Debate: The gap between what reporters write and what readers consume
By Chris Hogg
For those interested in the gap between what reporters cover and what readers consume, this video from MIT/NiemanLabs may be of interest.
Pablo Boczkowski is a Northwestern professor who studies news production and how it is changing in a digital environment. In the video embedded below, Boczkowski makes a presentation on the kind of journalism news organizations produce and how it compares to what people actually consume. Boczkowski gathers data from a wide variety of sources that span different geographies and time periods.
After his presentation, Joshua Benton from Nieman Journalism Lab weighs in with a few interesting points to encourage discussion and debate on the subject.
You can read a transcript here, and for those who want to skip ahead: Boczkowski’s talk starts at 7:50; Benton’s response starts at 37:10; and a Q&A session starts at 57:45.
Pablo Boczkowski and Joshua Benton at MIT Communications Forum from Nieman Journalism Lab on Vimeo.
Citizen journalists, media capture earthquake aftermath in Japan
By Chris Hogg
Japan has been hit by the most powerful earthquake since it started keeping records, and a massive tsunami warning has been issued across the Pacific. Videos show widespread flooding, including ships, cars and buildings being washed away.
Japan was hit by an 8.9-magnitude earthquake Friday, prompting the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center to issue a widespread warning watch for tsunamis.
According to a report in the LA Times, seismologist Susan Hough of the U.S. Geological Survey in Pasadena said the quake “is going to be among the top 10 earthquakes recorded since we have had seismographs. It’s bigger than any known historic earthquake in Japan, and bigger than expectations for that area.”
The BBC reports a state of emergency has been declared in a nuclear power plant in Japan, but no radiation leaks have been reported. According to reports, hundreds of people are dead after the 8.9-magnitude quake hit about 400 km (250 miles) north-east of Tokyo at 2:46 p.m. local time.
Video captured by local media and citizen journalists is now making its way online, showing massive damage. While places like Hawaii brace for impact, the damage within Japan is widespread.
Here are some videos showing the devastation in Japan:
Map of areas affected in and around Japan (courtesy Storyful):
View Japan Earthquake – March 11 in a larger map
Digital Journal releases data showing strong growth in user-generated media
Our sister site Digital Journal, issued a press release today that is important for anyone following user-generated content and how it plays a role in media.
The press release is pasted below:
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TORONTO, Feb. 24 – Digital Journal, a global digital media news network, released data today showing strong growth in its online and mobile divisions.
Regarded as a pioneer and leader in crowd-sourcing and user-generated content, Digital Journal has 30,000 professional and citizen journalists, bloggers, photographers and freelancers in 200 countries around the world.
Today, the company released the following information related to growth:
Mobile growth
- Mobile website and smartphone apps attracting more than half-a-million pageviews per month and growing.
- Smartphone apps launched in mid December 2010 for Android, Apple, BlackBerry and Windows Phone devices in partnership with Polar Mobile.
- Smartphone apps downloaded 35,000 times since launch, currently growing by more than 5,000 downloads per day.
- Interactive mobile website allows anyone to post news, blogs, images and more from their smartphone.
Online growth
- Attracting millions of readers, doubling year-over-year entirely by word of mouth.
- Crowd-sourcing content from 30,000 members in 200 countries around the world.
- Paid out more than $100,000 to outside contributors so far.
- Digital Journal has published more than 100,000 news articles and 65,000 images from contributors in every major metropolis around the globe.
- Editors make more than 200 appearances on national TV, radio and in print each year.
Future of Media events
- Digital Journal is now running a semi-annual conference called Future of Media, a speaker series dedicated to discussing the future of media.
- Past speakers include executives from Facebook, Global News, CBC, CTV and more.
- Sponsors have included Dell, Rogers, Canada Newswire, Queensway Audi and more.
- Every event has sold-out, hitting capacity before doors open.
- Future of Media events widely regarded as must-see media events for executives in media, advertising and PR.
“Digital Journal is excited about its strong growth and global reach,” said Chris Hogg, CEO of Digital Journal, Inc. “With a content platform that is proprietary and automated, we’re currently looking at a number of potential strategic partnership opportunities.”
Digital Journal Platform & Technology
Digital Journal’s proprietary content platform enables qualified contributors to publish content such as news, blogs, images and video, as well as engage in discussions on important topics from their communities. The company’s platform enables content creation at scale, and ad revenue is shared with contributors based on how many pageviews and how much engagement their content attracts.
