras)-Current TV and other sites (“mostly community sites”) have influenced Tvxs.gr especially in the way its content was organized. “We actually take lessons form them and we form our content and layout the way we want to present the news” Kitidi).-The New York Times Example subscription example for news older thantwo weeks was mentioned by Hobson as a possible subscription model for Greek media. -Georgiadis estimated that Zougla.gr works “as a very good TV / radio station or a news agency of the USA, in terms of speed”. Yet he believes that when the site launched there was no other electronic newspaper and the only influence they may have had might concern their layout.

There are two main reasons why western online media work as models: First of all because they are more experienced than domestic media (all technologies were adapted in Greece years later, delaying all relevant progress and innovation). Secondly because the Greek marketis a small one, not only because of frontier and growth limitations but also because of linguistic isolation; therefore no publisher would try invest much in early experimentations. “Technically we cando what international media do. But sometimes there is no point doing things that people will barely use” (Moumouris).

Greek online business models are in a percentage of about 90%, reproduction of foreign recipes, believes Kamaras. Even the initial decision of Greek publishers to go online was forced by what was going on abroad. “They didn’t want it [=going online] at all. They felt that they had to, because they were seeing a new market growingfast”. Greek, along with other European media, learned from the mistakes American media made because of rush to go online and this helped


them to avoid repeating them, assumes Kamaras; but he believes that Greek publishers fail to increase advertising revenues and reduce legacy costs (costs they carry from their traditional business).

b. Financial and institutional challenges

b.1 Business models

Having lost within few years a hundreds of thousands of readers, whoturn to online news, traditional publishers still haven’t found a way to monetize their digital content. “Greek newspapers offered their content without charge from the beginning, a decade ago in order to increase their influence and attract online audience. That was a structural choice and has led to a ‘structural problem’”, believes Koufopoulos.Few publishing groups and stand-alone media try new business models that include new revenue sources: Paid content, pay per document, content created for mobile devices (smartphone apps).Naftemporiki.gr offers for free a certain amount of news and keeps for subscribers a variety of analysis, articles etc.Capital.gr offers stock market analysis to subscribers during the last year.In.gr has a “mixed revenue models”: Google Ads, and subscription services (e.g. online news, stock market, extended mail service (professional mail), cooperation with agencies for booking travels etc. The online editions of corporate-related newspapers, www.tovima.gr and www.tanea.gr, also have subscriptions for newsletters, PDF editions and internal archive search. Skai.gr also develops mobile services and digital signage services (for public spaces etc). Hobson estimated that Skai.gr would try payper view sport events during the following months. He predicted thatfuture revenue models applicable in the Greek market might include pay per view broadcasting (especially for sports events). ”People will start paying –small amounts- for content if they feel value formoney”. Georgiadis agrees that “people will pay if you [the site] are good, fast and you take initiatives on news techniques. But any decision to impose pay walls on the entire content or on parts of it, should be based on an e-commerce analysis for the Greek market. Executives,like myself, work based on instinct because there are no tools available to analyze potential online models”.

Rupert Murdoch‘s decision to impose subscription for the online edition of the Times, was mentioned several times as a barometer of future developments. Greek executives recognize, though, structural


differences of the Greek market. Some agree that subscription modelsmight become a trend among domestic media only after some years, andit will probably concern specialized content and services for niche audiences. Some argue that submissions might concern more services, maybe even readers’ access to core news. Others think that pay models would not be viable for a market as small as the Greek.“I find the subscription model a failure not only but Greece but internationally. In only fits to publishers or organizations that have been able to stand up in vertical niche markets, combining their basic news and commentary content with products. I don’t thinkit worth the effort for small media like a Greek newspaper to investin such experiments that only international media organizations could afford. I would rather see vertical units producing specific products e.g. news for other sites, print products, custom research etc.” (Moumouris)The trend is towards leaving all content free, therefore subscriptions for online media will have no meaning, believes Mavridis. “But we are preparing ourselves for the future, when e-commerce will grow. Our job is not to sell products (books, discs, travel) but we could offer the platform”. Euro2day was working on several subscription services, through partnerships, that would help partners increase their audience and bring Euro2day a percentage of the revenues.Micropayments might be a feasible business model within the next years, but he can’t imagine that subscriptions could work at least during the next 5 years.

Most of mainstream media have some decades old news archives (including audio and video by broadcasters) that they start of thinking how to digitize and monetize in cost effective ways. Some interviewees find that there is an increasing interest by audience about archive news. Developing services based on the access to thosearchives is a possibility that some of the executives believe would be viable in the close future.It is worth mentioning that during December 2010 the Greek government made a call for interest towards the publishing industry and others for an E.U. funded project of content digitalization.

b.2 Hits and audience measurement

Greek online news market has failed to create a commonly accepted metrics system. Most of the dominant news sites rely on Google Analytics for their statistics and so do advertisers. Almost all mention that they have used Alexa analytics in the past, but realized that they are not credible. Three existing subscription metrics tools were mentioned:


-Nielsen Metrics was mentioned as a recently developed tool, expected to work as a more comparative tool for its subscribers.-E-metrics (by AGB) was mentioned as an effort to create an analytics tool for the Greek market.-Focus Bari Metrics (used at least by Skai.gr)Apart from interviewees who mentioned using Google Analytics or comparative tools, Kathimerini.gr uses a private analytics system (Eurisko) for its statistics.

“Google Analytics is the lowest common denominator although we haveNielsen Metrics, for some months now; it’s a system that seems to beaccepted by the advertising market” (Kamaras). The fact that participants have to subscribe for Nielsen Metrics (or any other metrics system) is considered to be an advantage: “You have to pay to enter Nielsen Metrics, so those who do enter are the ones who really invest and want to be players in the advertising market (…) It would be even better if we had more than one metrics tool, in order to restrain the measurer charges and avoid the possibility forpublishers to confront a monopoly, which might hold them as hostages” (Kamaras).

Executives of print-related sites recognize that the online editionshave largest audiences compared to print readers. All available statistics show them that the Internet audience is much younger thatthe print, mainly varying around 20-35 and it is considered to be highly educated. Financial sites’ audience is older that the averageinternet user: around 40 for Capital, 30-65 for Euro2day. Both sites’ users are above average and high income; “that’s why they follow financial and market news” (Glistras). Euro2day identifies another group of loyal users: business students.Compared to print readers, who are older, online media users are also considered to be a more dynamic audience. All qualitative statistics show them that men are more than women, reflecting the available national demographic statistics about Internet users. Few sites mention that their audiences’ profiles come out (partly orexclusively) of data given by users who have participated in severalpolls if the site. “After around 30 online polls on political and social issues, we reliably conclude what is going on. (…) At least 8.000 users participate in each poll and sometimes we have up to 30.000 participants; so we have a sample of 300.000 people”.News sites audience measurement is characterized by strong statistical fluctuations because hits depend on the news variations.Every news site has its loyal visitors but also knows peaks wheneverthere is hot news.


Interviewees were asked to give indicative statistics of traffic andaudience statistics. Each one responded according to what he believed was indicative, based on the tools used for the site he worked for. Therefore, the following data are neither homogeneous nor comparative. Based on statistics available at the time of interviews:-In.gr had 3.000.000 unique visitors per month (Nielsen Metrics). Its audience was roughly 30-40 years old, of medium and high educational level. Most of them came as direct traffic.-Skai.gr had 970.000.000 unique users, or 30.000.000 page views (theso called “impressions”) per month (Google Metrics). A user visited 9-10 pages during his visit and stayed on the site for 12-13 minutes, “because of audio and video”, assumed Hobson. “People listen or watch live audio and video streams. Or they watch on demand programs and news”. Most of the visitors come directly (42%),many come through Google Search (38%) and the rest (20%) is referraltraffic through social media etc.-Enet.gr had 1.200.000 absolute unique visitors per month, based on data published on spring 2010 (Google Analytics). Visitors were morethan 2 million. There were no recent statistics about the audience; older measurements showed that core audience was around the ages of 25-40. Around 30% was direct traffic and the rest was referral (including search, social media, news aggregators etc).-Kathimerini.gr uses a private analytics system (Eurisko media shop)for its statistics. It had around 1.500.000 unique visitors per month in mid 2010.-Euro2day has around 2,5-3 million unique visitors per month (GoogleAnalytics). Direct traffic is overwhelming (90-92% for Euro2day, 70-72% for In2life), while reference is mostly through Google. -Capital.gr publishes online Google Analytics statistics in detail (even per day). During the present research, the site had around 600.000 unique visitors per month. -Naftemporiki.gr had around 1 million unique visitors per month, according to Nielsen / Net Rating.-Zougla.gr: Georgiadis did not want to give ratings. He said that almost all visits are direct.-Tvxs.gr uses Google Analytics. Its audience is younger than the rest news sites; most users are around 18-24 and percentages declineas ages rise. Around 60% of its traffic is direct; search and referral traffic are around 20%.

b.3 Revenues - Advertising

Advertising revenue sources are mainly venture capitals, advertisingrevenue (display and advertorials) and Google Ads. Most of the sites(except Kathimerini.gr) accept Google Ads. Google pays according to


clicks sent to its clients. On the contrary, as explained, Greek advertisers pay according to page views. One of the issues I had not diagnosed but occurred from the first round of interviews was the limited adaptation of the advertising market to the needs of the online media environment. All interviewees who referred to this issue, agreed that greek advertisers still work with quantitative criteria; they ask for hitsand measure campaign success according to thousands of impressions (pages viewed within a specific period) of sites. Though for years there were hardly any reliable metrics about news sites audiences, there are doubts about how profitable this practice is for advertised clients and how it affects online business models.“Greek market is still immature. The dominant logic is “more hits” instead of “specialized audience”. (…) International discussion trending now is about “niche audiences” or “loyal audience” but we still talk about “unique readers”. (…) [But] “chasing high readership is like the dog chasing his tale: It raises costs –due tocompetition-, journalists work till exhaustion, and yet it doesn’t bring you money (because media are corporations, apart from their role as part of the society). Instead you can have smaller audience -that costs less to attract- and make more profit” (Mandalidis).

Legacy mentalities are thought to affect the way advertisers cooperate with news sites which develop/design their campaigns. “In Greece advertisers deal with the Internet as if it was a TV extension. Instead of paying an art director to do the job, they just publish online advertising spots prepared for TV. They need training. We are patient and they are willing to learn.” (Moumouris)Old school advertising also resists the need for shorter online video ads. One interviewee mentioned the example of an advertisementthat headed news videos and lasted 22 seconds, instead of 7-15 (usual duration of online video ads, abroad). The advertised client could not make it shorter and the medium had received 3 negative users’ comments in three weeks about that.“A new culture is needed for advertisers and advertised clients, butit is being formed. We deal with such problems as we go forward” (Hobson).

This perceived immaturity of the advertising market, in combination with the fact that neither traditional media owners seem prepared toadapt to the online environment “is the only thing that has slowed down online advertising growth in Greece. This twin pole cannot keepthe market behind for long, first of all because facts are inexorable (about how internet users grow and how print sales decline) and secondly because many (especially the major) advertising clients are parts of multinational groups and obey


directives form abroad telling them to stop spending on print and goonline” (Kamaras).Kamaras and Mavridis assure that there are companies who ask advertisers to launch their campaigns online, but they resist. “Onlyone sixth of our advertising revenue comes from advertising campaigns that come to us. Our main resources come from direct approach to companies” (Mavridis). Georgiadis estimates that market distortion will lead more clients to launch campaigns through direct partnerships with site owners, skipping intermediaries (media shops and advertisers). “This is already happening; clients, who used to pay expensive campaigns without results, get convinced that this way they will have the audience they want in certain categories”.

On the Internet traditional publishers have to face competitors theyare not prepared for, says Kamaras. “They have to confront strong competition by online-only media as well as new ways of absorbing online ads, which they can not yet exploit or even comprehend e.g. search advertising and practices such as the “ad networks” (advertising companies growing by accumulating small sites and buying campaigns for all of them as packets) which is a new form of organization, toward which traditional publishers have not reacted yet”.He believes that traditional publishers are kept behind because of “heavy structures, poor understanding of the medium [Internet], outdated perceptions about content production and distribution as well as a sense of arrogance towards the advertising market (although they have not realized that online they don’t have the sense of sovereignty or the bargaining power they had towards advertising companies in the traditional world)”.

b.4 Advertising tax (“aggeliosimo”)

“Aggeliosimo”, the advertising tax imposed on traditional media (newspapers, radio, TV) for decades (but not imposed on news sites until today), is the apple of discord for years. The tax consists of20-21,5% of advertising revenue and finances pension fund of media workers (EDOEAP, recently converted to ETAP-MME). Journalists, photojournalists, broadcast technicians and media officer’s social security depends on:-whether advertisers are obliged to pay the extra tax [they don’t ifthey are advertized online] and -whether media owners give back to EDOEAP the tax received by advertisers.


For years, advertisers’ lobby exercises strong pressure not only to avoid the expansion of advertising tax to the Internet but also to reduce (or even annul it) for traditional media.

Many of the interviewees agree that “aggeliosimo” has always been a distortion, because it is a tax paid in favor of a third party (journalists’ social security) without any reciprocation for the onethat pays it (advertisers). “It is not only unethical but also illegal; someone –like the European Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB Europe)- could go to court and repeal it. Besides, trying to impose national restrictions to Internet, by imposing a national advertising tax, is ridiculous” (Moumouris).Yet, the tax determines media working conditions and some of the interviewees believe it should be implied on sites as well. As long as online media are exempted, their editors are not accepted as members of the major journalist’s unions; they form a constantly growing mass of inferior group of workers.

On July 2010 the government proposed a law that would extend the taxon online media (corporations whose exclusive business is the production of original news content in Greek). The law was withdrawnafter a few days.Those who oppose to “aggeliosimo” argue that it would deprive news sites from an income vital for their growth and would have several implications on the evolving media environment (e.g. it would cause an advertising shift towards non-news sites and aggregation sites). Those who are in favor of it believe that it will eliminate inequality and they hope that the government will find the politicalwillingness to impose it as soon as possible.

Executives of the news sites were questioned whether they agree of disagree with a number of arguments posed by both supporters and opponents of the tax, about what it might cause.Many executives agree that imposing advertising tax on online news sites would reduce or freeze their advertizing revenues; they believe that advertisers will not increase their total spent (especially during the current recession), they will just deprive the tax from their campaigns budget (Hobson, Mavridis, Georgiadis). “Online media revenues are increasing (maybe not as fast as they would increase without the crisis, but they do); investments and running costs will be covered in the future. Imposing an advertisingtax would have a negative affect on that course”.Some are sure that such an evolvement would turn against mainstream media corporations, which have legal status and apply the labor laws. It would benefit “anonymous blogs, with no insured employees”


and soon “it would cause job cuts and make content worse that what is offered today” (Mavridis). Some believe the opposite, that “advertising tax today serves as a pretext for media organizations for the deconstruction of labor conditions. “There are publishers who run 70-pages newspapers with 12 editors and sites uploading 20-30 articles per day with 110 editors. Sites are used as a back-door for media; they employ journalists as [online] part-time partners without paying for their insurance. Yes, advertising tax would have negative effect on internet revenue but there is no other way. [Without it] there will be a black hole where people will work under unacceptable conditions, without insurance rights” (Glistras).

