Reinventing Journalism: Trends, Innovations and Unanswered Questions

Damian RadcliffeJuly 2014

@[email protected]

Reinventing JournalismTrends, Innovations and Unanswered Questions

Damian Radcliffe is an Honorary Research Fellow and Doctoral Student at the Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies.

He has written about journalism, technology and media innovation for a range of outlets including:

Abramis Academic Publishing, BBC College of Journalism, Huffington Post, journalism.co.uk, Knowledge Bridge

(Media Development Loan Fund), NESTA, Online Journalism Blog, Ofcom, StreetFight, Routledge, Talk About Local and ZDNet.

View Damian’s extensive writing and research portfolio at: www.damianradcliffe.wordpress.com/writing

About the Author

In this presentation:

1) Changes in consumption and advertising

2) Innovations in creation, consumption and distribution

3) Do our concepts of journalism need to evolve?

4) Ideas for moving forward

Part 1. Journalism under threat (?)

“…These days, being a journalist shares at least one quality with being a shark.

If you‘re not moving forward, it's over.”

Margaret Sullivan, public editor of The New York Times

Well known story

Including:

1. Cyclical vs Structural problems

2. Declining circulations

3. Declining revenues

4. Fewer jobs for journalists (?)

5. The impact of social

6. Resistance to change

And more…

New data shows the shift to mobile

Print punching above it’s weight

Newspaper reliance on print revenue

Perhaps the most topical question is…

Can legacy media “do” digital?

It’s not that long ago that many people felt that the NYT had “nailed it”…

What a difference a year makes…

We cannot hold back the tide And shouldn’t try.Embrace and ride the wave!

Reasons to be cheerfulTechnology, failing legacy

models and new entrants have all provided a basis for innovation / evolution

Part 2. The evolution of Journalism

10 recent trends and developments

Obligatory use of this quote…

1. Emergence of new funders

eBay founder Pierre Omidyar says his new flagship site for First Look Media will cover news, entertainment, sports and politics, plus “a family of digital magazines.”

Jay Rosen reports Omidyar has committed $250m to the venture.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos meanwhile spends $250m buying the Washington Post…

2. New funding models

CROWDFUNDINGGerman project “Krautreporter” aims to find 15,000 people who commit to paying 60 Euros ($80) a year to fund the site.

The Texas Tribune, used Kickstarter (+ a $10k matching pledge

from the Knight Foundation) to purchase equipment to livestream the 2014 Texas governor’s race.

3. Big players acting like start-ups

The rise of TV like contentIncreasingly regular feature

On platforms who didn’t start out this way…

4. Newer entities acting like old media

5. Everyone embracing social

"The challenge is not to get the story published, but to get the story into people’s feeds — into their Twitter timelines, into their inbox and into their chat." - Zach Seward, Quartz

-----------------

Buzzfeed gets:

• 50% referrals via mobile• 75% via social

BBC News Video on Instagram

Some news organizations have embraced new consumer realities and provide an editorial proposition reflecting this.

As GigaOm pointed out, Circa stories are actually longform in disguise:

“…since it allows users to “follow” a specific story, and get updates only about new developments on that story, it essentially is building a long-form news story over time — just in bite-size chunks.”

6. “Mobile First” approaches

7. “Video first” services

• 25 staff• 8-10 videos each a day

On all the usual social platforms.

Plus Kindle Fire and Roku

Which enable TV viewing

“As soon as I saw Google Glass, I realised that it would allow me to do what I always do with this first-person live

recording, but my hands would be free.” Tim Pool, Vice

Pool used Glass as part of his coverage of 2013 protests in Istanbul, getting up to 750,000 views a day of his stream.

8. New storygathering tools

9. The impact of Big / Little Data

1. .

The Bay Citizen Bike Accident TrackerUsed data from 14,113 incidents reported to the police between January 2005 and December 2009. Can filter by road conditions, lighting and other factors such as ‘who is at fault’ to determine the safest routes to use and/or avoid.

Single, searchable, database allowing users to search for physicians or medical centers to receive listings of all matching payments.

10. J-School evolution

• Computational Journalism

• Data Journalism

• Entrepreneurial Journalism

Case Study: Cardiff University's Community Journalism MOOC

• 8,828 learners signed up for the course

• Learners came from over 113 countries worldwide

• Over 13,400 comments throughout the course

• #Flcommunityjourno was tweeted out over 900 times

Part 3. Unanswered Questions

10 emerging issues to consider

1. What is 21st Century Journalism?

Issues include:

* Changing reading habits

* Discoverability

* Branded content

* Joining up your business

* Getting - and keeping - audience attention

Does our concept need to be updated?

Using analytics to shape story lengthAka why Quartz does not publish 500 - 800 word articles…

Explanatory journalism – creatively informing audiencese.g. Ampp3d explained recent British elections, using Lego bricks…

Tech can automatically repurpose your content

Wibbitz automatically turns

text into video

2. Are other people doing our job?

A number of NGOs are doing great work in terms of:

• Promoting independent media

• Publishing untold stories

• Driving media – and information – literacy

• Holding authority to account

• Developing next generation tools

• Using this for social change/impact

What can we learn from them re: content creation, distribution and empowering audiences? How we can work together?

Makes websites and tools to empower citizens in the UK and around the world

TheyWorkForYou• Who your local MP is, summaries of how they voted, written questions

submitted to government departments, and the answers they’ve got back.

FixMyStreet• Report a problem in your area. Reports automatically go to the people in

charge of fixing them. Data published online for sharing / discussion.

“Now near-indispensable source or insight and reference for anyone covering international affairs.

I class this as content innovation because they are doing what news media should be doing and aren't.

They're making sense of things. They're also doing it with fluency, economy and a good editorial sense.