Digital Journal’s platform enables the company to scale from a hyperlocal focus to an international audience, with the ability to contact readers and contributors within 1 km (1/2 mile) of any geographic location in order to crowd-source content. That technology has been showcased in events such as the recent uprisings in the Middle East and Africa; when a massive earthquake hit Christchurch, New Zealand; and in order to mobilize citizens to cover their communities in metropolises such as Toronto, New York, Paris, London, Sydney and more.
Digital Journal publishes a variety of content ranging from on-the-ground news reports to more general interest stories on topics such as celebrities, business and food. Contributors and readers interact in a one-of-a-kind social news experience that blends news reportage with social communities and groups.
Digital Journal also consults news organizations on how to empower their audience to acquire content, drive revenue and increase engagement from digital media properties. For more information, visit digitaljournal.com
Everything you need to know about ‘The Daily’
By Chris Hogg
News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch unveiled his company’s vision for the future news publication today and it’s called “The Daily.” The publication is available only on the Apple iPad and represents News Corp.’s vision for the future of digital media.
Speaking at a press conference at the Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan, Rupert Murdoch unveiled The Daily along with Eddy Cue, vice president of Internet Services for Apple.
“New times demand new journalism,” said Murdoch. “The devices that modern engineering have put in our hands demand a new service edited and designed for them. Our challenge was to take the best of journalism and combine it with the best of contemporary technology.”
During the press conference, News Corp. showed off some of the app’s unique features: 360-degree photos let readers see everything from a specific location; high-definition video; graphics that respond to touch; full customization with the ability to pull-in custom content that matters to a reader; and the ability to share content via email, Twitter or Facebook.
“There’s a growing segment of the population that is educated and sophisticated that does not read national newspapers or watch television news,” said Murdoch. “But they do consume media, and they expect content to be available to them any time and anywhere.”
From a business standpoint, Murdoch said The Daily has cost $30 million to get to where it is and operating costs will be less than $500,000 per week. Murdoch said profitability is easier to achieve because costs are much lower than those associated with traditional news publications.
“We can and we must make the business of news-gathering and editing viable again,” said Murdoch. “Our aim is for The Daily to be the indispensable source for news, information and entertainment. [There is] no paper, no multimillion-dollar process, no trucks,” said Murdoch. “We’re passing on these savings to the reader.”
The Daily will cost 14 cents per day, or 99 cents per week. Yearly subscriptions are available for $39.99.
Murdoch said The Daily is not a legacy brand moving from the print to the digital world so the company will have license to experiment, a commitment to innovation and “a responsibility to evolve and respond to customer’s need.”
App details, features and content
News Corp. Chief Digital Officer, Jon Miller, said The Daily will produce up to 100 pages of content per day using all types of media. When viewing content, readers can zoom out and view stories in a carousel view or shuffle through content they haven’t read yet. Voice overs offer readers the chance to hear content and a video anchor will host some stories similar to how a TV news anchor reads news.
Readers can clip articles, save text, record audio comments or email content. Content within the app will hyperlink to the outside Web and Twitter feeds will be imported to stories. For example, an article about a particular athlete or celebrity will offer a direct, embedded Twitter feed so readers can hear the latest news from that individual within the app.
Customization is also a big part of The Daily: In the sports section, for example, readers can select schedules, scores, stories, photos, etc. and individual teams. The section then shows them up-to-date news and Twitter feeds for their favourite teams and individuals rather than one big generic sports feed. The Daily publishes each morning and content is updated throughout the day, including breaking news.
News Corp. says a mirror-image of The Daily content will be available online but many features will be iPad-only. Content can be shared via social networks so friends can consume individual stories or photos for free, but readers who go directly to the website will hit a paywall and be prompted to pay for content.
According to reports, The Daily boasts a dedicated staff of 100 people. The app is designed to be aesthetically unique, offering news, content, visuals and video in new ways.
Murdoch was originally planning to announce The Daily in mid January with Apple CEO Steve Jobs, but the launch was delayed and Jobs has since taken a medical leave of absence.
Murdoch has reportedly been showing off The Daily to potential advertisers and friends in recent weeks, including guests at a cocktail party at his apartment last night.
Yesterday, News Corp. announced John McKinley has been appointed Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and President of Technology for the organization’s digital media group. McKinley previously served as the CTO of AOL.
Apple introduces new subscription model for App Store
The Daily has been talked about widely in media circles, as journalists, pundits, analysts and observers watch to see how a digital-only publication is received by the public. Some believe apps will hurt print subscriptions in the future, so News Corp. is pushing to establish a digital audience.