Others doubt the necessity of keeping up with advertising tax even in traditional media in order to keep media workers separately insured. “Advertising tax might be imposed on Internet, if we could deal with unfair competition from Google and Yahoo or if the tax wasreduced (to less than 20%). But the point is why imposing advertising tax? Because is exists for newspapers and TV; and that because journalists have a separate insurance fund?” (Economou)No executive seemed to be afraid that “aggeliosimo” would shift partof the online advertizing spent towards other (offline) media; it might give some extra time to traditional media though. Glistras thinks that newspaper publishers would like to see “aggeliosimo” on the Internet “now that online advertising is growing and will keep growing”.Online media feel also threatened by their shadow online competitors. Some interviewees are quite sure that expanding advertising tax on online media, would spread the model of news sites without identity, professional newsrooms and insured staff, many of which will see advertising tax as an extra motive to move their headquarters abroad (in Cyprus or in other off-shore countries). This argument doesn’t sound convincing for others, who either believe that “serious” online publishers will want to stay inGreece anyway or are optimistic that such a “trick” could be surpassed by e.g. “forcing news sites with Greek content to have servers in Greece” (Glistras).Unionists argue that while delaying the enforcement of the tax on the Internet, online-only sites cannot attract experienced journalists because they will lose their pension rights if they quittraditional media. No site executive seems to really believe that either because such cases are rare or because they doubt that traditional journalists are “better” than their online colleagues. Athird point of view is that “it is not “aggeliosimo” that keeps journalists away from online media; is it the fact that don’t know


the Internet and they believe that their current jobs are safe” (Moumouris).

b.5 The institutional deficit

The fact that traditional unions do not recognize online journalistsas equal to their traditional colleagues is unanimously described asa focal issue of the online transition for Greek media. The Internethas revealed institutional weakness in several levels. For the second time in history, stakeholders confront the necessity for a legal definition of what is “media” in order to include online sitesin the term (the first time they had to include broadcast media15). This seems to be a Greek paradox, which relies on the fact that traditional journalists are covered by separate (privileged) terms of work and social security (comparing to other workers) and they try to preserve them.

Traditional journalists of national media (almost all based in Athens) are covered by Journalists’ Union of the Athens Daily Newspapers (ESIEA). Their colleagues at provincial media, as well asmedia technicians and officers, are covered by respective unions. Being a member of ESIEA or other major unions means social security coverage by Journalists’ Subsidiary Insurance and Care Agency (EDOEAP). A basic income for EDOEAP is the advertising tax, which isnot implied on news sites; therefore online workers are not welcome in these unions because they would contribute less money to the funds. ESIEA’s statute identifies as candidate members (and accepts as members16) only editors working for newspapers, radio, TV and press offices. Their payment and working terms are determined by collective agreements between the ESIEA (and other unions) and media(newspaper, TV and radio) owners’ unions. The same media owners alsohave news sites, which appear to belong to sibling or independent corporations and they are not declared as members of media owners unions. Belitsis says that none of the media owners’ unions include sites as members and therefore collective agreements are not applicable for their workers.

Since 2002 ESIEA is proposing a law which expands collective agreements appliance to workers of online editions of newspapers,

15 Several interviewees recognize in the current situation what had happened when broadcast media grew and their workers fought for their right to enter ESIEA. It took ESIEA years to accept broadcast media editors as members and that happened only when they were so numerous that the union could not afford to ignore their financial contributions.16 Under certain terms e.g. some years of working experience.


broadcasters and the ANA-MPA news agency. But the law does not include sites not connected to traditional media. Publishers argue that such an arrangement would be in favor of their online-only competitors. ESIEA from its part, would not like to expand the “newssite” definition any further. The recent17 law under which the government was supposed to apply “aggeliosimo” on the Internet introduced a different definition. It included online editions of newspapers published in Athens or Thessaloniki [which means all national newspapers] as well as any corporation whose exclusive business is original online content; thelaw excluded all broadcast media’s online editions. The inclusion ofindependent corporations did not satisfy the union. Belitsis fears that such a wide definition might include even fraud sites, created by people who would try to benefit from journalists payments and social security terms.In the mid-time, while institutional gap remains, even traditional media owners benefit and most of them keep all or great proportions of their newsroom staff insured at IKA, or force them to pay themselves for their social security by presenting them as part-timeworkers. Belitsis admits that “this creates an explosive situation, of totally unfair and unequal treatment of online workers”.ESIEA gets information about this labor gray zone, but it doesn’t really react. During summer 2010, for the first time, it made a callto online journalists to present themselves and get listed. A few dozens of people appeared and no reliable statistics came out of it.Bratsos mentioned that some unionists and online workers made an unofficial effort to write down how many Greek news sites exist, howthey are staffed and under which payment and working conditions, butthey stopped when they realized how many they where.

A lot of interviewees accuse ESIEA for hypocrisy and corruption. Some argued that several online-only site owners forbid unionists tovisit their online newsrooms and talk to the workers. One worker, though, has mentioned that he has seen a member of the Board of ESIEA visiting the news site he worked for without entering the newsroom. What most people find outrageous is that ESIEA and other unions callonline journalists to participate on strikes even though it doesn’t cover them. This has served as an argument for site owners who encourage their workers to work during strikes. During the last two years it is common practice for several news sites to keep their newsrooms working during strikes (fully or at least for strikes’ coverage). Traditional media’s online editions tend to avoid breaking strikes, but sometimes generate automatic news feeds etc.

17 June 2010


“When there are no rules, each one [=site owner] does what he thinksis best. Some may press people to work during strikes because ESIEA doesn’t cover them, others may consider that people should work 20 hours a day because that’s journalism. That’s why we need rules” (Bratsos).It is obvious to all parties that the problem could be solved with alegislative provision; what they disagree on is whether the law should expand “aggeliosimo” on the Internet (as union blocs ask for)or if it should be abolished even for traditional media (as advertisers would like).

c. Online newsrooms

c.1 Location and space

Online newsrooms are usually located in different spaces, or even indifferent floors of the buildings of media organizations, apart fromtheir parent media’s newsrooms. This obvious rule seems to apply forprint media but doesn’t work for Skai.gr. In this case, the newsroomis a narrow space attached to the Skai Radio newsroom. Only a glass separates the radio from online workers “and it is soon going to be removed” (Hobson). Media2day’s newsroom is an integration of the relative sites’ newsrooms.All the newsrooms I visited were open spaces where almost anyone could communicate with his colleagues even without raising his voice. Usually, editors in chief and coordinators’ desks were also placed among their colleagues.

c.2 Staff

Newsrooms under investigation count around six (Skai.gr) to 25 (In.gr) editors. They also have 1-6 technicians (computer programmers, web and graphic developers).In most cases newsrooms are not directly staffed by journalists of the parent media. Partnerships with print editors are not clearly schemed. For example, at Enet.gr, the terms of the partnership were set directly between the director and each editor. There is no rule,either, about who gets extra payment for working for In.gr additionally to other media of DOL media group; “every case is different” (Mandalidis).In two cases of newspapers’ online editions (Kathimerini.gr and Naftemporiki.gr), their employees work only for the digital edition.In both sites, the connection with print editors is that newspaper


columnists publish articles online; yet they are not considered members of the online newsroom.

By the time of the interviews:-In.gr had about 25 journalists. Some of them were already working for one of the two newspapers (“To Vima”, “Ta Nea”) or for their online editions (www.tovima.gr, www.tanea.gr). It has not been defined how many had to do shifts and how many were cooperating on adifferent working basis.-Skai.gr, was employing 6 journalists, one of which was editor in chief. There were also 2 audio and video editors (and a third one, for their day-offs and vacations), whose job was to monitor the newson Skai Radio and TV. They uploaded entire programs on Skai Player or they selected abstracts for the news stream.-Enet.gr had about 10 journalists. Two of them were coordinators. Some had previous experience in the parent print editions (and were keeping their positions there, too) or other media. An undefined number of print journalists reported and gave leads for the online edition as, well, with extra payments (note: this type of double cooperation ended late 2010, due to internal cutbacks) -Kathmerini.gr had a team of 10 online-only journalists; 2 among them were editors in chief. They were defined as “a newsgroup of 6, dealing with management and news flow and 4 content managers dealingwith the online layout of the print content”.-Euro2day had 8 internal editors and 10-15 external editors, reporters, columnists, correspondents etc. -Capital.gr had around 12 internal editors, sharing newsroom shifts and 20 external reporters. Some of them also worked for “Kefaleo” newspaper.-Naftemporiki.gr did not want to give a number of editors.-Zougla.gr did not want to give a number of editors.-Tvxs.gr had 8 editors (including the chief editor and two trainees). Members of the editorial staff were considered to be a secretary assigned with the task to filter the users’ emails, as well as an external partner (non journalist) who moderated users’ comments, communicate with them and carried their ideas and content contributions to the newsroom. There were also a number of external partners, journalists who voluntarily offered editorial content in anon-regular basis. The site used to have more editors and technical partners (directors, cameramen, video editors) in the past, while itused to run like a community web tv.

c.3 Payments – social security

Interviewees said that all journalists employed in their newsrooms, are getting paid. Three (Euro2day.gr, In.gr, Tvxs.gr) added the


exception of trainees that spend certain periods of unpaid practicing. Data given by interviewees do not allow conclusions about how many of employed editors have been hired as full time or part-time workers. The first round of interviews indicated that there is a significant proportion of online editors working who work as part-timers or having this position as a second job.One of the major working issues that remains unsolved since the appearance of the first online editions, is the distinction between print and broadcast workers and their online colleagues. Even those who get hired by news sites, usually have to deal with this distinction from their print/broadcast colleagues. If they are not already declared as workers of a traditional medium (e.g. by workingmainly for a newspaper, radio, TV, etc), they are not accepted as members of journalists’ unions. Therefore they are neither covered by the terms of ESIEA’s collective agreement (about journalists’ salaries, working hours etc) nor have equal social security with their colleagues working for traditional media.Journalists who are not accepted by ESIEA are insured at ESPIT (union of magazine and electronic journalists). Therefore they are insured by TAISIT (a minor press insurance fund, mostly for magazines) or broader reciprocal social security organizations (IKA and OAEE). Concerning sites under research:- Kathimerini.gr and Euro2day’s journalists are registered at ESPIT and insured by TAISIT. -Zougla’s and TVXS’s staff is not registered as journalists and theyare insured at IKA.

In several news sites there is no clear status of payments and it ismentioned that salaries are directly agreed between executives (mainly directors) and journalists. Interviewees said that they did not know (or did not want to give details about) the salaries of their colleagues; in most cases it has been said that salaries “reach the levels” of Collective Agreements between publishers’ and journalists’ unions. “We are cheaper; sites in general are cheaper, they have lower operational cost” (Georgiadis). There is no union tosupervise and confirm any of the above.Some sites are said to apply the terms of Collective Agreements either for all online journalists or for those who come from the parent traditional medium.When mainstream media transfer journalists from a parent medium to the online edition, they keep their salaries and their social security coverage. It is also quite often reported that when some online media want to attract experienced journalists, they present them as workers of their print edition (if there is one), so that ESIEA, TSPEATH and


EDOEAP accept them as their members. This is not widely practiced and wherever it is, it seems to concern few journalists. Several interviewees (from all rounds of interviews of the current research) mentioned that they know of news sites (mainstream media or recently launched news sites) where some people are regularly employed either without being paid (e.g. as trainees) either paid under the table. In these cases salaries are thought to vary around -or even bellow- the basic salary for workers.

c.4 Press credentials

Few newsrooms are staffed by journalists not specialized in specificreporting fields; even in the cases that there are some accredited editors, they have had their press credentials through a relative print edition or through other media they work for.

-In.gr has a number of journalists accredited to ministries and respective fields. They are less than the number of accredited journalists of a newspaper, “but we may ask cooperation or help fromsomeone who is accredited for the newspaper, if we don’t have our own accreditation”.-Skai.gr practically implies vertical convergence in news. There areno accreditations for online journalists. All they have to do is raise their voice and ask their colleagues (accredited or not) behind the glass separator, about the news that they just reported on air or about something they wrote in the internal news network. -Enet.gr uses some accredited (“in crucial sectors”) journalists of the print editions. Its coordinators work also as accredited journalists of the print edition.-Kathimerini.gr doesn’t have any accredited journalists. In some cases (e.g. breaking news) they request voluntary help from print accredited editors.-Euro2day.gr accredits its journalists to the fields needed.-Capital.gr-Naftemporiki.gr has some online reporters accredited in main fields, in order to get direct information. In practice though, theyall handle all kinds of news.“There is some kind of field separation, but it is not clear or strict. Someone may write mostly about global financial news and another about businesses. But is not like in newspapers, where responsibilities are strictly defined. At some point everybody will have to handle anything. Now, as the newsroom grows, we tend towardsspecialization” (Dogas).-Zougla.gr has accredited two editors and two more where already accredited for other media.


-Tvxs.gr has one editor and several external partner (among the journalists who voluntarily offer news stories) who already had credentials through other media positions.

c.5 Signature

What is considered to be one of the most powerful motives of traditional journalists, the signature of their stories (and therefore, acceptance of responsibility over it) is obviously weakened in online media. The unanimous policy is that anyone who has an original story or an interview, (produced by him) can put hissignature underneath. But in practice, it rarely happens. Because of exhaustive work pace, online workers rarely have the time to develop stories that they could sign.

In Skai.gr, only opinions (published in the blog platform) are signed. “There is no prohibition; we just don’t use to sign the newsstories” (Hobson).-In.gr news stories are signed as “newsroom DOL”.-Enet.gr and Kathimerini.gr’s editors use to sign stories they have developed in depth-Euro2day’s policy is that stories are personally signed only if they contain information produced or if they have been elaborated bya journalist.-In Capital.gr “all stories are signed except for the ones that comefrom news agencies”.-In Zougla.gr editors are allowed to sign whatever news items they want to.-Tvxs.gr’s stories are signed when they are originally produced for the site, when they are analysis, opinions or “something that has tobe distinguished from simple news coverage”.

c.6 Working hours

It is unclear how many hours online journalists work. There usually are shifts of 6 - 8 hours and most newsrooms stop working around midnight until early in the morning. [A couple of interviewees did not want to specify the exact hours of shifts. They neither wanted to reveal theexact duration of a typical working day.] Tvxs.gr mentioned having also a part-time journalist working on 4-hour shifts. Zougla.gr is the only site of the sample working on a 24-hour basis, 7 days a week (on three 8-hour shifts per day).In all other cases the first shift starts “very early in the morning” (some said that the first shift is around 6-7 a.m.) and thelast shift ends around 23.00 pm or after midnight (in one case, at 4


a.m.). During the night, though, someone from the newsroom usually has a loose commitment to be available to be activated, if necessary. Shifts also depend on the news going on. “If there is a sports game going on, the sports reporters are the last ones to leave” and “if there is big news running during the night, the newsroom stays up, working” (Mandalidis).During weekends and holidays there are less workers and the newsroomis active for a couple of hours less. In several cases a journalist can make his shift from home on weekends. It usually depends on whatsuits him best. During home-shifts they practically have to be online, constantly updated. Some mentioned that working from home may be a problem for handling multimedia content.

c.7 Work flow

Working in a newsroom is described as “an on-going meeting”. Therefore, in many cases there are no casual meetings about the newsor about how stories will be covered. Georgiadis, angrily denied thenecessity of having meetings in an online medium because of the lackof time.However, there are newsrooms where meetings take place at least oncea day. This mostly happens in financial sites, where they make plansaccording to the daily news as well as to what competitors have published. Their executives explain the importance of discussing on the stories that occur until late in the evening, how they will dealwith them and when they will publish them.Tvxs.gr also has everyday meetings about the news, at 3.00, during shift change. They also have quite often discussion meetings In one case (In.gr) it has been mentioned that there are meetings ofparent media (newspapers) with occasional participation of people from the online newsroom.

The amount of work in an online newsroom was directly and indirectlydescribed as huge and the news production rate is characterized “extremely demanding” and “crazy”. Georgiadis compared Zougla.gr’s workflow model “like the working rate of the desk of a very good American TV/radio station or news agency”Is has been mentioned several times (during both rounds of interviews of this research) that sometimes online journalists may be working for hours without a break. An explanation given is that it happens because they don’t specialize in one sector and they have


to deal with everything. In some newsrooms it has to do with the setof goals to obtain a certain amount of news stories per day or hour.

The selection of the stories that will be covered is something that both journalists and chief editors (or coordinators) may decide. Chiefs may also assign tasks. Some newsrooms (especially related to print) seem to be trying to maintain a stronger gatekeeping role forchiefs, but in practice immediacy and multitasking prevail. Adding alead, photo, video or linking to a pre-existing relevant graphic, isnormally responsibility of the editor in chief but in everyday workflow “it has been granted to the editors”, for the sake of brevity and in order “to do things more practical” (Dogas).“Responsibility for the loss of a story belongs to the editor, of course. Anyone may find a story or select it, but it s up to the editor to approve it and give instructions”, says Mandalidis. Although workflow models require several stages of control, in practice, all these stages are weakened because of speed. Editors usually don’t have the time to check every news story, approve it ormake corrections (proof-reading) before going online. The usual practice is that everything is written and uploaded and afterwards someone checks it out and makes corrections, if necessary. Previous control is considered to be a “luxury”.Every experienced member of an online newsroom usually selects the title, sometimes after consulting his editor or coordinator. He alsohas responsibility to find photos through photo agencies or through web searching, to accompany his editorial work. Less experienced workers prepare drafts that editors and coordinators curate before uploading. [“Curation” is described as the process of cutting an audio or video, combining similar content elements (text and multimedia) and sometimes updating the story withextra news]. The same process is followed for news send by outdoor reporters.

