Oct/110
Glass ceilings, transparency, taking risks and a flashback
In all my naïvety I wrote this in my previous blog:
Imagine you’re a reporter
afterchasing a major story, it involves loads of data, there are many different sides to the issue, and people to interview that have specific knowledge about it, be it technical, scientific, or just exclusive. Good journalists always delivered good stories on their own, and covered all the necessary angles to the subject. Working alone means full control of the process, from start to end, and a fair amount of discretion, secrecy, that often resulted in exclusives, the former bread and butter of good newspapers. But what if the process was public, and open to everyone?I’m not saying all of the process, but some parts of it. If a journalist is snooping around, asking questions about something, doors will close anyway, that will open with new information and the need to answer, retaliate, whatever - sometimes a statement comes out of conflicting views. But the saying goes “two heads are better than one”, and if we ask for users to help, many minds will work for the same purpose.
The crowd could gather data, process it, provide input, suggest questions, and the journalist – besides having to do all the things he’s supposed to – would coordinate all of these contributions. This would improve the relationship between the users/readers and the journalist/story/brand. But if you are not a fan of full disclosure before publishing, why not do it afterwards? Release the videos rushes, the full audio, share the documentation and data you gathered in an open database. The advantages? Trust.
The Guardian did this now:
We often report big breaking stories as they happen, but have you ever wondered what stories we’re working on – and what’s about to drop? To help you find out, the Guardian newsdesk is opening its doors.
You can now see (below) a live account of our plans in the form of the daily newslist kept by our editors. It provides a glimpse into the scheduled announcements, events and speeches that make up the news day. You will also be able to view what our editors think about the stories by reading their updates on Twitter in the panel opposite. We will include conversations we have about the day’s news, story ideas we get from our correspondents and the latest information on stories that we get during the day.
We won’t quite show you everything. We can’t tell you about stories that are under embargo or, sometimes, exclusives that we want to keep from our competitors, but most of our plans will be there for all to see, from the parliamentary debates we plan to cover to the theatre we plan to review. We reserve the right to stick to our guns, but would love to know what you think.
Why do I keep on doing this? To convince myself I wasn’t that naive.
Sep/110
Survey: analyzing the need for Multimedia Production in Portugal
For my MA report, I conducted a small survey about multimedia production in Portuguese newsrooms, and although it is not statistically relevant (only 13 responded), it was answered by some of the most important media companies in Portugal, including two reference national dailies and two major TV networks.
The results do not fall far from the expected: there isn’t still a solid investment in the newsrooms to create and publish multimedia/interactive content, in spite of the desire to do so, mainly because they lack the skilled professionals to do so.
Point by point here are the conclusions reached with the survey:
Confronted with the importance of multimedia in today’s news practice they all consider it is at least important but most don’t have the habit of producing them. This may be explained by the insufficient staff available to create them, many times overlapping functions as page makers, and the habit of only use in house production.
Most of the interactive content that comes from external sources is created by LUSA, the national news agency, which sells exclusive infographics or retail videos.
As you can see in the following chart, the types of content are mostly very simple to produce, being photo galleries and videos the most common. Very few take the time to build their own multimedia packages, but these have increased significantly in the last years in other brands that did not respond to the survey, some of them featuring multimedia packages on a regular basis.
When asked if their companies were interested in buying content created by others, the answers were quite conservative. It is understandable that they wish to have control over the process despite paradoxically they don’t produce multimedia content due to staff limitations.
And how much they would be willing to pay for a basic multimedia package? The example given was one with 4 videos plus an interactive chart. Most of them indicated the usual price range here in Portugal for this type of products, between 75 to 150€. This is clearly insufficient, even if we look at it as a one-man-band endeavour. To make them profitable, these packages would have to be made in a 10 to 15 hour period, and have at least 10 orders per month.
I’m currently producing a similar package and first video only took 7 working hours total (it was more than that but i’m not counting with hardware glitches).
But the idea of acquiring multimedia kits, which by definition would be pieces that could be assembled and adapted to each newsroom’s editorial and design guidelines, was more appealing. Again, the issue of control over news content creation is present.