The launch of The Daily is being marked as a significant event in media circles because it brings with it a new subscription option from Apple to allow publishers to get the digital equivalent of recurring magazine or newspaper subscription revenue.
Prior to the launch of The Daily, an iOS user could pay for an app and download it to their iPod, iPhone or iPad but it was a one-time charge only. There have been “in-app” purchase options, but that feature was not designed with publishers in mind. With the exception of the Wall Street Journal, Apple has not allowed media organizations to sell more than one issue via the App Store.
“We’ve included a whole new subscription billing that’s as easy as one click,” said Apple’s Eddy Cue. “We think iPad customers are really going to embrace this.”
Apple said The Daily is the first publication to take advantage of this new subscription option and that other publishers will be able to in the near future. Cue declined to say when that will happen.
Apple has sold more than 15 million iPads the company says iPad customers are huge consumers of news, downloading more than 200 million news apps to date.
When asked if News Corp. plans to make The Daily available on other tablets, Murdoch confirmed the company plans to, but he did not specify when. “As other tablets get established, we will develop [The Daily] to go on them,” he said. “We believe last year, this year and maybe next year belong to Apple.”
The future of news? Media trends suggest social media, partisan reporting and brevity
The following is a guest post by Chad Garrison, a journalist with the Riverfront Times. It originally appeared in Garrison’s Riverfront Times blog and has been reprinted with permission. You can follow him on Twitter @chadgarrison.
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By Chad Garrison,
Amy Mitchell, deputy director of the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism was in town yesterday to speak at a luncheon for PR professionals. Her topic, “The New News Consumer and the Future of News: Trends for 2011 and Beyond,” also drew a fair number of reporters and editors. Yep, flacks and hacks brought together to try to read the ol’ proverbial tea leaves.
And the bottom line? These are uncertain times. But you already knew that. Here, then, are a few of the statistics Mitchell shared with the audience that may offer some guidance on the future of journalism:
- Contrary to popular opinion, the average American actually spends more time consuming news than he/she did a decade ago. They tend to spend the same 57 minutes per day getting news through traditional outlets (radio, TV, print) today as they did in 2000. But they now also spend another 13 minutes per day consuming news online for a total of 70 minutes spent each day following current events.
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People tend to be “news grazers” getting their information from a variety of sources with just 33 percent of Internet users saying they have a favorite site for their news gathering.
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Moreover, the average time per visit to news sites continues to drop. In 2009 it was three minutes and six seconds. Last year it dropped to just two-and-a-half minutes.
- Sixty-two percent of Internet users participate in some kind of social media.
- Seventy-seven percent of social-media users say they get their news from social media.
- Facebook is now the third biggest referral site for news articles, following only Google and the main new site from which an article is linked (ex. a New York Times article that’s linked from the main page of the NYT.)
- In 2010 online news readership grew 8.5 percent. News consumption for all the following fell: local TV (-1.1%); network TV (-3.4%); print newspapers (-5%); cable TV (-11.4%); magazines (-12%).
- Newspapers have lost an estimated $1.6 billion from their newsrooms budgets since 2000, and that money isn’t coming back with online ads selling for a fraction of what similar print and classified ads sold for.
- Of the three cable news networks, Fox and MSNBC far outpaced CNN in revenue in 2010.
Lessons? Obviously social media is key. Getting people to share stories on Facebook, Twitter, etc. can bring in new readers. But is a more wholesale change needed?
Based on the success of Fox News and MSNBC, I asked Mitchell if she thought the key these days was for news outlets to become more partisan as a way to increase traffic.
Mitchell didn’t really answer my question, but she ended her talk by noting that the public today has a lot more freedom to choose where and from whom they consume their news. With that freedom comes that old journalism mantra: Always consider the source.
As for news agencies, the challenge is to make the news available in platform-specific consumption across all new media — phones, tablets, social media, etc. The news, concluded Mitchell, can no longer be seen as a product. It must be considered a service.
That said, I’m struggling to think of any business — be it a manufacturer or a service industry — that gives away its work for free, as has been the case over the past decade with newspapers and the Internet. Mitchell suggested that that may change as papers find a way to finally charge for news downloaded to tablet computers.
We shall see.
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The following is a guest post by Chad Garrison, a journalist with the Riverfront Times. It originally appeared in Garrison’s Riverfront Times blog and has been reprinted with permission. You can follow him on Twitter @chadgarrison. This blog post is part of the Future of Media‘s ongoing coverage and examination of what’s happening in the media around the world. If you have a story idea, please contact us.