Some call it neutrality, others call it inexperience. The fact that online journalists have to deal with a vast variety of news stories,does not let then go deep into stories, explore further dimensions and enrich them.“He (=the online journalist) may avoid expressing estimations that an accredited reporter would make, because he doesn’t have the experience. If we can make a distinction, we would say that the newspaper gives answers to the question “why”, while news sites can answer only the rest of the four journalistic questions: “who”, “where”, “how”, “when” (and a sixth “how much”)” (Moumouris). Another innovation in the way online editors work (compared to theirprint colleagues) is that “they learn how to build a story. Startingwith an “alert”, a sentence e.g. about a bomb explosion, more


information as added progressively information, multimedia etc. A newspaper editor would have to gather all elements of the story before starting writing” (Dogas).

c.8 Multitasking

All journalists in online newsrooms are familiar with a number of practices and procedures beyond reporting and writing a text story. They have to select photos and/or videos that accompany their story and quite often (in several new sites) they also get involved in multimedia production. “Some editors turn out to be good in one of these tasks, but they have to know how to perform all of them” (Mandalidis).At Naftemporiki.gr, all journalists are involved in multimedia production. They don’t edit them, but they participate by contributing photos and sometimes video and audio. They also producegraphics.Journalists who are unfamiliar with some of above practices before joining the online newsroom, are being taught by others. Seminars orhands-on classes are rarely mentioned by executives, as something that happened sometime in the past. “We were the first ones [who went online] in Greece, so we had the experience and we transmit it to newer ones” (Mandalidis).

A common working day in a newsroom has to do mainly with managing the news flow from the agencies and other feeds, edit/type texts andupload news that comes (by phone or email) from accredited reporters. Therefore, most internal editors spend their shifts solely at their desks. Due to working rates, it is almost unanimously noted that journalists at the newsroom usually don’t have enough time to go deep into stories, develop the news as much as they would want to, enrich the content with multimedia and links (internal or external).It has been mentioned that the need to catch up will all the news flow turn against several additional tasks like adding metadata on stories and archive linking: “There are things we could improve, e.g. the way we create internal references from one article to another; we sometimes do it well and other times we go loose” (Moumouris).

On the other hand, most editors describe the formation of a group of“backpack” journalists: reporters who are sent to the field and theyhave to write down the story, shoot photos, take videos and, in the best of all cases, tweet the story.All of these extra tasks are optional for the majority of journalists. Most editors mentioned that this is something reporters


do on their own initiative. For example “someone attended a concert,brought pictures and prepared a photo-stream for the site” (I.Mandalidis). Georgiadis said that many of his editors shoot pictures and videos produced with their mobile phones or with cameras. “My basic expectation is that is one or two years this willbecome a common practice: Any editor may take his laptop and his handycam and he will broadcast live from Parnitha [mountain] while it will be on fire or from the shipwreck in Santorini. This is something unionists will not like at all, but I don’t care. It is going to be like that”.

Sports reporters are pioneers in adopting journalistic cultural changes. They are the first ones to adopt backpacking reporting at Skai Group. Among relative media, Woop.gr is the only site where journalists combine reporting, shooting pictures and videos. Two sports reporters of “Eleftherotipia” newspaper are considered to be among the ones who best practice the need of writing on a daily basis two versions of every news story, one for Enet.gr and one for the print version. Several executives of mainstream online media would like to see similar practices embraced by all online reporters but they do not seem very optimistic that it wouldn’t cause conflicts, because of established workflow culture.

c.9 Skills

Most of online newsroom workers have been trained on basic web processing and photo editing tools (e.g. Photoshop). The use of morecomplex multimedia production and editing tools mainly concerns early adopters of new technologies and editors willing to be trainedon them. The most basic task for any online editor is using editorial software for writing and uploading texts and photos. A few more tasks are part of daily practices e.g. it is considered quite commonfor editors to know how to crop images in order to fit images forms and how add links in their stories. In few sites, they have also learned how to add search engine optimization (SEO) elements in newsstories (mentioned for Skai.gr, Enet.gr, Euro2day.gr, Capital.gr). “Internal editors have been trained through practice on how to use computers; ten years ago that wasn’t so obvious. Even today we have editors who write on the keyboard using only one finger. But I thinknow we all know how to deal with everyday computer failures and handle basic programs (Office, Outlook, etc) or how to upload videos. But there was no official training or seminars” (Glistras). Additionally there is a constant need, especially in online newsrooms, for keeping the staff aware of new technologies and tools


they can use. “If you don’t evolve, this thing dies, languishes, that person next to you passes in frond of you. So you have to add new functionalities and offer more tools all the time. These are things you learn by cooperating with developers. Two years ago we didn’t even use internal links. Today we –especially younger editors- are able to add some code and make the page more attractive.” (Glistras).On the other hand, Mavridis, thinks that technical tasks should not burden journalists “just because we find them available and load them with everything. They can use easy content managing systems buttheir job is different from the technical stuff”.Transmitting a pre-existing journalistic culture to the newcomers seems to be important for the continuity of the newsroom. Newcomers at Tvxs.gr are also being trained on the site’s perspective about news coverage. “Since the beginning we have focused on making each one [editor] understand how we manage news, what Stelios [Kouloglou]wants and under which criteria we choose the news we cover”. Younger, inexperienced editors pass through a period, during which “they mostly get instructions and make less decisions; after some time, when they can take initiative, they pass at a stage of covering news”.

Interviewees were asked to identify the importance of a number of qualifications/skills that they would appreciate about a journalist who would apply for a job in an online newsroom. Basic skills that any traditional medium would ask for seem to remain the same. -A degree for a journalism school would not be one of the most important qualifications someone would ask from a candidate; yet it remains a positive one. For example it was evaluated as “important but not required” (Mandalidis), and has it has been said that “I would like him/her to have an academic degree, but not necessarily in journalism” (Dogas) or that “I would never be concerned if he hasa degree in journalism or not” (Kitidi).-Experience in a traditional medium is considered to be much more important than experience in another online site. Mandalidis and Georgiadis would prefer the opposite.-Good writing versus fast writing turns in favor of the first. A combination is the optimum, but speed is considered to be something easier to achieve with practice. Only Georgiadis considers them equally required. For some interviewees, good writing is a more valuable skill because it means less mistakes. Misspelling words is thought to be a bigger problem for online newsrooms, because there usually are no “correctors” and mistakes are corrected after being published-The ability to bring exclusive stories is considered to be a great but rare skill.


-The ability to handle a variety of categories of stories is an “absolutely necessary” skill for general sites like In.gr, quite important for smaller ones. -Specialization in a specific news field is wanted for some positions and unnecessary for others. It is absolutely necessary only for Capital.gr. “Specialization would be considered an important skill if sites were differently structured” (Economou). Itis a good skill “only if it is combined with the ability to handle avariety of subjects”, says Mandalidis, “although it depends on the field”. He mentions examples of difficult combinations e.g. a technology or an auto journalist who would not have the political criteria to evaluate a political story etc. It is considered equallydifficult for journalists specialized in traditional fields –health,education, politics, social issues etc- to handle stories about technology or science.-Knowledge of multimedia production in order to be able to accompanyhis text story with picture and video is also a valuable skill but it is also something that newcomers learn quickly. Selecting a photothat will accompany text is something that already everybody can do in a newsroom. Selecting and uploading a video is a more complex procedure, which is practiced by more experienced journalists in a few newsrooms (In, …“Editing a video needs someone more specialized [a technician] who is also aware of news” (Mandalidis)-The ability to adapt in new needs and practices is one of the most essential skills an online journalist could have, according to all. “It is very, very important, because technologies evolve all the time and you can not stay entrenched within what you already know” (Mandalidis). “It is very important for us because we are a small team and we have to get on with each other in a very specific way offunctioning” (Kitidi).The fact that online media are continually evolving gives this last skill an extra credit. “The point is not to know how to do things, but to be prepared to learn”. (Moumouris).

Some editors mentioned a few more skills that they would appreciate:-Knowing Greek language well, “which is different from just good writing” and includes good use of grammar and syntax, is for Glistras another important skill.-Being educated is qualified as the most important skill of all, by Georgiadis: “Being a journalist, means reading, (…) especially political and diplomatic history”.-Mavridis said that for Capital.gr they seek out newsroom editors specialized in financial issues, who can write in at least one foreign language, and who also know and handle Greek language very well.


-Hobson mentioned the importance of knowledge and usage of web toolsand features, including multiple ways of storytelling and instantaneous interactivity with the audience.

d. Challenges to professional dynamics

d.1 Who is journalist?

The role on online journalists is described as more complex and skillful than what is known and practiced in print/broadcast models.Apart from pure reporting and information management, which is stillconsidered to be the core journalistic task, online journalists are expected to be able to perform several other tasks that, in the old days, would be assigned to technicians: search for photos and consider a possible layout of every news story, edit and embed multimedia (video, audio, graphics), add external and internal (relevant) links, sometimes also add SEO elements.Online-only journalists work differently that their traditional colleagues within the same media organization:“Especially younger ones, who enter the online culture from the beginning [of their carrier], experience what we call “mojo” [mobilejournalism] (…) They are more prepared to enter a new logic and theydo it and they see it as an opportunity to have an audience much bigger (at least 4 times more) than the one they would have if they were working for a print edition” (Mandalidis).“Online journalist is becoming what we call an “editor”, a term not exactly fitting the existing Greek terminology, but describing what we would call a “web writer”. It is a more complex role that what weknow to be the print journalists task. (…) The editor has to get thenews, manage it, prepare accompanying material and at the same time make his product work as a tool, linking it with relevant features and information. This is something that could not be done by one reporter during the past; it can be done now, with the Internet” (Glistras).“Journalists have a wider toolbox today –sources, means that they use, media where they publish news… If a journalist is not familiar with them, he will have a problem, I believe” (Hobson).

Professional journalism also changes by focusing on immediacy, whichleads towards more independence for online editors. Dogas says that the online journalist’s familiarization with technology allows him to accompany each story with a photo and save the time it would costif they had to leave this task to a technician, as practiced in print media. “By passing these stages, means that a journalist has


to be able to evaluate each story immediately and take initiative topublish without asking his editor in chief”.“Online journalism is one man show. Every journalist is the editor in chief of himself”, assumes Drakoularakos.

Others tend to agree that good old traditional journalism is not transformed through the online media. “News sites do not differ fromnewspapers in terms of ethics, or in how news is presented. They differ in speed. The Internet is something between newspaper, radio and TV” (Mavridis). Yet he insists that all differentiations of journalistic job do not alter the definition of journalism: “A journalist does what he traditionally has to do: He has to get the news, make it trustworthy and comply with the journalistic code of conduct”.

Although the need of speed overrules any other need while working inonline newsrooms, many journalists seem to agree that sooner or later the audience rewards depth and accuracy in news coverage.Giving priority to immediacy versus depth and completeness of the story, they acknowledge that mistakes are being made and “you can’t hide them”, because “everything is being cached” or “someone may save a print-screen and expose you”. Many believe that journalists should not be ashamed to admit that they were wrong and make corrections. Actually, this is considered by some to be a step forward for a most sincere relation between journalists and readers.“What changes is the way we approach the audience. At any time, someone may come out from the audience and doubt your story. You arebeing judged every second; that should make journalists and news organizations more cautious. One-way, top to bottom dealing with theaudience is dead, or it is being seriously tested” (Moumouris).

Could someone who has been renowned through the Internet and has built a personal online brand name (e.g. a blogger) be selected to work in an online newsroom? “I would suggest that. I don’t know if we would call him a “journalist” –maybe if he was trained- but I believe that it is important to know the Internet and the Web when you publish online” (Hobson).Kitidi believes that “journalist is someone who has the experience, the available time and the means (more means than the average civilian) to investigate an story in depth and publish it documented. To acknowledge this person’s work as journalistic, he doesn’t have to be a professional (paid as journalist) or to be partner of a certain medium”.

The importance of keeping media alive is an assumption that that most interviewees share.


“Newspapers are not dying; paper is dying. Let it die. We just have to find a way of proper maintenance of information, because journalism is supposed to be the first manuscript of history. A journalist gathers information from around, edits them and produces content. The core of our business has always been the same. What changes is the mean of distribution. This may be the problem of typographers, press distributors, news stand owners, all those who work around print press, but it is not the problem of media organizations. On the contrary, [through the Internet] they can be accessible from all over the world just with a click”. (Moumouris)“Journalism is not dying. The way we practice it is changing. Internet makes it even better because it broadens the horizons and you can do the same things in bigger depth and bigger range. If we can’t take it there, then we should go home or keep a safe job of writing 100 words per day and claim that we are journalists”. (Mandalidis)

Different perceptions of journalism are even expressed within editions of the same media organization. Economou describes a “feeling of being cut out of the print edition and a feeling that there is strife between print and online. I think that is because traditional journalists feel threatened; and they are right, there is a threat. On one hand they see newspapers shrinking because of the Internet. On the other hand some of them will have to work for the Internet; and this will happen after a lot of unpleasant changes”. He believes that the online edition will be the flagship of the firm after 10-20 years. Its structure at that time “will be ahybrid of TV, radio and newspaper”. Moumouris also predicts that print journalists will be challenged when they will be forced to adapt to the workflow of online editions.

d.2 Hierarchy – Who’s the chief?

Typical hierarchies that exist for decades in traditional news organizations have not worked -in some cases they never even tried to make them work- in online newsrooms. Internet operations are considered to be quite different, and this reflects to all of the examined online newsroom structures.In many cases hierarchy is rather informal and job description is characterized by liquidity. There is usually a director on top and one or two people entitled as chief editors or coordinators, representing a middle management layer. At the bottom, lays a ratherhomogenous newsgroup, staffed by more or less experienced journalists: the online editors.


The first of all print occupational specialties that seems to be perishing from online newsrooms is the “corrector”. Traditionally, Greek newspapers have had teams of people entrusted with the correction of linguistic and grammatical mistakes of journalists (proof-reading). They have always been an organic part of the editorial staff, but there seems to be no place for them in online newsrooms. Only Zougla.gr has two people entrusted with this task. Moumouris was the only editor in chief who said that he would like to have a person for this job, “although he would go crazy, because of the intense pace of text production”.By limiting gatekeeping and filtering roles, online media seem to increase the level of responsibility for the remaining staff. “We have almost the classic hierarchies that any traditional medium has but with less management levels. But, due to the fact that there is live coverage, these limited management levels have to be more careful about what goes out [=gets published online]” (Mandalidis).

The specialty that is obviously emerging is the one of the editor inchief, often replaced or followed in the hierarchy scheme by the role of the coordinator. Whenever a site doesn’t officially have editors in chief, coordinators practically fill the gap, acting as editors in chief, taking important and fast decisions. In these cases, the fact that there is no official recognition of their job, probably means that media organizations deal with current online newsroom structures as if they are transitional.Several interviewees describe their role as the most crucial role inthe newsroom. “The online chief editor is not just the chief among his colleagues; he is also assigned with the task of shaping multiple editions of the main page during the day. There no intermediate between him and the editors. We alter our main page 40-50 times a day and the editor has do make choices quickly. There are4-5 different templates (κασέ) which allow for example give a story that has 10 different aspects, in bullets and make the text and the photo smaller” (Glistras).“The coordinator’s role stands in the layer between the editor in chief and the layout editor; but it’s more strategic than the editor’s in chief role. The coordinator has more things to do than consult 5-10 people. He has to deal with them too, but he also has to evaluate the news, decide what goes where and how big it will be,make a title… and do all that very fast. He is the one who always knows how the main page Is structured; he is the one who builds it” (Mavridis)

Economou distinguishes another important editorial specialty, the “content manager”. He is described as the one who takes the print content and curates it in order to fit better the online edition.