I also asked for their insights about the need for multimedia production in Portuguese newsrooms and the answers were pretty similar: many agreed that though multimedia content is important “newsrooms aren’t ready enough to operate them” and “there isn’t enough money to invest in external production”.
This seems to be a structural problem within news organizations, as pointed out by others: there is a lot of interest in the newsrooms in multimedia contents, finding them valuable “from an editorial point of view” and as a support for their text stories.
However, “because of the unpreparedness of the professionals, or by having the need to recruit new staff or acquire external content, it will be difficult to persuade administrations of the importance of those contents, mainly because websites haven’t been able to impose a profitable business model”.
The idea that media administrations are reluctant to invest in multimedia was also reinforced in other answers.
So, as a freelancer, things don’t seem that bright for me. And all I can say from first hand experience is that there is a strong will to produce multimedia content in portuguese newsrooms. They just don’t have the time or the money in most of them.
What do you make of this picture? Let me know in the comments.
Sep/110
The news website of the future? New portuguese project P3 presents bold layout
P3 is the name of a youth oriented news website, under the umbrella of Público, one of the reference news brands in Portugal. With a small team they tried to create a new concept that affects not only the design but also the relationship with users and functionality. They premiered around midnight this 22nd of September, and it looks really great.
I already had a sneak preview back in June and I should say I was looking forward for them to come out. Few times a new news website can be looked as a milestone in the industry, but I truly believe this is going to be one of those moments. I wish only the best to the team, where I have some friends.
Explore the website and share your thoughts about the look and feel of the layout.
More news about P3 soon.
Sep/110
Newspapers’ Paywalls&Online subscribers in Portugal
If evidence that one solution does not fit all was needed, let’s just take a look at the online subscribers numbers in Portugal. So, you think a paywall will do?
These are the newspapers and magazines that adopted a online subscription model, none of them being too closed, we can still see most of the stories online. What else do they offer behind the wall? I honestly don’t know. Followin the number of subscribers is the number of copies sold on average in the first 6 months of 2011, except when noted.
A funny thing happened while collecting these numbers, mostly from articles on their own websites: they all boasted rises and superiority over the competition. It’s perfectly acceptable and understandable as a marketing strategy, but there’s nothing to boast about, overall sales are dropping. The last bit of information is the number of unique visitors to their website.
So, as you can see, there is a residual number of subscribers compared to the total number of newspaper buyers and unique visitors. Different markets require different strategies, and paywalls do not seem to be the solution for Portuguese media. Do you agree? Or maybe we could all make this test.
Data taken from here and here.
Jul/110
Video – Kiosk Diaries
I had to try out my new gear and I asked a few questions to Pedro Silva, the owner of a newsstand in one of the most typical squares in my city and author of the blog Diário de um Quiosque (Kiosk Diaries, in a loose translation), where he writes about media, it’s costumers and news.
There’s some wind in the audio and I realized I lack a few wide shots, butI was just taking the camera and the audio recorder for a spin. Need to do it more often.
I also used universalsubtitles.org to create some subtitles in English, and I liked this tool a lot. Worth checking out.
Well, take a look and if you have any suggestions, ideas, evil remarks, be my guest.
Jul/110
Video – Diário de um Quiosque – entrevista
O Pedro Silva é dono de um quiosque numa das praças mais típicas da minha cidade, e também autor do blog Diário de um Quiosque, onde, entre outras coisas, fala de jornais, dos clientes e de notícias. Como tinha que testar o meu equipamento novo fui-lhe chatear a cabeça com algumas perguntas.
O vídeo tem alguns problemas, particularmente por causa do vento, que acabou por eliminar algumas das partes mais interessantes das respostas do Pedro, mas essa foi a primeira lição do teste: levar sempre a esponja do microfone. De resto, faltam planos, especialmente gerais, e do ambiente onde o quiosque está inserido.
Mas era um teste, por isso foi muito útil este bocado que passei à conversa com ele, coisa que normalmente fazemos, e sem ninguém estar a gravar (felizmente…).
Se tiverem críticas, sugestões ou ideias, estão à vontade.
Apr/111
Decline in print and rise in online journalism: an interview
Once again I was asked by a student to answer a few questions about Online Journalism. Devina Morjaria is a final year student writing a dissertation regarding decline in print and rise in online journalism, one of my favorite subjects. There are a few good questions here and some not so bad answers.