By far and away the best NGO website on the planet.”

George Brock Former Managing Editor of The Times , Board Member World Editors Forum

3. Can regulation keep up?

Examples include:

1. Drone Journalism 2. Internet of Things3. Aereo

FACT: Disrupters will always be ahead of regulators and policy makers…

…And incumbents won’t like it!

4. How do we measure success?

Circulation, TV ratings and page views aren’t enough…

Engagement including:

– Social comments / shares– Time spent online– Perception of brand– Impact on communities

We need new metrics to reflect new consumer realities

5. Privacy post-Snowden

Post-Snowden – and in a world of ever increasing connected devices – these issues will continue to loom large.

Examples include:

1. Ensuring Anonymity for sources.

2. The right to be forgotten.

3. Filming/consent via Google Glass.

And evolving issues around verification…

6. Can a pivot to digital save print?

German media giant Axel Springer has acquired one company per month since 2006 as part of a move to use digital income to support/underpin (or slowly shed?) their print business.

They are divesting of some title however, such as their

7. How can we be proactive?Identifying what are fads and what are trends.

• Experimenting e.g. with new social networks

• Home Entertainment e.g. virtual reality

• Adding news/civic dimensions to appsWhatsApp sharing button

Oculus Rift headsetGoogle owned Waze

8. The impact of wearable tech

Cisco predicts the number of wearable devices in use will jump from less than 22 million in 2013 to almost 177 million by 2018.

What might this mean for journalism?

e.g. Combined with push notifications and content using location based triggers?

9. How can we use LBS?

HypARlocal was a UK pilot using augmented reality to blend local media content through Layar.

Geo-tagging content will therefore become an important part of your content’s metadata.

They are divesting of some title however, such as their

10. Next generation UGC

But: new Tow report shows UGC is only used when other content is not available to tell the story; and labeling including credits for creators is poor and inconsistent.

Do attitudes towards UGC need to change?

CNN announced in May 2014 that citizen journalists can interact with their newsroom directly via Google Glass app.

The Nokia Lumia 1020 offers a 41MP camera sensor, full

HD video and stereo audio recording.

Part 4. Moving forward

A few quick thoughts….

1. Innovation is happening globally…

We need to cast our gaze wider…

1. x.

Rappler (Philippines) trains young people as citizen journalists. It combines social action with journalism.

Meanwhile Project Agos is a data, social and visualisation project providing:“a unified information platform that will bridge disaster preparedness and

response initiatives of the government, civil society, and the citizens.”

Look at Rappler in the Philippines

Netherlands: “All articles of all newspapers and all important magazines are available in one web app, with one pay wall.”

“…users will only have to pay for the articles they read.

We think that unbundling of

journalism is the Holy Grail in getting

young people to pay for journalism

again.”

Blendle in the Netherlands

As well as examples closer to home

Clark Gilbert speaking at Harvard University’s Nieman Foundation last year revealed that at Deseret Media:

"In 2009, legacy revenue accounted for 90 percent of the business and digital came only from 10 percent.

In 2012, he said that legacy revenue channels would account for only 33 percent of overall revenue."

2. We must avoid the usual suspects

By learning from other people and industries They can all contribute to the debate

This includes…. NGOs

Blending independent journalism and/or access to information to promote civic

engagement in creative and innovative ways. Examples include:

• BBC Media Action

• Code for America

• Internews

• Frontline SMS

• Media Development Investment Fund

• Open Society Foundations

• Sunlight Foundation

SimSim-Participation Citoyenne (Morocco)• Nouabook, a web platform facilitating MP - citizen engagement in Morocco.

Focal Integrity Team for Cameroon (FITCAM)• ‘Project to monitor schools’ expenditure via SMS.

iWatchLive (Nigeria)• Web application allowing citizens to access Nigerian government budget data and

report back on incidences of corruption and poor service delivery.

Advertising, PR and Digital

Insights into changing – and emerging - consumer behaviors, which are applicable to publishers.

Why?• Transferable audience insight• Proactive• Not Reactive

NYT innovation report showed that these sides don’t necessarily talk to one another. And that they need to!

RetailersWhat can we learn from them re LBS?

1. Content/offer needs to be valuable e.g. discounts, reviews etc.

2. This is a growing market.

Is it a potential source of

revenue that news publishers

can tap into?

And other businesses

And those constantly exploring changing consumer habits

• Coca-Cola• Pepsi

• McDonalds

Like:• Music• Publishing

And other legacy industries which have been disrupted by digital

Only by getting into unusual spaces…

Can we think differently…

• CES• IBC• Internet.org• “Gig City” - Chattanooga

Talk to:• Trend watchers• Ethnographers• Anthropologists

3. Partnerships are essential

For Storygathering….

Journalists, Hackers and Open Data supporters brought together by the World Bank Institute’s Global Media

Development program to create OpenData Latinoamérica.

For effective business models…

Such as the merger between St. Louis Beacon (web) and St. Louis Public Radio.

For distribution…

The Washington Post’s new partner program offers digital content for free to other newspapers’ paid subscribers.

“In fact, I think in the long run, we’re going to look back at many facets of old media and realize that we were living in a desert disguised as a rain forest.”

Steven Johnson

There’s going to be a few bumps,But I do believe the future is bright…

QUESTIONS?Thank you for reading

Email: [email protected]: @damianradcliffe

Thanks for new ideas and inspiration:Kevin Anderson, Paul Bradshaw, George Brock, Bart Brouwers, Tom Glaisyer, Zahera Harb, Abraham

Kamarck, Jan Keulen , Jon Kingsbury, Chris Lawrence, Andy Martin, Charles Miller, Nic Newman, John Owen, Ramaa Sharma, Judith Townend and Claire Wardle.