”The content managers’ role is very close to the “layout editors’” of the newspaper. Content managers have to be experienced and bettertrained (probably have a degree in journalism or fit any criteria that newspapers use to select layout editors)”. Kitidi mentioned another role with increased managerial responsibility: the editor in charge of the shift. “During each shift there is always someone who is in charge and has to take care of the site, whenever I am not available”.Georgiadis said that although is entitled and signs as “editing director” he just considers himself the chief of a newsroom where “all others stand equally”, indicating that he does not accept traditional hierarchies in Zougla.gr. He mentioned that this model was used during the last year because it suits him best; previously they had tried a more strictly structured hierarchical model.

d.3 What is source?

Online newsrooms’ staffs, use a variety of resources in order to be informed and updated about the news. -As in traditional media, a pile of newspapers is delivered everydayin most of the online newsrooms but they don’t seem to be really useful. Some interviewees said that “nobody reads them”, “we don’t even open them”, or “we don’t use them as a basic source”, “we don’tread them, we just refer to them whenever they have something exclusive (rarely)”. Yet, many news sites scan their front pages fortheir “press covers” online columns, which seem to be quite popular among users/readers.-All newsrooms watch radio news through the day.-TVs are switched on in many newsrooms. “This must be happening because of addiction [not because they are news sources]. Anyone whohas worked in a newspaper knows that television extracts its core news from newspapers. So I guess that we watch TV because of the fear of breaking news” (Moumouris). Financial sites watch more carefully financial channels, because they are focused on financial news and therefore they lack political and general reporters.-All news sites use news agencies as a basic source of information, even if they are not subscribed to their services. -Institutional sources are followed by all. Press releases and corporate announcements are also a source for all news sites except Tvxs.gr (“we almost never use them”).-Reports and complaints sent by readers/users as well as grassroots movements are more useful to general news sites and portals. “Audience feedback sometimes brings news stories” (Moumouris).-Blogs are being followed by journalists although there is a common belief among them that “in Greece blogs are not so trustworthy” (Mandalidis). Journalists seem to use them mainly as barometers of


what is being widely discussed online and secondly as sources of information. “We follow some blogs because they do play a role. Several news stories have come out in blogs and then they were officially covered by the press. We also read blogs brought to us byGoogle Search” (Economou). Financial sites, in particular, tend to rather ignore blogs and social media sources in general.Tvxs.gr’s editors follow many blogs and social networks. Apart from what editors may follow, Kitidi as the chief editor has a list of several political and “news’ blogs she personally follows. “In Tvxs.gr we do not consider these blogs to be news sources but we cannot ignore them either. I look for information that could be used for journalistic purposes –after research and cross-checking, of course” (Kitidi).-Social networks are being followed by all general news sites. Facebook access has been blocked in Kathimerini.gr by the administration. -All newsrooms also follow closely their online competitors and the most important international media.-Chiefs would find it ideal if their online journalists had their own contacts and sources. Though relationships with them is something that every reporter establishes through the years and practice, is does not seem to be taken for granted that journalists stuck in the online newsrooms for hours everyday, have the opportunity to achieve that. However, all editors said that workers in their newsrooms do have at least a limited number of personal sources, although nobody seems to rely on that. Kitidi mentioned that in Tvxs.gr the list of contacts of a reporter is actually a combination of his personal contacts and a list of thecommon contacts of the newsroom. Tvxs.gr has always invested in non institutional sources like NGOs or a network of friends and other journalists who notify the newsroom “when something goes on”. This balances the site’s lack of official feeds (e.g. news agencies subscriptions) and its editors do not have enough time to develop a list of useful contacts.

d.4 The “blogs” issue

Blogs that are self-determined as news blogs have undoubtedly gainedattention and traffic during the last 2-3 years. Some of them are quite popular but they are treated with suspicion by all interviewees, because their revenue resources are not obvious, theiridentities are hidden and their journalistic practices are controversial. Yet, they seem to have affected journalism practices in several ways.


The basic influence occurring through several references by interviewees is cultural: Online only sites have been compared to blogs in terms of uploading content rates. The predetermination of goal for specific number of news uploaded (per day or working shift) by some online news sites is thought by some to be an effect of bloggers practice [popular blogs upload a new post every few minutes]. Journalists find goal setting to be a sign of low quality of their competitors.

News blogs popularity and the fact that they disclose unfiltered information, which official media would have to cross-check before publishing, is confronted with suspicion by interviewees. The fact that there are people who invest money in so many shadow newsrooms, hiring workers paid under the table, leads to a certainty expressed by several interviewees, that everyone who wants to do business today, creates a news site or a blog the same way businessmen accumulated traditional media during the past decades. Several interviewees from the first round of interviews expressed the certainty that this part of the online media environment is the “cheaper” online version of dominant corruption between corporationsand media owners. Maintenance of this complex system is facilitated by the fact that there is no regulatory framework to determine how these sites will be structured, run and controlled.

Several interviewees, though, distinguish the kind of audience that gets attracted by such “news blogs” from theirs. “I prefer 100 visitors who will come, read, comment, tweet and cross-link than 1.000 ‘starved’ who will stop by and leave” (Moumouris). Many seem to agree that having a smaller sophisticated audience is better thanhaving a large one of low quality. One of the interviewees said thathe considers news blogs as some kind of competitors “because they attract online audience and act competitively” (Hobson).

e. Online Content

e.1 Dependence from parent media

Remarks made by several interviewees of the first round of interviews, indicated a widely shared assumption that an important part of the online news content is reproduction of print media. Due to demanding working paces, online newsroom staff is thought to be obliged to reproduce print content without enriching with more reporting. Several interviewees call it “copy-paste journalism”.


There seems to be a strong connection between newspapers’ online editions with their parent media. They look more like a reproductionof print editions early in the morning and they get enriched with more online original content during the day.Interviewees (except Tvxs.gr) were asked to estimate how much of theonline content comes from the print versions of the connected media.For daily newspapers’ sites, print content represents about half of the number of online releases, although the two halves “are not equivalent in importance” (Economou). They usually select news based on the same criteria used for print and mainly promote the news included in the front page of the newspaper (at least during the morning). News categorization is alsomade according to the newspapers’ sections. Even hierarchy of news stories is built around the top stories of the print editions (although breaking news may alter it). Sometimes, that’s because executives of both editions evaluate the news based on the same criteria and they tend to agree; but the main reason is because print is considered to be the “king” of every media group, the one that sets the agenda.“Our main story is by default the newspaper’s main story. If anothersignificant story occurs during the day, we replace it, in consultation with the newspaper. Sometimes there is rush and consultation is a luxury, so we talk about it later with them” (Moumouris).This model doesn’t work for sites not connected to daily print editions. “We basically produce original content. Only 10-12% of Euro2day’s stories are reproductions of “Metochos” newspaper. If we exclude stock market announcements –that listed companies are obliged to publish and we upload them as press releases- the rest ofthe news stories that we use from “Metochos” are just 1-2% of the entire news content”. (Glistras)In many cases print and online editions interact with each other, exchanging news stories, depending on where they fit best. Major or senior stories that need to be handled by experienced reporters, or stories which are thought to look better developed in print layout, are forwarded to the newspaper’s newsroom. Respectively, stories that will be overlapped until the next morning are quite often sent to the online edition where they can be immediately uploaded.Skai.gr is basically based on the parent media content, “mainly the radio”. Newsroom staff’s task is to watch live the Skai Radio and TVprogram, as well as the news flow in the internal news network of the Group and feed the site according to them. The agreement that news content will be shared within the Group media is not official but it was a practice that passed without reaction. “I think everybody wants the news to be republished and spread as widely as possible”, says Hobson.


More that half of the content of In.gr is original; the rest comes from relative media of the media group. “There is something like, let’s say, a common newsroom, a common news bucket” that feeds In.gr, Tanea.gr, Tovima.gr, “To Vima” newspaper and “Ta Nea” newspaper. In reality, every one has its own separated newsroom” (Mandalidis). Zougla.gr and “Veto” newspaper were not directly connected. A numberof the newspaper’s editors sometimes wrote stories for the site; butGeorgiadis believed that the two media used very different criteria when evaluating stories. Therefore, when asked if Zougla.gr used some stories, either originally produced for the newspaper which finally didn’t fit in print or expected to be disclosed before the Sunday publication of “Veto”, he was negative. “Writing for the newspaper is very different than writing for the site. We evaluate stories for an electronic newspaper. Veto might have stories during the week, which might be out before Sunday. But if I believe that these stories are boring for the site, I will not give them priority”.

e.2 Productivity versus depth

The first round of interviewees indicated that there are online newsrooms where productivity is measured by reaching a goal of a certain number of news stories uploaded per editor or per newsroom as a whole, through the day. This practice is considered to be one of the main factors why news sites lack deeply developed stories. Itis also thought to be one of the main reasons why online editors areforced to copy-paste stories and reproduce online rumors without further research.One interviewee mentioned that he has worked in a newsroom where “a good editor was considered to be the one who can produce 30 news items during an 8 hour shift”. Another mentioned he was aware of an online-only news site where similar goals are set.Most of the site executives and editors on chief said that in their sites there is no predetermined goal about the number of stories that should be published through a day or a shift; it depends on thenews. Some editors in chief would find it an indication of low quality content for the site.Two interviewees said that they have set such goals:-Zougla.gr has had “a goal of 20-25 uploads per editor during his shift, but it has been overrun a long time ago”.Skai.gr has a goal but “it is not specific and is not always achieved”. It seems to concern newsroom gives priority to news (radio and TV) programs, which have to be uploaded immediately. Several secondary programs are sometimes uploaded after a few hours.


Euro2day doesn’t have such a goal but they upload at least one storyevery 20 minutes, so that there is a constant content renewal.In Tvxs.gr “we do not want 100 uploads per day; we have given instructions to slow down and develop more criteria” (Kitidi).

e.3 News agencies’ content

News agencies’ content is one of the basic news sources used by online media. Traditional media’s online newsrooms have either individual contracts with them or extended rights of use based on contracts their parent media have with news agencies -mostly with the Greek ANA-MPA, and the global Reuters and Associated Press (AP).Financial sites also have automatic feeds form several business sources (e.g. Bloomberg, Dow Jones and Business Week). Contracts with news and photo agencies for parent media are usually extended to cover their online editions as well. Even sites which don’t have such contracts follow the agencies’ free online content the same waythe follow other news sites, in order to be updated.Four of the nine sites included in the present research had individual contract during 2010. The rest five either shared agency news feeds with relative media or followed the agency’s free online content. Capital.gr is one of the sites not subscribed to general news agencies; Instead it has an agreement with “98,4 Athens Radio Station” (of Athens Municipality) and uses its general news feed. The site’s editors also follow the public content on global news agencies, which is available without subscription.

For more than ten years the national ANA-MPA offer subscription services formed to serve online sites. Contracts with them are signed per year; subscriptions are monthly. Costs vary (around 230-1.300 euro per month) depending on the news service clients buy. Media organizations may get discount if the buy multiple services for different editions. Sites usually buy a summary daily service created for them; it contains 30-40 news items instead of around 300 of the general news service (created according to the newspaper needs). Normally this limited content is enough for traditional media, though they also have the support of a relative newsroom (newspaper/radio/TV).Several sites prefer to buy the general service because they lack staff and sources needed to cover a wide range of stories. They are mostly sites not connected to newspapers, provincial sites (as well as provincial newspapers), sports or financial sites etc. Lately, some commercial sites also use to buy either the general or the sites’ summary service because they want to offer their audience basic news content.


News sites have the right to reproduce the summary services’ news items completely, without altering them. If they use the general service they may reproduce unchanged only the first paragraph of every story; otherwise it becomes competitive for the agency itself (they can’t sell the story, because it’s already online, accessible to all readers of the client).

e.4 Photos

Online news sites don’t employ news photographers [only Capital.gr has one) but they sometimes hire freelancers to cover certain stories. “Photos are not as important element for a site as they arefor a newspaper. We may upload the story and add a photo after an hour, to make it more attractive” (Mavridis).When needed, news stories are accompanied by photos already used in print editions (if there is a parent newspaper). These photos come from photo agencies, freelance photographers or independent news sources (e.g. public relations services, personal archives of interviewees etc). Five news sites mentioned having contracts with photo agencies (usually extensions of their parent medias’ contracts) or freelance photographers. In some cases [especially under resent contracts] agency copyrights do not permit digital reproduction without paying extra fees. It is not clear if this practice applies in general to freelancer photo journalists. It seems that some photographers negotiate on that individually with media organizations.Most news sites publish pictures taken by their own reporters in field. Newspaper sites seem to avoid that, probably because they already have image galleries produced for their print editions, or partly because they are more attached to the traditional separation between journalists and photojournalists. On the other hand net-native sites accept this practice as something totally matching the backpacking news coverage model they have in mind. On the other hand some online media connected to newspapers don’t seem to take advantage of their photo archives, probably because they mostly cover real time news. Kathimerini.gr sometimes asks for extra photographs than the ones published in the newspaper, without extra payment for the photographer (employed by the newspaper).Tvxs.gr often uses photos granted by photojournalists, friends of the site. Searching through the Internet for royalty-free photos (mainly through Image Google Search), is a daily routine practice in every online newsroom. Editors say that media organizations official policies do not allow the use of images with copyrights; but they admit that there might have been cases that journalists have made


mistakes; they say that it is difficult to monitor every detail in such huge news productions.Some news site editors say that they avoid using photos from blogs (which are also often illegally reproduced).Sometimes blog and site administrators complaint about illegal use of copyrighted images by online media; editors say that they comply with the requests. Among them Moumouris, although he doesn’t understand “why some people should bother if we use a low raise image. Copyright is misunderstood; the way we deal with it, hampers the exchange of information”.

The more online newsrooms cover their needs from web photo galleriesand journalists are willing to cover stories with mobile phone cameras, the more photojournalists feel threatened. Lolos explains that a number of practices [as the pre-mentioned] have undermined their role as well as the value of news photo coverage. One of theirbasic problems is that media organizations don’t pay them for photosbought for print editions and republished online [they should pay anadditional 50%]. Once they sell a package of photographs to a media organization, they get paid only for print reproduction. Media organizations with different news outlets seem to save a lot of expenses by doing that. Another major problem is that sites don’t use watermarks on photos taken by photojournalists [although, according to Lolos, major sitesdo that for those coming from agencies] and therefore images get stolen and republished throughout the Web. Apart from revenue losses, photojournalists are challenged by a serious threat having to do with a widespread newsroom practice: theadoption of multitasking news coverage. On one hand they see journalists taking photos with their mobiles and cameras next to them on the field; on the other, new media owners ask them to do thesame: to cover stories in multiple ways, using both camera and videofor the shootings. Such concerns are fundamentally different from what net-native media organizations preserve. The more detached fromtraditional media, the more interviewees tend to accept multitaskingas the optimum journalistic practice. Several interviewees are aware and feel sympathetic about professional photographers but they don’t seem to find common groundwith them. They seem to prefer the cheap solution of searching for copyright free content. Non journalist interviewees are less sentimental over the issue. Drakoularakos believes that if his site was obliged to use a photographer who should be member of a certain professional union, they would just not cover the story because theycould not afford it.Executives of sites related to print media sound more reassuring towards photo-editors but it is obvious that they are in favor of


less strictly defined roles. “A journalist can not replace a professional photo-reporter. But, part of the cultural change (…) isthat when he [the journalist] will be in a place where something happens, we must not think that it is not part of his job to take a picture and send it to be on air while it’s happening. (…) We practice that wherever we can. Especially online-only journalists, yes, it has happened to take photos by phone and publish it” (Mandalidis). When asked if this practice is not widely implied because it would cause reactions, he denied that; he accepted thoughthat there are clear restrictions by unions for journalists to act like photo-reporters. He also said that journalists refuse to practice something different than what they already do for print editions. “We respect these limitations” (Mandalidis).

e.5 Video and audio

Experimentation on video production is a much more common practice for news sites, comparing to audio production which seems to concernthem less. News sites related to broadcast companies (Skai.gr, In.gr) rely more or less on their broadcast content. Financial sites develop web TV features. Net-natives have focused on either video or live web TV production. Only newspapers’ online editions donot appear to be ready for video/audio features yet. Apart from original video production, news sites use to refer to (or even upload) videos from around the web (mostly Youtube, sometimes Vimeo etc.) or upload videos distributed by news agencies, related to their news stories. Zougla.gr, Capital.gr, Naftemporiki.gr and Euro2day.gr produce theirown web TV content. They have the equipment and professional crew for daily productions but it seems that only Zougla.gr use it on a daily basis.