1) As an online journalist do you feel that there has been a decline in print journalism and rise in online journalism since the millennium?
The steady decline of print journalism begun in the late eighties, long before online journalism had a real expression. The problem is that that decline became more clear as digital journalism started to become more common and users had better access to the Internet. In my view, there is not a real correlation between the rise of one and the fall of the other. Print journalism was already failing before online journalism took its place in our everyday lives.
2) Either way why do you think that this is the case?
I can only guess, but probably print was failing to deliver quality content for a long time. Besides, the widespread use of cable tv and rolling 24 hour news channels made the product less interesting, we got on the front pages what we saw live the night before. Online journalism made that problem even more acute, with users checking news more often through out the day, losing the morning paper or the evening news ritual. The print product is pretty much the same as it was 20, 30, 40 years ago, it is not well adapted to these new circumstances, therefore it needs to be re-thought and re-designed. But that is not really happening.
3) What makes you more inclined towards online journalism than print?
Online journalism allows journalists and users to create/consume stories using different and new types of languages and features. Multimedia and Interactivity are two essential characteristics of this medium, and if we add social tools it becomes a whole new ball game. Access is also important, I can read/watch/listen news from thousands of news brands around the world. Geography is no longer a limit, but a parameter.
4) Some say newspapers will be dead in 10 years time. What do you think?
I think many will be, unless they re-think and take the most of their natural news cycle and out of their support, paper. Magazinification of newspapers is an option, with more in depth analysis, more opinion, giving more space to good writing and relying on better visuals. They have to be more original and stand out from the ever shrinking crowd, and become stronger in their viewpoints and personality, instead of feeding readers with the same stuff the competition does. Less fast food, more gourmet. But this depends on the markets they’re in and on how much they can invest.
5) Is the online sector currently facing any problems like the print sector?
From my experience, the whole industry is going through an identity crisis. Except for a few media groups, many don’t have a defined strategy to cope with the new demands the online brought. In the last years we saw journalists being fired left and right when there is the need for more people with more skills in the newsrooms. This affects not only the online production but also print. Good journalism is affected too, with not enough time for journalists to do their best. So quality goes down either in print or online. So, in a way, they both face the same problem, which is basically the lack of solid strategies, the short term thinking of media group boards, and the us vs them (print vs online) mentality, that is still all too common.
6) Do you feel that for a print newspaper company to introduce an online section it invites a hit in sales in newspapers?
Well, you have to be online these days. Unless ALL your readers don’t use the internet you have to have an online presence. If both products are good there is the chance they will both benefit from it.
7) What do you think about paywalls? Do you feel that they are necessary in today’s society?
Paywalls are a tricky subject, it works for some, but not for most. I believe original, unique, highly effective content can become a commodity, but not everyday news. Media companies gather and process information. Somewhere in the middle of that there are ways to make money, other than establishing a paywall. I think most of paywalls are useless and a shot in the foot.
8) What is the online sectors main source of news?
Reality? Nowadays we see more international news, and more social network based information, but whatever is news (relevant for a meaningful number of people) gets online.
9) Is there an increase in online advertising?
According to something I read recently, yes, but it’s a marketing logic: go sell your product where people are. That’s why news stands are in the streets, and we see thousands of posters, outdoors,leaflets and every other type of ads anywhere we go. And if people are online…
10) What do you think holds for the future of journalism?
The best times for journalism are yet to come and for me there has never been a better time to be a journalist than now. The full possibilities are still being discovered, and there are so many ways to transmit information and tell stories, with a better understanding on the part of the users, that have more rich and meaningful experiences consuming them.
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Please, disagree with me in the comment box. Thank you
Apr/110
The failure of the single product business model
There's more than coffee at Starbucks, Baker Street, London, UK (© Copyright Gary Rogers and licensed for reuse under a Creative Commons Licence)
After a few months teaching online writing and multimedia narratives to journalists, I found out that their biggest question was never if links worked, how valuable video editing skills are, or why social networks have an impact in content distribution, they had already figured that out. Their biggest doubts were about how to make money with journalism. And I got some stunned reactions when I told them that was impossible.