-Skai.gr relies on broadcast content originally produced for its sibling radio and TV stations.

-In.gr uploads video “for every story that that has an available video”. They take it from international video agencies and from the relative “Mega Channel” TV station. Most of the content comes from the morning and midday newscasts. They also upload YouTube or Vimeo videos, especially official ones (film trailers, corporate presentations etc). In special cases In.gr produces video coverage of events and interviews. Mandalidis estimates that video productionis a field that will develop in the future.

-Tvxs.gr was initially designed as a web TV community news site, aiming to produce documentaries. Video production has been limited


and site structure has changed since then (on December 2009). The site has two different video sections: one called Web TV and one called Community. Web TV contains videos selected by editors (in accordance to the news) or produced by the Tvxs.gr team (newsroom and partners). “On Web TV we mainly play news videos, documentaries,interviews freely available on the Internet (after subtitling them) as well as some short films or any other copyright-free movies available online”. The Community is a lower section on the main pagecontaining all kinds of videos sent by users. “These videos are filtered; we do not upload videos which be insult someone, or racistvideos, porn etc. But there is more freedom for people to send humorous or any other interesting video. This is not a purely news section” (Kitidi). If users send something extremely interesting it also gets uploaded on Web TV and it is featured among the newsrooms selections. “At first we, when there was no separation [between newsroom’s and users’ videos] there was more filtering on users’ videos. We might not upload e.g. humorous videos. Now we upload them directly, as long as they are not offensive, racist, sexist etc”.

-Zougla TV is featured on top of Zougla.gr’s main page. Next to the newsroom there is a television studio and editing room where “we canmake TV productions”. There is also equipment (cameras, links) for three different “lives” at the same time “at any moment”. Two partners are assigned with the task to go around the wider area of Athens capital but the idea is that anyone –journalist or not- couldbe sent to cover a story on Zougla TV. “I might even send a courier or a clerk. (…) Does someone have to be very smart to press three buttons on the laptop and make a link so I can get him live form Piraeus port during a strike?” (Georgiadis).The site also uploads videos from “channels we have a good partnership with, such as Alter and the national television”.

-Capital TV exists since 2008. The site has the technical equipment for the shootings, but usually, they hire an external television crew. Capital TV content consists of interviews and news stories produced by Capital.gr’s reporters and viewed on demand. Only 5-6% of site users watch the TV stream “but we keep it because it offers additional content. If think it makes sense why people don’t watch it. They usually visit the site from their office where they can’t watch videos”. Mavridis says that they will not do any further stepsof development yet, because it is something that the audience has not embraced so much until now. “I would rather say that we are taking position for the (distant) future. I believe that thematic TVwill develop when Internet and TV converge, after some years. We arestanding by, training our staff for that day”.


-Euro2day owns the technical equipment and employs the crew, but doesn’t upload video content on a daily basis. They offer live broadcasts of selected press conferences or produce some stories “when needed” and offer them on demand.

-For Naftemporiki.gr video production is a field under development. No details were provided, except the fact that there is a cameraman employed for the site.

-Enet.gr uploads videos very rarely, and they are usually documentaries18 accompanying a featured story, produced by journalists of the newspaper.

-Kathimerini.gr’ editors tried to produce multimedia content back in2006, when they the newsroom was staffed with more editors. Using a handycam and an editing program, they shoot stand-ups and prepared small amateur videos on special issues whenever they had some extra time. The structure of the medium did not allow this practice to evolve. “The use of multimedia for the news coverage implies investments, a different [workflow] organization as well as approaching television structure and newspaper structure at the sametime” (Economou). Today they also upload video only in very special cases. Once, during 2010, the online edition covered a public discussion organized by a cultural institution, which was partly released by Skai TV and later uploaded in Kathimerini.gr.

Audio production is much poorer. Podcasts are produced by Naftemporiki.gr. Tvxs.gr often uploads interviews produced by its editors during reporting. About a year ago In.gr started uploading audio files, mostly interviews and abstracts from “Vima FM” radio station; less often, online journalists upload audios from interviews taken by them. Capital.gr’s editors upload audio files (interviews) very rarely, only when there is an emergency and there is no time for video coverage. The rest of the sites upload audio content occasionally; they are mostly recorded interviews and audio documents which are part of featured stories. Kathimerini.gr has tried producing audio in the past, in cooperation with Skai Radio.

e.6 Infographics

The presence of multimedia content basically concerns video and audio files.

18 One of these videos once caused DDoS attacks by nationalists groups opposed to it, on March 2010.


There have been experiments with infographics and flash applications, but only in exceptional cases; as it turns out, their production is a time-consuming and complex procedure.Five sites’ efforts on that field were reported:-Naftemporiki.gr works on infographics for years and produces them on a constant basis. “It is established, we have an infographics column. We find it helpful, it enriches content and it is instructive. A lot of them are now interactive; they are impressive and suitable for the Internet”.-Skai.gr republishes static infographics prepared for Skai TV, mainly because “there is no time” to make original online infographics.-Enet.gr has had outsourcing infographics in special cases (e.g. forstatistics during the 2009 national elections).-Kathimerini.gr assigns some special projects to its graphics developer about once a month, because he also works for several departments of the media company. There is also a graphics archive on the site, containing the work of a graphics designer who works for the print edition.-Media2Day group has 3-4 graphics designers for the needs of its online editions, but Glistras assumes that so far it has been difficult to developed interactive graphics. “We did it once, in order to promote a summer vacations issue; instead of [content] lists, we made an interactive map of Greece where the user could browse and find information. (…) It is difficult to find an issue that would be good enough to stand on the main page for 10 days without looking old and that would worth the many days of designing work it would take”.

f. Web 2.0 practices

f.1 Interactivity

Some interviewees believe that online media should be taking more advantage of interactivity possibilities Web 2.0 offers. But there is no recipe for success and under-staffed newsrooms barely handle the amount of basic tasks.Therefore, mechanisms for audience participation in online sites seem to rely on the availability of newsroom staff. Usually editors have to deal with moderation, although there are two cases (Tvxs.gr,Capital.gr) that an external partner is assigned with this task. Existing generic formats of interactivity mentioned by interviewees are mostly e-mails, comments on stories and in authors’ blogs, polls, users’ blogs, forums, communities (User Generated Content areas).


The most traditional format offered to readers/users who want to communicate with journalists and media organizations, is email. Manyinterviewees said that their sites have e-mail forms, through which they receive complaints, ideas for stories and reactions. “Users/readers who want to report something, ask for corrections or suggestions, can do that through email. It is like the letters newspapers receive” (Mandalidis).Polls are said to be used quite frequently by In.gr, Zougla.gr and Enet.gr. “Polls give us ideas about stories, help us understand trends and lead our subjects” (Mandalidis). In.gr used to have forums in the past, but “forums are not trendy anymore, plus it is more vivid to have comments below news stories”.More rarely news sites allow users to create blogs on the news website’s platform (Capital.gr, Enet.gr).The most interactive tool Skai.gr has is a “have your say” platform,but it is visible only to radio producers. It allows anybody say/comment anything, without signing in and without moderation; there is no interaction between users, but producers refer to these comments on air. “It is widely used throughout the day by all producers. It might make sense to make it visible to the audience but many people write crazy things and there is no moderation”.Emails and sms are also received by radio and TV producers. There where additional thoughts of opening comments under opinion articlesand some (or all) of the sections during the following months.

Tvxs.gr is a different case study, as it allows its users’ communityto involve in more structural ways. First of all they have a vivid community section where users contribute with content (articles and videos). Secondly, users are welcome to propose ideas about improving the site. “More interactivity is one of the things they have asked for and this something we discuss e.g. by promoting one of the community videos on op of the site” (Kitidi). Comments and ideas are discussed even in person among them and the editors or thesites’ manager of the community. “He [the community manager] has responsibility of personal contact with users/readers, but this is something editors also do, not only through email but also by going out for a coffee and talk about the course of Tvxs. Stelios [Kouloglou] himself has met many of them”.

f.2 Sharing content

The use of social media and RSS feeds indicate a gradual adoption ofmore open policies towards content sharing among online media. Yet, few interviewees referred to sharing option features as significant elements of their sites. Some were not aware of details about their use by editors.


The use of Twitter and Facebook is quite common, not because it supports interactivity or recruitment of the audience but because itis believed to serve wider distribution of the news content, according to a couple of executives.RSS feeds are also used in order to increase traffic to the news sites. Skai.gr’s feed has been added by administrators in several aggregators. “Social media are significant traffic drivers to Skai.gr. The more you are present in social media and syndication sites like Google Reader, the more you have the chance to attract traffic through them” (Hobson).The more open sharing policies are, the more news sites benefit fromreferral traffic. “Several times during the week, we make a pass through the blogs to see the impact of several news stories that figure among the most popular in our statistics. Nine out of fifteentimes, it is proved that popularity comes through reference. We are not a closed environment”. (Moumouris)

f.3 Social media

Social media, used by editors mainly for socializing, are gradually adopted as news sources and interactivity elements for many newsrooms. Except financial sites which tend to ignore them, online media acknowledge that “social media can be used as a source for interesting news stories” (Economou). Early adopters among newsrooms’ staff are using them –when the medium allows them- in order to interact and distribute their work in multiple ways.Most online media encourage newsroom workers to be connected and follow several social media in order to be informed, follow instant reactions (e.g. Twitter users talking about traffic problems) and have an idea of what users or even sources talk about (e.g. Hobson also mentioned that he had recommended Skai.gr’s newsroom to follow the Greek Fire Service twitter account and get updates). “You cannotsurvive in online journalism if you are not connected yourself, if it is not your way of living” (Mandalidis)Some interviewees would like to see their colleagues connected on social media as much as possible (Mandalidis, Moumouris). Some also find incomprehensible that some media organizations block journalists’ access to Facebook, Amazon and other sites. They believe that advantages of their use are much more important that the security risks and the waste of time, that employers fear of. Two negative personal opinions towards Facebook have been expressed by executives, either because it is thought to be “a closed, uselessenvironment” (Moumouris) or because it raises concerns about “users’exposure and vulnerability” (Georgiadis). But they are not critical towards its use by their colleagues. On the contrary, Georgiadis said that he had recently provoked the dismissal of a governmental


officer by disclosing the misuse [=what he wrote] of his Facebook account.

The use of social media brings additional tasks for the newsroom: usually updating Facebook profiles/groups of feeding Tweeter accounts with breaking news of promoted stories. It seems that feeding Twitter accounts is not always a task for journalists of thenewsroom, or in some cases it is not for journalists at all. There are at least three cases (In.gr, Euro2day.gr, Enet.gr) that non journalist-partners have to do that entirely or partly. The particular partner of In.gr is described as a person who works separately from the newsroom and just tweets part of the content flow, “without editing it”. Euro2day.gr has a secretary who gets told when to posts something important (there is no continuous feed). Enet.gr’s account was initially fed by two journalists of thenewsroom but lately one member of the IT team was also involved in the task.In order to reduce cost, some sites run Twitter accounts which are being fed automatically, just connecting RSS news feeds with them (Skai.gr, Naftemporiki.gr, Tvxs.gr). Every tweet contains the title and part of the news text.

f.4 User Generated Content

Engaging audience to contribute part of news sites’ content seems tobe one of the biggest challenges online newsrooms deal with. In theory UGC is considered to be a valuable element for online media; in practice they find it difficult to manage and to embrace it. It turns out that UGC mainly works as a motive for more reporting on specific fields and stories.There is a shared belief, among most of the interviewees that users can contribute in many ways. They give feedback, “by keeping you [=the newsroom] updated, practically acting as a reporter, but they can also contribute with a significant part of the content. Close linking between the medium and the audience is something people ask for. (…) The medium –even a traditional one- can not de cut off its audience. It has to move towards this linking and take it as far as technology allows it to. (Mandalidis) In daily practice, newsrooms receive amounts of complaints, information about citizen actions, photos, videos and ideas for stories. But it turns out that dealing with each one of them would take as much work as any other story. Kathimerini.gr forwards complaints, documents and others stuff they receive by users to “Kathimerini” newspaper.“We receive several emails including multimedia, on a daily basis; we contact them and check their credibility, then we contact third


parties involved in the story, in order to have their position and we usually upload the stories” (Hobson). Euro2day doesn’t ask users to send UGC but they do that from time totime, suggesting stories that need reporting. “Whenever a journalisttries to verify those stories, it turns out that he needs to do as much work as he would do for a story of his own. But it is also truethat they have asked for stories that proved to be very popular. That’s because for every reader who proposes something there are a hundred more who would like to see it but there are bored to ask forit. So we give priority to their ideas” (Glistras). Zougla.gr receives “a huge flow of complaints”. Evaluating them is considered to be a very difficult task handled by one member of the newsroom and Georgiadis himself. The majority of the complaints are of “very low quality”, generated by “hatred and envy against others”. But “some are really good and very useful” (Georgiadis).Tvxs.gr has invested since launch in users’ contribution. Soon afterlaunching they realized that they needed someone especially assignedwith the task of UGC manager. They have hired an external partner (working outside the newsroom) who monitors it any times during day and night. Apart from emails, which are handled by a secretary, he monitors and filters all content uploaded by users in the Tvxs community and also prepares daily list-reports with the evaluation of users’ contribution (critical comments on stories, proposed corrections, ideas for news stories/videos/republication, funny stories etc). “We use all that in journalistic ways”. Tvxs.gr also has a network of friends (NGO members, etc) who contribute content on a regular basis, although “this content is not presented as editorial work”.

Sites related to traditional media tend to be more hesitant using user generated multimedia. Whenever asked if they would publish a blogger’s testimony-video, executives are rather reluctant. At Skai.gr they have tried it once, on May 5th 2010, when they uploaded a citizen’s video from a burning bank where 3 people died during a massive demonstration. “A user emailed us the video; we crosscheckedhis presence at the demonstration and we uploaded the video within half an hour”. (Hobson)The same procedure would be followed by Enet.gr newsroom. “I would check the fact through our [information] channels and I would think if I can use this video from an ethic and legal point of view. If the civilian asked for a great amount of money, I would ask the director, who would ask the financial director, who would probably ask a bank”. (Moumouris)

The fact that UGC needs journalistic verification before being uploaded does not devaluate it. “If somebody asked me which is the


photo of the decade, I would say that it is the blurred picture a guy took in the London subway escalators during the 2005 attack. He uploaded it on Flickr and didn’t get any money” (Moumouris). Interviewees tend to agree, though, that it will take years of practice and audience training until the day online media will be able to really benefit from UGC.

f.5 Users’ Comments

Three commenting adoption models are identified on sites of the sample: [a] Sites accepting comments on every part of the site and every single story (Capital.gr, Tvxs.gr), [b] sites accepting comments in every column and blog but only on selected news stories (In.gr, Enet.gr, Euro2day.gr) and [c] sites accepting comments only in authors’ columns and blogs (Skai.gr, Kathimerini.gr, Zougla.gr). All of the site administrators receive notifications for every comment, so that they can monitor them. Moderation is adopted by all; comments are cut if they are offensive or improper. It is not clear how many pre-moderate comments; several interviewees say that they let all comments get uploaded and intervene later if they find something improper. Some prefer to avoid altering controversial words/phrases in order to make a comment acceptable; others do that.Some interviewees said that there have been efforts to implement more open commenting policies for their sites in the past, but they found out they could not handle too many open topics and shifted theweight to columnists. A couple of interviewees said that current policies reflect more conservative opinions of other directors and executives. There seem to be second thoughts by some, about changingthat in the near future, moving toward less defensive commenting strategies.

In Tvxs.gr comments are open in every news item and section and theyare thought to be a crucial element of the site. Users have to sign up for free and get usernames to be able to comment. The person assigned with the task of monitoring and managing the site community, moderates and evaluates comments as well, indicating which of them should be answered or which ones contribute with ideas, suggestions etc. for the site. He often answers comments himself, but whenever they are addressed to the newsroom, he forwards them to editors handling the commented story and they answer, signing with their names. Tvxs.gr has invested a lot on cultivating dialogue among users. Two years after the site was launched, they realize that the community works as a conversation platform between users. “They may exchange ideas about vacation, music videos etc below a news story about


Chrisochoidis [=the minister of Public Order during that period]. Wedo not interfere” (Kitidi). When started, the site had adopted a more open policy towards comments, with minimum moderation. The current policy was adopted after realizing that “the site –or at least its profile- was degraded by improper comments; some people were driven away because they found that the level of conversation was very low. Since we adopted more strict moderation, discussion level has improved”.

Capital.gr accepts comments in every single article. This seems to have caused them much trouble. On July 2010, the site had about 12.600 registered members. Around 450 of them used to write every day. They participate in forum discussions or leave comments under news articles and blog posts. There are about 22.000-24.000 commentsper week. “There are people who write amazingly and have something to offer and others who are just having fun. We try to eliminate this phenomenon but it is not an easy thing to do. Managing this system is not an easy task. All comments are free, but there are rules. Whoever breaks them gets punished; we block his access to theforum for a period”.

Sites that accept comments on selected stories do that in order to be able to handle the amount of audience participation. They usuallyallow freely comments in all their columns and blogs but open comments only for “big” of featured stories which attract more audience and participation. Yet, there seem to be qualitative criteria of selection: Moumouris said that they avoid opening comments in controversial subjects that generate hatred and passions(e.g. sports, immigration) because they know that they will have to disapprove the majority of comments. Until 2009 comments were open only in Euro2day.gr’s blogs; since then they started opening comments in selected news stories. The reason why they don’t do that for all of them is, according to Glistras, that it would be impossible to handle the situation if they had open comments in each one of the 300.000 Euro2day.gr’s archived articles. But they do that for sibling site In2life.gr which counts around 4.000 articles.

The sites which adopted less open strategies about commenting seem to hesitate mainly because they would have to moderate a huge amountof comments. For Skai.gr “it has been considered to be an overhead”,or “a task that would fully engage one person to deal with it”. Skai.gr accepts comments only in the “Opinions” blog and in skai.drasi.gr (a popular radio producer’s blog). There is no pre moderation; the newsroom and opinion authors receive notifications


by the administrator for every comment and they delete comments when(“rarely”) they find them inappropriate.Zougla.gr accepts comments in few sections concerning sex, earthquakes and consumers’ rights, written by specialists who also answer users/readers’ questions. They are thought to be very popularalthough comment quality is often very low. Moderation sometimes involves alterations in specific words or phrases that make a comment be considered inappropriate. Georgiadis said that they do that instead of disapproving the entire comment. He says that they are very careful with inappropriate words because “they might be provoked by competitors -especially blogs- who would like to see such words coming out and find the opportunity to criticize Zougla.gr.

Filtering and moderation of users’ comments is usually a task of thenewsroom, although in several cases the staff is said to be negativetowards it: “It is as pleasant as having to clean up a closing bar at 4 a.m.” (Moumouris). At sites with comments open only for columns and blogs, as well, it is the newsroom that has to monitor them. “Sometimes commentators answer by themselves, but we, the newsgroup, monitor comments in articles. We usually do not modify them, nor correct errors; we justapprove or cut inappropriate comments. Sometimes if a comment is worth but contains a swear word, we publish the comment without it” (Economou).All members of the newsroom are involved in comment moderation also at In.gr, Enet.gr. and Skai.gr. Capital.gr and Tvxs.gr, the two sites with the largest audience communities have assigned their management to certain external partners, who may also work from a distance (e.g. at home). Mavridisbelieves that managing comments is not a job for the newsroom. “During the last two years we have a person (non journalist) who gets paid just for moderating comments. I and another colleague alsomanage comments during the day. We try to answer to all of them”. Before that, they had tried another model, of assigning this task tocertain (loyal) members of the audience. “It didn’t work because it created frictions among them and the rest of the users.Zougla.gr, also exempts newsroom editors from the task, leaving it to “people who manage the blogs”. He mentioned thoughts about creating another commenting section which will also be moderated by “specialized editors”. It is almost unanimously accepted that the big issue with comments is their low quality. Except Mandalidis, who believes that “in general comments are decent, here is a common assumption between many executives that the majority of Greeks have not developed a


mature culture of online dialogue. They say that people tend to write enormous comments, leave tens of comments without sense; they angrily attack journalists or other commentators who have different opinions. Little percentage of comments is thought to promote conversation. This perceived immaturity is partly explained by the fact that Greektraditional media hardly encouraged audience participation in the past; therefore there is mutual prejudice among media and audience. Some of the interviewees are sure that low quality discourages userswilling to discuss and drives them away form commenting areas. That’s the main reason why some sites have ended up with pre-moderation policies (In.gr, Enet.gr) and why some others have made theirs’ more strict (Tvxs.gr, Capital.gr).Despite the low quality of comments, sites rarely face legal issues because of them. Only Euro2day.gr has dealt so far legal issue with one of the comments, generated by competition among businesses. “Recently a hotel owner saw some comments under an article that he thought were coming from one of his competitors and demanded that weremoved the comment and give him the name and the IP of the commentator. We exchanged extrajudicials” (Glistras).

Responding to users comments is not a common policy for all sites. Most of them leave the comments’ field open without interfering. “Weonly answer when someone poses a question directly to us. Sometimes if it is not obvious to whom they refer, we may answer as editorial team” (Glistras).In several sites, journalists who sign their articles (columnists, print editors etc) are encouraged to reciprocate users’ comments andencourage dialogue. “Some do it by themselves, others never bother” (Mavridis). The problem seems to be that sometimes even journalists who are willing to participate “don’t have enough time” to do that consistently.

More openness in commenting policies is expected to occur in the distant future, according to several executives:-“We will be forced to open more comments. We find that people ask for them. We will become more interactive” (Mandalidis). -“We are thinking of opening comments in articles and at least in some sections. I believe that opening comments in news stories wouldboost traffic. They would feel that they contribute, they come back to see their comments have been published and we would have more page views per visitor. We accept pre moderated comments in skai.drasi.gr and we have seen them bringing traffic” (Hobson)-“If we change our commenting policy it will be towards more freedom; we are thinking about the possibility for the user to upload content, photos. We have seen Google Wave, for example and we


consider embedding a similar functionality and create something likea forum that will need less moderation” (Glistras).

f.6 Archive

Almost all of the news sites under research (except Naftemporiki.gr)offer their archived online content for free and make it available through search engines. Content retrieve inside news sites archives can be done through the Google search engine or through internal search engines. “We use them both. People seem to be familiar with Google Search, but we also try to improve our own search system”. (Moumouris). In.gr uses Google search engine as a basic tool and also offers general internal search for print and web-only news, as well as special internal searches for some content categories (e.g. articles).Two sites have avoided embedding Google search toolbars (Capital.gr,Kathimerini.gr). Apart from its online content Kathimerini.gr also offers free access to the content of two print inserts (about culture and auto) years after they have both been suspended.Zougla.gr is said to have a “primary” archive software. They are currently trying to deal with the “serious problem” of archiving itsvideo content in the future. “We still have a lot of work to do on that” (Georgiadis).

Online archives as well as print editions’ archived preserved for decades are thought to be a valuable asset19. Hobson said that a possible future subscribe model for online media might concern access to these archives.

f.7 Metadata

The use of SEO and metadata seems to be an emerging trend but related practices are rather conservative. Their ranking in search engines like Google Search seems important to few. Moumouris mentioned that Enet.gr benefits from the fact that the site/newspaper counts many years of online existence and it is highly rated by search engines and traffic tracing sites like Technoratti.Four executives said that metadata are being used in content, without giving specific details; some were not quite sure how it’ being done. Kathimerini.gr and Euro2day.gr said that they don’t use metadata. 19 Digitalization of print media archives is about to be subsidized throughan E.U. program run from 2011 (http://www.espa.gr/el/Pages/Proclamationsfs.aspx?item=1398)


In Skai.gr they use tags and meta tags in order to improve their appearance in search engines. At the time of the interview, after two months of using metadata, they had found that referral traffic from search engines had increased significantly. They did not have plans of entering metadata in their archive but it was already part of the routine for newer content. Adding tags in every news item is an extra task for newsroom workers, but it is considered by Hobson to be a rather automatic procedure. Yet, even the newsrooms that are trained for the use of metadata, neglect that task during rush hours (or periods). “All these [metadata, tags, proof-reading] are things we do later. The first thing is to try and catch time. Not because you want to prove that you were the first to publish a news item before the others but because these news are highly important for somebody’s choices. So, after giving the news, you come back and do all the rest” (Mavridis).

f.8 Links

Mainstream news sites have informal policies that require mentioningoriginal sources of news, whether it is a news agency, another medium, a blog etc. Deep linking to specific story pages on third party sites is also considered by the majority of the interviewees the optimum but not the most usual practice. In practice deep linking turns out to be time consuming and since newsroom editors have little time to enrich their stories, they neglect adding links.Especially during rush hours and periods, it is among the last things editors have in minds, according to some executives. Many times journalists “forget” or “don’t have the time” to add links. “Our instruction is to give internal links, but during rush periods it is a luxury. You should have a newsroom of 20-30 people to do that all the time” (Mavridis).

I found myself in front of two very different approaches towards thevalue of hypertextuality for online media. Interviewees –or at leasttheir sites’ policies- are either in favor of deep linking (hyperlinks to specific stories) to third party websites or reluctant because of the fear of driving users/readers to competitorsites.The most popular approach among interviewees is positive towards theuse of many links and it is based on a principle that applies to both, external and internal linking: users should have opportunitiesto go deeper into stories with a variety of information:-“You have to attract the reader/user, make him stay for some time and then lead him somewhere else –if possible within your own site.


You have to offer him ways to keep reading, so that he never reachesa dead-end” (Mandalidis). - “Every time we mention someone or something we give the link. If there is no link, we have to mention the source, even within the title of the story. We also try to give internal links (…) We believe that if an online medium is not a tool, it’s not useful. A site is a gate to the Web where anybody can look for what he is interested in. You [=the site] can offer him a tiny little thing that you could get through your journalists, and then you have to give him the chance to learn more through a link. At the Web we haveto act as if we are part of a web, not as an individual medium” (Glistras).-“Greek media –we among them- are being trained on how much links wecan use. Many of them believe that when they go online they have to stay closed in their own little world. But we are on the Internet; and there is no Internet without linking” (Moumouris).-“Whenever we use the opinion of a journalist, commentator, analyst etc, after the first paragraph we always mention his name, date of original publication and source, with the link if possible. We use as many links as we can” (Kitidi).The opposite policy is against external linking, because it is believed to offer “free advertising” of third party websites” (Georgiadis). Sites applying this policy are said to mention their sources but they avoid providing links directing to them:-“We mention the source but we do not link to them (except YouTube videos). It has to do with competition” (Economou).-“I mention my sources by when others republish my content they don’t mention the source. I [=Zougla.gr] only give links to the ones[sites] I have a good relation with. For all the others I just mention the source and people can search for it. Why should I give them clicks for free?” (Georgiadis).-“We mentioned original sources; we have done it even for our competitors. But we have never seen competitors doing the same thing. The point is what you do. Will you give a story published by your competitor?” (Mavridis). At Skai.gr they spare linking; they usually link to formal sources and official documents.

f.9 Content theft

All interviewees identify content theft as a common practice, not only for personal websites (blogs etc) but also by competitive media(online and print).Some seem to feel rather offended than threatened by the fact that their content is being constantly copied (most often without source


mentioning). Yet they all tend to agree that smart readers, sooner or later, turn to news sites with original and trustworthy content.

In the case of Skai.gr, reproduction of audio and video is considered to be “a good thing”, because “it helps spread the brand name”. Yet they do not make it very easy by making the embedding code available; usually viewers make copies from the player and upload them on their sites. Although in such cases users do not linkto Skai.gr, the company’s policy does not include action against them, “for now”.The kind of content reproduction that is considered to be more serious is the audio and video streaming theft. It usually concerns sports broadcasts protected by copyright with geographic restrictions. “A contract with Super League or NBA permits broadcasting games within Greece (sometimes in Cyprus, as well). If someone copies our media player and shows the games abroad, this exposes us against Super League or NBA, for violating the terms of use. Plus, we have to bear extra bandwidth costs, because they use our streams. Our legal department is aware of such cases; but for now we deal with it only by technical means”. (Hobson)

Content theft has been said to affect the agenda setting in financial sites. Both Euro2day.gr’s editor and Capital.gr’s directorassure that their content is being copied not only by other sites but also by print media, for years. That’s why “if we have a good story we usually keep it until the next morning; because if we upload it during the evening, everyone will have it the next day” (Glistras). He mentioned that lately most of content (8 out of 10 stories) they find reproduced by others, contains links to the original source, in more or less obvious parts of their sites. This mostly concerns In2life.gr, which has stories people usually google for.

Content theft affects the ANA-MPA news agency as well. Like any other media organization, it confronts massive reproduction of news stories retrieved either from its own site or from its clients’ websites. Papatolia says that few sites ask the agency’s permission to use the content and they get it, under certain terms: Reproduction should be occasional and include reference to the agency; additionally, the applicants have to disclose their legal status and indicate who is responsible for the site.But the agency has another problem, concerning the misuse of its paid content. Papatolia says that it is common practice of journalists who work for certain clients [media organizations] to use their access codes in order to use them for other media they work for, which are not subscribers. This practice does not concern


only sites, but Greek media in general. The agency can identify the location of the user (therefore they know if he is a client or not) but they cannot identify which clients’ passwords he used. When suchcases are detected, the agency warns the non-client to stop doing that or subscribe and use the service legally.

No interviewee was aware about the use of any content theft detection software20 in their sites. Most of them did not even know if such software exists.

g. “IT phone home” (Internet Technologies as an alien)

g.1 The IT gap

Lack of knowledge and understanding Internet Technologies emerged during research to be a crucial factor why online media are thought to be stuck in traditional structural and organizational models. Most of the executives tend to have a general idea of their sites’ technical possibilities and only few mention the importance of cooperating with IT developers in order to enrich content and add web features. Few indications occurred through editors’ interviews that some executives ignore basic nodes of the way news sites are structured and this causes several organizational problems; however these indications are not sufficient for conclusions.

Several interviewees noted that online media were developed and are being run as extensions of their parent (print/broadcast) media or that traditional media avoided the adoption of innovative strategiesabout online content production and distribution. “There is a serious deficit concerning training and mentality; and this stems from publishers who have not marked as they should how important newmedia are within each media group” (Kamaras).There are a lot of organizations (not only media) who want to develop several online products but they don’t know how, says Perifanos. “Decision makers don’t have in mind what exactly they want to do and what it would take (technically) to do it. You might make a site with myriad possibilities but you may not be able to find human resources to make it work”.

The fact that several media organizations staffed their online editions mainly with available print editors might have helped maintaining continuity between print and online, but doesn’t always guarantee enthusiasm towards embracing innovation. There were 20 Late 2010 I was informed that such software has started being used by atleast two of the news sites of the sample.


indications during research that employees in online newsrooms lack basic skills and enthusiasm or, at least, they are disappointed of the way newsrooms are being run.“News sites need a new generation of journalists who will be trainedall the time, because technology evolves very quickly and new applications may make an investment made two years ago look old (…) Online media executives are the first ones who should keep followingnew technologies and see which ones they could use and how to adapt their content. To do that nowadays, they need technical knowledge” (Zarifis). Adaptation to the digital environment workflow models is expected tobe even harder for editors who work for traditional editions and will be forced to go online because of media organizations’ convergence. Mandalidis says that there are things that “can not be asked from a journalist who has been working for over 20 years and does his job very well in a certain way”. He says that traditional media brands should not annul experiences, knowledge or the tradition that this generation carries, just because someone wants to make them perform something else”. Yet, some executives (mostly from online-only media) tend to agree that willingness to embrace new practices (especially multitasking) will be a determinant factorfor who will keep working as a journalist.

g.2 IT Development

After many years of being static, most news sites are lately being restructured. Yet they seem to face several challenges concerning the amount of investments needed in order to develop additional services that might increase audience and revenues. Newspapers also challenge technical issues towards integration between traditional and online editions.

Many of the mainstream news sites have been (or where in the processof) redesigned during the last year (In.gr, Skai.gr, Euro2day.gr, Tvxs.gr, Enet.gr).Current basic structures are though to be sufficient for a period ofaround 1-2 years, although there is a constant need for developing services and adapting infrastructure. Server upgrades are needed quite often, especially when sites enrich their content with multimedia and when their audience increases significantly:-“An online medium can not remain static, it needs renovation all the time” (Moumouris). -“We had an upgrade several months ago, basically because of trafficincrease” (Kitidi).-“We believe that the more you enrich your content the more visits increase. Upgrades are needed every 2 years; we have had 3-4


upgrades since we started (ten years ago). We recently invested a lot on that, but we hope that it will not be enough, that we will have even more visits” (Glistras).-“Every time we make new hit records, our technical team has to plant new servers”. We upgraded servers when we reached 30.000 usersand then at 50.000, 70.000 and 100.000” (Mavridis). -“Upgrade is needed about once a year. We have had one so far” (Georgiadis).-“There is need for upgrades, because own servers are 5 years old. But costs for that would be huge” (Economou).

Several news sites are hosted abroad, in order to reduce costs. In-house hosting as well as external Greek hosting are “about ten timesmore expensive” (Perifanos). External hosting is very suitable for amultimedia-rich site like Skai.gr, which needs content delivery networks of huge bandwidth, especially during rush hours (e.g. live football games streams). Skai.gr utilizes the Acamai network.According to interviewees responses:-In.gr is hosted in domestic (in-house) and abroad servers.-Skai.gr is hosted in Greece and in England-Enet.gr is hosted in Greece -Kathimerini.gr is hosted in-house (there are discussions about going abroad)-Euro2day is hosted abroad.-Capital is hosted in Greece and abroad (USA). Some of its services are developed in Greece.-Tvxs.gr is hosted abroad through a Greek company.

Part of the constant evolution is developing tools for the audience;in some cases this creates concerns about the site’s ability to support many users. Such an example was mentioned by Mavridis, abouta tool internally developed in Capital.gr, offering stock market shares technical analysis. The use of multimedia may also be discouraged by either technical limitations or little audience interest. Multimedia content delivery creates the need for more bandwidth, says Hobson. Skai.gr has had up to 45.000 users watching online a football game at the same time. “We would not be able to support this traffic if we did not use a solution like Acamai”.Tvxs.gr also confronted technical limitations during the period if was focused on video production. “That’s why we uploaded some of ourvideos on our channels on Youtube or Vimeo” (Kitidi).The problem with the amount of multimedia content is not the bandwidth required, but the fact that people do not watch long videos online, argues Mandalidis. “The average visitor stays on the


same page for about a minute. The maximum duration should be 5 minutes, assuming that it is really interesting”.The fact that most news sites use Flash Player, also limits content delivery through non Flash compatible platforms, like the iPad. The solution they found for sports games in woop.gr was to keep all livetransmissions in Flash but offer the video on demand media gallery in .mov format” (Hobson).

The use of open source tools and platforms has been mentioned (Skai.gr) as a solution of reducing costs, and taking advantage of development possibilities –although it is doubted if it could support the existing multimedia archive. Using Wordpress, the Skai.gr IT group made drasi.skai.gr, the blog or a radio program that deals with audience complaints. “We used a fixed Wordpress platform, created our own template and the way audio and video appears. And we now prepare a new version, more attractive and artistically relevant to Skai.gr (Hobson)

In order to improve work flow and cooperation between print and online newsrooms, newspapers need new hardware and software systems.In some cases this process is still uncompleted. “We need to gradually accept the logic that we have a double display of the samemedium [print and online]. Those two displays need to work complementary to each other”. (Moumouris)

While Greek media are dealing with basic technical infrastructures, they seem to be unaware of new challenges emerging abroad. Information storage and retrieval, “a really hot issue for news sites industries worldwide and the number one research field of the major web companies round the world (Google, Facebook, Amazon) is something totally unknown in Greece. The use of this technology would allow news sites create users’ profiles on topics, make conclusions about their audiences and use them in different ways e.g. by proposing a user news topics that might interest him” (Perifanos).

g.3 Outsourcing

Since media organizations seem to invest little on IT development, several projects and applications for their online editions are assigned to external partners. Outsourcing is a rising trend. Several interviewees said that it would be expensive to employ an ITteam for design, implementation, management and hosting of online media.


According to one interviewee small IT internal groups seem to be “more flexible when it comes to speed (e.g. when editorial staff decides to promote specific content or when advertisers ask to appear differently on the site). In these cases, not all external partners are said to comply so fast”.

At about half of the sites of the sample connected to traditional media, there is no separate IT department. There usually are one or two internal developers who handle minor projects, but the main projects are outsourced. Few executives gave details about this practice.Euro2day uses outsourcing in several cases, e.g. for search improvement through metadata. But lately they tend to develop more in-house services. For example they hired 3 senior and 2 junior developers, while two years earlier they had none. “We had outsourced an application on interactive maps for In2life, which turned out to be very useful; now we use it every time we want to offer browse maps on stories. Wecooperate with several people and if we see that they are good, we hire them. If you need them only once in 2-3 years, you can’t affordthem and you just collaborate with them on special occasions” (Glistras).Skai.gr assigns most of its projects to external web developers, butthey also employ one web developer and one graphics developer for minor projects and interventions on existing content. Kathimerini.gr is said to work basically in-house but they have tried outsourcing experiments in some cases.

h. What future for the media and their workers?

Executives of mainstream media don’t seem to imagine a future without merges of different editions between relative media. They also predict synergies that will lead to niche audience services. Asfor the future of journalism as a role for the society and as a profession, they see it weakening.

Interviewees tend to agree that convergence is a one way road. “Evenif there is no such planning, convergence is something that will be imposed by the circumstances”, argues Mandalidis. “No newspaper willbe able to have two different newsrooms. Print journalists will haveto learn to write for the online [edition] as well, something that will have affect on the “mentality” of work. Cultural change in newsrooms may be the most difficult [thing] to be achieved. It is very difficult to make traditional journalists write at the same time for two editions (print and digital) and even more difficult to


make them write without deadlines. (…) This is something none has achieved in Greek press; that’s why we all have to live with some hybrid newsroom structures”.Furthermore, convergence means literally that walls between newsrooms will fall. Hobson believes that “within months, the glass wall that separates Skai.gr‘s newsroom and Skai Radio newsroom will be removed. Everybody will be writing about everything”. Convergence will be necessary for one more reason, which has to do with the user’s point of view, according to Moumouris: “In new environments like the digital world, people seek for digital equivalent of values they recognized in the offline world e.g. things that existed in the newspaper they trusted. The more people will enter Internet, the more they will look for things that “remind” them of the real world”.Economou suggests that convergence would lead to a model where “print and online journalists produce together multimedia content and part of it gets published in print”. But he doesn’t believe thatsuch it will be “a fixed model” that could work forever, because “things are in a constant progress and they will progress eternally”. The certain convergence model “could be right for a transitional period, while technologies develop rapidly towards the Internet, mobile and maybe some more devices (iPad and interactive interfaces)”.

As for the future of print, none is really optimistic. They can not predict in how many years media organizations will identify their online editions are their core business, but all indications lead them to conclude that print will keep shrinking.“We are entering a situation where we will see more and more original content produced online. I don’t know how, in which form, how often or at what cost. But I think we are going towards an environment where online content will be produced on the first speedand offline content on the second. We will keep seeing print contentgoing online as long as newspapers (as we know them) will exist. Butthis depends on their sales and economies of scale”. (Moumouris)

Convergence also comes through synergies, which seem to be an evolving business practice, expected to concern a lot more media organizations soon enough. Euro2day.gr and sibling “Metochos” newspaper already make synergies. Glistras estimates, though, that aprobable closer convergence between them would more likely depend ontax and insurance issues than on the need for more intense collaboration between them. Synergies are expected to concern more third parties and not just members of the same media group. Print media that are currently trapped in a marketing model which implies special offers (books,


DVDs, CDs etc) are expected to expand it online. There are some indications that this might happen quite soon21. This model of partnerships might be a way to offer extra services (e.g. discounts)for online audiences, estimates Economou. He mentions the existing example of BBC’s cooperation with UK Open University, offering productions uploaded by the medium and suggests that this could showthe way media can cooperate e.g. with a researchers’ union. “I believe that there are many different synergies that media could enter and we will see this trend evolve very much in the future”.

Predictions and estimations about the effects of the online transition on traditional journalists refer to rather radical changes. Transition to online working models is expected to be hard for journalists who are reluctant to leave traditional newsroom culture behind. Their professional experience is appreciated by manyexecutives, but it is not thought to be enough qualification if it is not combined with adaptation to new multitasking workflow model. “Print journalists below 40-45, who can’t claim pensions soon enoughare the ones who will need training” (Moumouris).Glistras estimates that ongoing changes will affect journalism (as aprofession) much deeper than altering traditional practices and roles. “News democratization through the blogs will be extended in Greece: Anyone will be able to write news and he will be judged by readers, who will choose what they want to read. Journalist’s prestige has been deprived”. He also expects more specialization in online media: “We will see more blogs becoming thematic portals, like mini sites under umbrellas”. But he believes that Internet use as a tool of information (news and entertainment) will really grow when Internet will converge with TV, “when the housewife will be able to connect online by pressing a button, without opening the PC”.

i. Need for (what) regulations?

Interviewees are divided in two rather radical approaches over the necessity to control online speech, applying traditional media ethics on the Internet. Apart from that, some of them would like to see –or they expect to see- some kind of national regulations dealing with the existing institutional gap between legacy and online journalism.The question is whether such regulations would be applicable in a national level. All parties tend to agree that the global nature of the Internet could inactivate any narrow legal framework that would 21 E.g. on December 2010 In.gr offered free for download the new album of acontemporary Greek singer.


ignore either the constantly changing nature of the Web or the fact that the rules of the game are set by global players (international media and dominant internet corporations). Yet, they see that the problems they are dealing with are confronted by all media throughout the Globe and they hope that survival models will occur through practice.

Any possible regulation concerning news sites would be more easily applicable if it was international, believes Glistras. He is confident that a Greek arrangement e.g. over advertising tax, might stand without international background. “But is would be better if there was a cooperation within the European Union and a common ground on taxation, insurance policies, things like where can a server be based etc. There is nothing else that could be done in an institutional level, because it would concern codes of conduct whichare anyway looser on the Internet. The code of conduct is an issue of culture between media workers and audience” (Glistras).

All interviewees assume that freedom of expression cause several problems, but only one would like to see the end of online anonymity. Georgiadis believes that there should be a very strict regulation, with rules, codes of conduct and ethics for the use of the Internet, in order to control “the anarchy of complaints”. And that, because anyone can accuse or defame another person “in a blog”; but the offended can’t go after the accuser if he is anonymous, even though he has caused him huge trouble. “Nothing should be published anonymously on the Internet. That’s it. End of the story. This is full democracy”.Mandalidis also believes that journalists should have open identities when working online (as they have offline), but acknowledges the importance of anonymity for the World Wide Web evenfor users/readers of online media. “Anonymity is a basic element of internet freedom and it should be respected even when we have to deal with users and user generated content” (…). But anonymity “should not apply to organized media. Journalists have no reason to hide their identities. News sites should also have identities and legal responsibilities, adapted to new technological demands”. Adaptation means that the legal framework should consider the immediacy of content production. Mandalis, among other interviewees,realize that some of the existing legal provisions are very old (formed decades ago) and they are not applicable in the Internet era. What seems to fear them mostly is that journalists and media organizations will face more often legal implications because they will be thought to be responsible for UGC. “For example, the legal framework for defamation is very strict, exhausting I would say. This framework should be adapted to the need of immediate release,


configuration and diffusion of information and to audience participation. It is very easy for a journalist to be found entangled, because of a comment that has been written beneath his article. Even if he is vindicated in the end, this serves as a deterrent to the exercise of freedom of expression” (Mandalidis). But, he undermines that any regulation “should not lead to censorship”.

Mavridis expects, sooner or later, a more institutional form of censorship. He assumes that a regulatory authority for the Internet,equivalent to the existing National Broadcasting Council, will be created, as an effort to control or even punish content disapproved by authorities who “are disturbed” by the growing power of online media. Yet, he believes that such an attempt, in an international market [=the Internet] “will be silly”.“All we need is self-regulation” agrees Moumouris. “If you work for a newspaper where you are not allowed to write libels, you will not be able to write libels on its site. There is a code of conduct and the organization that respects it in print will respect it online aswell”.

Bratsos, as a unionist, believes that a core regulation should concern clarifying journalistic tasks. He insists that journalists should not be forced to practice multitasking because they will not be able to do their job well if they have to do many things.

Some site executives seem to realize that a more feasible regulationwould have to do with the identities of news sites. Moumouris suggest that there should be a formal/legal definition of what is “medium”, “based on criteria that will have nothing to do with meansof distribution (e.g. paper, Internet). We could say for example that media [are organizations which] produce or comment the news, etc. Afterwards we should acknowledge all those who work for media (journalists, technicians, secretaries and so on)”.

Copyright is a core issue for some. They all tend to agree that there is no control over content theft. Some think that the solutionwill probably come from users, who start (or will start) distinguishing “serious” professionals from frauds. Economou would rather expect some kind of international rules on who can republish what or under witch terms Google will be able to cash journalistic work and make money out of it. “Google has got to a point of absolute power to reach other people’s work and monetize it. It can’t go any further. I agree that without Google the Internet mightnot have been where it is today, but there has to be a regulation about copyrights and personal data protection”.


Data protection seems to affect media indirectly. Economou mentionedthe example of a person who had been acquitted over a case and askedKathimerini.gr to erase a story written about the charges against him. Even if the site complied, the article would remain cached on the Web. Such cases are still rare but they indicate the kinds of legal problems media organizations and legislators will probably have to deal with in the future22.

Most interviewees tend to agree that the market forces will solve the advertising imbalances, or at least smooth them in time. Georgiadis mentioned the need of a regulation on that also, in orderto solve the current “false analogy” of advertising distribution between traditional and online media. He suggests that advertising clients, advertisers and institutional parties should examine who profits from the way advertising spent is distributed. He finds thatmedia shops and advertisers act in favor of media connected with them –e.g. through corporate relations- “although they know that what they do is ineffective”.

Conclusions

The sites under research are mainstream media standing in an environment dominated by online editions of traditional media, whichdeveloped under the influence of pioneer European and American news sites. Publishing and broadcast corporations (media groups or stand-alone media companies) were the first to go online in Greece and their online editions or sibling news sites are closely tied to them; they mostly stand as their extensions, partly staffed by print/broadcast journalists, and have common marketing and management departments. Convergence and integration between them are progressive and it seems to be delayed by organizational and cultural reluctance. Mediaorganizations manage their sites as extensions of print/broadcast editions. Integration is implemented in small groups within organizations, mostly by early adopters of Internet practices of by journalists willing to project their professional identities online.News sites not connected to traditional media are part of a growing online media environment, formed by “dot.gr” companies investing in the production of editorial content and by a “grey zone” of unidentified sites and blogs self-defined as news sites and news blogs. The net-natives try to differentiate either through speed or

22 Google recently confronted similar requests by Spanish media (http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jan/16/google-court-spain-privacy)


through a concrete character of news coverage. The stand-alone Tvxs.gr relies also on its community.

Media organizations adopt rather conservative business models but there are considerations for more progressive development of subscription or micropayment services for niche audiences.Yet the online media outlet has not developed so far reliable tools that would allow them to set innovative strategies. They even disagree on audience measurements, something that has a negative effect on advertising revenues. Though advertising market seems to be equally unprepared to implement innovative digital strategies, there is a rising fear that Google (and search ads in general) will attract the lion’s share of online advertising spent.The formation and development of the online media environment is based on a significant institutional gap, which allows online media to ignore several laws and differentiates them from traditional media. The fact that laws and unions statutes do not define what a “news site” is, leads to a differentiation of online editors from their print/broadcast colleagues (even between media organizations which have online editions). This non recognition has to do with thefact that online sites are not obliged to pay the advertising tax imposed on traditional media, which goes for journalists’ pension funds. The institutional deficit leaves online journalists uncoveredby unions and delays integration between different editions of sibling media.

Online newsrooms usually work separated by from print/broadcast newsrooms of relative media organizations. They are less staffed, with either journalists of the parent medium (having this as a second job) or by younger and less experienced editors, generally lower paid and having inferior social security than their print/broadcast colleagues. Job description in online newsrooms is more flexible, working hours are more and an editors have to be ableto handle a variety of different stories, often with the use of multimedia. Within online newsrooms the stages of editorial filtering and gatekeeping practices weaken. Most of the online workers are internal editors, rarely specialized in specific reporting fields and usually managing a demanding workflow which does not leave them time to focus on personal reporting and develop stories that they could sign. Editors are constantly confronting the dilemma “speed versus depth”, which always turns in favor of the first.There is a shyly emerging trend of backpacking journalism, mostly implemented in online-only sites, which appear less hesitant to challenge traditional journalistic practices. However, the main reason why it is not yet widely implemented is that online editors


are usually stuck in the newsrooms dealing with a demanding amount of editorial tasks, which do not allow them to cover stories on the field.Online newsrooms are described as entities which transmit specific (internal) workflow cultures to newcomers, who are more appreciated if they have the ability to adapt to new needs and practices evolving quite often, due to constant adoption of new technological developments and web features/tools.

Several structures and working features of journalistic culture are challenged in online newsrooms. The role of online journalists is considered to be more complex and skillful, and he often has to takeinitiative and perform tasks which are traditionally assigned to technicians. Hierarchies are looser and more flexible; some roles are weaker while the intermediary roles of chief editor and coordinator turn to be very critical. As online journalism focuses on immediacy and multitasking, a wider variety of news sources are being used. Institutional sources are still dominant, but practically everything on the Web is considered to be a motivation for reporting. The existence of “news blogs”, which disclose amounts of unfiltered information, seems to challenge online newsrooms and their practices. Yet, journalists are optimistic that traditional journalistic values will prevail. Some journalists worry that, in the future, when online editions will become the core businesses of media organizations, their colleagues who are attached to traditional journalistic practices will find it difficult to adapt to the Internet workflow models and culture.

Editorial content produced by online newsrooms is usually combined with content originally produced for the print/broadcast editions. In many cases, (especially in online editions of newspapers) there is a significant dependence on it as well as on the news feeds of news agencies. Trying to manage the news flow and cover breaking news, rarely leaves enough time for editors to cover stories in depth. Some news sites put pressure on their staff by setting productivity goals, turning deep reporting to be even more impossible.News sites depend less and less on photojournalists’ work because they rely on free web photo galleries. They also make use of available web videos, although many Greek news sites develop web TV featured and experiment on original video (and less audio) production. Graphics production is less popular because it is more complex and demanding task.


Multimedia production is considered to be an extra burden for onlinenewsrooms’ staff, but executives acknowledge the importance of its development as a step towards future online media formats.

Acknowledging the familiarity of users/readers with new media formats, all types of online media try to incorporate interactivity tolls like blogs and social media in order to attract audience and engage loyal readers. They experiment on the use of multimedia and other features trying to compete with old and new players in the Internet arena. However, in practice, they seem reluctant to strongly embrace interactivity and adopt more open policies towards their audiences. Only Tvxs.gr invests on interactivity with its community, probably indicating that independence from traditional media organizations favors more open strategies towards the audience.All news sites gradually encourage content sharing and hypertextuality, but there are limitations mostly because newsrooms are under-staffed and can not handle demanding tasks e.g. UGC and comments. Journalists find that it they corresponded to all users’ ideas and suggestions for reporting there would be no time left to cover the news flow that they deal with on a daily basis. However, they agree that a limited proportion of UGC is valuable.It is unanimously accepted that content theft (unauthorized reproduction of editorial content without mentioning the original source) is a common practice in the online news environment.

A significant factor seems to delay innovation: there seems to be a lack of understanding Internet Technologies. This has created a gap,initially established in traditional media organizations and reflected in their online editions. Organizational conservatism and the subsequent limited development of IT departments within media organizations has made it more difficult to invest in effective digital strategies.Lack of IT-friendly culture and practices also concerns advertisers and traditional journalists, who tend to be suspicious toward innovation. This gap also affects the level of web development. Outsourcing developing services is often a solution, and it is a practice adopted in several operational levels.

Executives and senior editors of mainstream media don’t seem to imagine a future without merges of different editions between relative media. They also predict synergies that will lead to niche audience services. As for the future of journalism as a role for thesociety and as a profession, they see it weakening. They also appear to disagree on the necessity of the kind of national or international regulations (if any) needed concerning the way online


media are being structured and run. They tend to agree that traditional media ethics will survive on the Internet, although theymay transform.

Discussions of Findings and Conclusions - Implications

The findings of this research reflect a period which -although not more distant than a few months back- is behind several evolvements that occurred in the mid time. The escalation of the financial crisis has affected the media in several ways, including further cutbacks, reduction of staff and salaries, as well as more intense efforts to merge different editions of some media groups. Some of them were foreseen by interviewees; others might be signs that integration is occurring earlier than expected and that traditional media are sinking faster into recession.

Having in mind that the gateway to Greek traditional media is currently extremely narrow, due to dramatic reduction of editors’ positions, one could argue that the main entrance now to journalism is through online media. The findings of this research indicate thatnewcomers in online newsrooms are led to different careers than their print/broadcast colleagues. Though interviewees indicated thata newsroom’s culture is transmitted to youngsters, it is important to understand how similar or how different this culture is, comparedto traditional values and established practices, in order to evaluate cultural changes of journalism as a profession.

Despite the fact that online editors appear to perform more complex and skillful tasks and are said to take initiative, they seem to lose the opportunity to develop stories that they can sign. This might turn them more expendable within a newsroom and it might also weaken the responsibility they take towards readers for the content they produce. The weight for every story shifts to the brand name ofthe site and not to the signature of the editor.Online practices such as the use of free online available multimediacontent, are also threatening photo-reporters (as well as other broadcast content productive technicians e.g. cameramen). Findings indicate that backpacking journalism will be a much more common practice in the near future, affecting these professional categorieseven more.

Another interesting finding is the reluctance of offline editors to adopt new media and their defensive or critical standing towards them. Some of them are expected to work for online editions in the –rather near- future if integration scenarios are implemented.


Empirical observation indicates that the overwhelming majority of them are familiar at least with some popular blogs, but this is far from adopting interactivity as a crucial element of their professional identity.

Concerning the adoption of multimedia content, websites related to television stations seem to have an advantage over online newspapers, because they have the material and the organizational structure needed for both audio and video production, as Jankowski &van Selm have indicated (Jankowski & van Selm, 2000)

Recommendations for further research

It is clear that the present research focuses on the executives’ andsenior editors’ point of view. There are clear indications that theysee changes in a more positive and optimistic way than their minor colleagues, who are less privileged. Though many of the findings reflect only their beliefs, further research should focus on journalists’ and reporters’ point of view.

Present findings could not lead to conclusions about the use of Web 2.0 features without measuring them with quantitative methods. It would be recommended to also measure multimediality and interactivity in news sites, using both qualitative and quantitativemethods.

Respective studies should also apply to more mainstream net-native news sites, in order to compare their features, practices and strategies to the present sample. Further research might focus on the typology of the new media environment, which has not been explored yet, although it challengesthe online outlet and Greek journalism in general.


Appendix

Interview points for online media executives and chief editors:

Available data about your sites’ visitors:*how many visitors do you have?*how do you measure visits? (Google analytics or else?)*have you tried other tools?

Available audience statistics. Indications about:*audience identity*how long do they stay?*direct traffic versus referral traffic versus search traffic – whatis the analogy?*audience preferences over content*fluctuations depending on news intensity

Stages of development the site has passed through until today.

Are there media (international or domestic) which have influenced your sites’ structure, business model or other parameters?

How is your site connected to other media of the same group?*in a corporate level*in marketing level (do the have a common commercial department?)*in journalistic level (editorial content, work flow)*are they competitive at some level?*do they feed each other with audience?*what percentage of online content would you say was original produced from a parent medium?

Do you estimate that in the future, you site and other group media will have to cooperate more intensively (workflow) or merge; if yes,


because of which factors?

Site’s hierarchy*Are there (and how many are they / and how is their professional role described – if different from the following):PublisherDirectorEditors in chiefLayout editorsCoordinatorsEditors“Correctors”Technicians...other roles?

Have you tried different hierarchy models during the past?

How would you describe your sites’ editors? Do you have and how many:*internal editors*external editors*reporters*columnists*correspondents*trainees

Do you have editors accredited on certain fields or assigned to cover specific fields?

How do you define the term “journalist”? (has it been transformed because of the internet?)

Work flow and technical coverage:*how many hours a day*how many shifts per week*hours (flexible or not?)

How news stories for publish are chosen?*is it the editors responsibility to find it and do it by himself?*during meetings (how often are there meetings?)*they are assigned to the editors by editors in chief / coordinators*a combination of some of the above*if competitor sites have the story, we have to have it too


*other / what?

Who selects titles, leads and other elements of news stories *the editor*the chief editor/coordinator*the person in charge of proof-reading*other/who Who edits the story for Twitter or other distribution forms?

Who uploads the story?*The editor who wrote it*the chief editor/coordinator*the person in charge of proof-reading*other/who

In which cases editors sign news stories/items?

Is there a specific goal set about how many news items should be uploaded?*per day*per hour*per editor*per shift*per other parameter*no

Which of the following news sources of information are used on a constant basis (not occasionally)?*a pile with the newspapers of the day*TV*radio*news agencies (do you have contracts with any?)*institutional sources *personal sources of editors*complaints / reports by users/readers*citizens movements *blogs*social networks (Twitter, Facebook, other social media)*other news sites*non journalistic sites*press releases*corporate announcements*other sources / which ones?

Where do you find photographic material from?


*photo agencies (do you have contracts with any of them?)*free-lance photo journalists*readers / audience*other sites*other sources / which ones?

Where do you find multimedia (audio, video) and at what percentage from every source?*from TV and radio*our editors produce it (in which cases?) *our sources send it*it it send to us by users/readers who produced it*it is sent/indicated to us by users who discovered it uploaded on the Web*we track it on web channels (Youtube, Vimeo etc)*we use abstracts of major broadcasters (e.g. newscast abstracts)*elsewhere / where?

On what other multimedia formats have you experimented or would you like to experiment (e.g. interactive infographics?)*is their cost deterrent?*are they demanding in editors/technicians training?

Is there any limitation on how much multimedia you can upload because of cost (e.g. streaming)?

How often do you need to upgrade servers because in order to cover you need to feature new applications?

Do you outsource any services (e.g. web development)?

Are you hosted abroad or in Greece?

What's your site's policy on republishing news and original source references?*are there any limitations / based on what criteria?

What's your site's policy on deep-linking towards third-party sites?*in which cases do you insert links?*in which cases do you insert external links;*in which cases do you insert links to original sources of a news story or to its extensions?

Do you use any content-theft detection software?

Do you use metadata in your news items?


What is your relevant policy?

Are there any limitations on archive content retrieve?*is it accessible through keyword only?*have you installed Google search?

In order to hire an editor, which of the following skills would you consider more important:*having a degree in journalism?*having working experience in a traditional medium*having working experience in a news site? *good writing*fast writing*being able to bring exclusive stories*being able to handle a variety of issues*being specialized in a specific reporting field*knowing how to produce multimedia content that will accompany his story*being able to adjust to new need and practices*other/what?

In which cases or what skills have your editors been trained?

Do you find from time to time that it is necessary to train your staff for the coverage of certain needs?

Do you allow / encourage your editors to use social media?

How important do you find the user generated content?

On UGC (user generated content):*Which are the advantages (financial, journalistic, audience loyalty, does it make them feel useful and interactive, are they used as sources)?*when did you open comments?*how do you find comments' quality (do they have something to say, are they controversial, do they contribute to stories, do you have to deal with insults)?*how do you manage comments (moderation – which ones get cut)?*who is assigned with comments management / answering?*is registration required for commenting?*in which cases do you answer?*what is the newsroom's attitude toward UGC?*are there any incentives for developing UGC applications;*how do you find UGC quality?*how is journalistic work affected by UGC?


*have you confronted legal issues because of UGC?*did you ever had to change your UGC management strategy through theyears?*do you expect that audience participation will grow in the future?*does the audience become more demanding through time?

How many of your editors are hired under payment?

Are their payments adjusted to the terms of the Collective Agreementof ESIEA?*If not, to what levels do they stand?*do editors receive extra payments for working on holidays, night shifts and weekends?

Are you workers insured?*on TSPEATH*on TAISIT*on IKA*on TEVE (self-insurance)*the company does not insure them and is not aware if they are self-insured*the company provides some insurance benefits / what;

Not providing insurance -if not- has to do with the institutional deficit from ESIEAS' part (not registering online journalists) or you wouldn't afford to apply the ESIEA Collective Agreement for the whole staff, anyway?

Which of the following consequences do you think imposing advertising tax (“aggeliosimo”) on news sites would have? (you may indicate more than one):*it would equate (in terms of social security and payments) online workers with their colleagues in traditional media*it would attract experienced journalists from traditional media to work permanently in news sites*it would reduce advertising campaigns in news sites*it would enforce advertising spent in traditional media*it would make many online media owners transfer their corporate headquarters abroad*it would attract foreign media expand in the Greek market*it would turn in favor of Google, which would get a big share in the Greek advertising market, due to competitive charges

Do you think that institutional regulations are needed (in Greece orinternationally) concerning news sites' operation?


*if yes, towards which direction?

Which are your site's revenue sources (to what percentage)?*private sector advertising*state advertising*sponsorships*donations*capital funds*Google ads*other/what?*I don't know / I don't answer

Do advertisers put pressure for more visits or for other quantitative or qualitative indicators of your site, in order to getadvertised on it?

What other business models have been tried so far for your site (e.g. classifieds, products sales)?

How do technological developments affect investments on infrastructure (and how often)?*concerning hardware (site infrastructure and reporters' equipment)*concerning software*concerning staff training*concerning introduction of structural elements on the site (multimedia etc)?

Which stages of development do you estimate that your site (and Greek online journalism) will know in the future?

Do you think that subscription or micro-payment models might concernyour site in a few years (how many)?*for the whole content or for part of it?


Acronyms (english / greek versions)

ANA-MPA…….. Athens News Agency-Macedonian Press AgencyΑΠΕ-ΜΠΕ………. Αθηναϊκό Πρακτορείο Ειδήσεων – Μακεδονικό Πρακτορείο Ειδήσεων

AS…………………. Associated Press

ESIEA……………. Journalists’ Union of the Athens Daily NewspapersΕΣΗΕΑ…………… Ένωση Συντακτών Ημερησίων Εφημερίδων Αθηνών

IKA……………….. Ίδρυμα Κοινωνικών Ασφαλίσεων IKA……………….. (Social Security Organization)

IT………………….. Internet Technologies

EDOEAP………… Journalists’ Subsidiary Insurance and Care Agency

ΕΔΟΕΑΠ………… Ενιαίος Δημοσιογραφικός Οργανισμός Επικουρικής Ασφάλισης

Περίθαλψης

ESPIT……………. Magazine and Electronic Press Journalists’ Union

ΕΣΠΗΤ………….. Ένωση Συντακτών Περιοδικού - Ηλεκτρονικού Τύπου


ETAP-MME……. Single Insurance Fund for Media Workers

ΕΤΑΠ-ΜΜΕ……. Ενιαίο Ταμείο Ασφάλισης Προσωπικού – Μέσων Μαζικής

Ενημέρωσης

ΟΑΕΕ…………….. Insurance Organization for the Self-Employed

OAEE…………….. Οργανισμός Ασφαλίσεων Ελευθέρων Επαγγελματιών

SEO………………. Search Engine Optimization

UGC………………. User Generated Content

TAISIT………….. Insurance Fund for Owners, Journalists and Press

Officers

ΤΑΙΣΥΤ………….. Ταμείο Ασφαλίσεως Ιδιοκτητών, Συντακτών και Υπαλλήλων

Τύπου

References

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Greek journalism going online Parameters of change in the greek media landscape through online newsrooms - Master Thesis

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