My parents owned a business for 11 years, a small café, in the city centre,with a mixed clientele, from passing shoppers, bank workers, car mechanics, retired people and local fauna. In units, the product we sold more was expresso. If you ever been to Portugal you’ll know we love our shots of expresso throughout the day. But that was the cheapest product we had and without a great profit margin. So, if we relied our whole business on selling expressos, we would never make it.
And the clients changed according to the time of day, not only in type but also in needs: the working, early morning, breakfast yearning crowd had nothing to do with the late night binge drinking costumers. So we had different products for each one of those types: fresh bread and pastry in the morning, to go along with coffe and milk, and cold beer and spirits for an after dinner meet up over a football match on TV.
Key products for key types of clients. And that was just a local café. Take Starbucks for example: they will never be big in Portugal because they have already a huge competition in the coffee selling business and they have the worst and most expensive coffee that you can find in that block, yet they attract lots of people due to two main reasons: an attractive brand (you see Starbucks in the movies and the TV shows with lots of young, attractive, intelligent people), and variety when it comes to all the things you can do with coffee. Even so, they had to adapt and find refuge in shopping malls, when they prefer to be out there in the street.
So they figured out who were their clients, where they should find them and offered them not the same product as everybody else but derivatives from it, supported by an appealing image. So why don’t media companies do the same?
Information is out there, replicated at the speed of light, so it’s not scarce. Quite the opposite, as we know it rages in volumes. And though points of view may vary, the basic info is out there. Cheap coffee on the go. Different types of audiences, at different times of the day, having different needs. Yet the strategy is to serve them all bread and butter. Of course, there’s specialized media for specific audiences – sports, economics, music, etc – but I’m talking about generalist brands.
What was their product? Articles, usually wrapped in paper, that costed more than the product itself. With the internet, they lost the wrapper and the product no longer came in a package, but in pieces. So some decided to put the product in a box and charge for a peek inside. From coffee in paper cups to coffee in digital, exclusive mugs. Still coffee though, and most of the times as good as the competition’s.
The solution is to have more products than coffee, or sell beverages based on the black stuff but that only you can make and charge for it – I bet Starbucks here sells more cappucinos than expressos. This implies three things: new products, trained staff to make them, and know who are their consumers and their needs.
Unfortunately, many media companies haven’t been able to identify their online audience, erroneously believing it’s the same as their paper audience, and feed them the same stuff but in a different container. Worse, with the need to create better, more demanding, high quality products, they’re firing the most experienced to hire cheap labour. It’s like turning a gourmet restaurant with a good chef into a McDonald’s. Yeah, people go to MacDonald’s but it’s crap anyway. And they have their business strategy better defined.
So let’s get back to basics: what are the core elements of the news business?
Information
The amount of products based on information goes well beyond the 500 word article, but here are just a few ideas to use information in a more valuable way:
We have data, specialized professionals with access to specific sources so why not sell special analysis for specific audiences?
Databases are also valuable – imagine offering full access to all the data in archive to all the football matches ever covered in the first league.
Thousands of images are taken everyday by photographers, why not open a photo bank where they could be sold cheaply for specific projects or make them easily available for sharing and create a new stream of visitors to the original story? Think of the long tail.
Go beyond your “natural” market and expand. Have versions in different languages (at least one more, believe me it works).
New languages for new devices, unique content, immersive content.
Stop selling ad space, sell ads that are fit to be published in your environment.
And the one item that must always be constant: high quality information. Fast food will kill you in a more demanding world.
People
They do not only get the information, they distribute it and create on top of it. Support that. It’s like having millions of newspaper boys shouting out your headlines.
Transform the online audience into real people in the offline world: get to know them, organize meetings, gatherings, conventions. Make them pay for what you offer them there.
People have needs, identify them. The Guardian has a dating site, you could have your own real estate or job agency, whatever people need the most in your market.
Observe how their informational needs vary over the course of the day and the week, and offer them options to adapt your content to their routine. Understanding how your audience consumes news will help you create the right contents for it.
Make information useful. Being just informed is so 1.0. People must have the chance to do something with it.
Stuff
Instead of giving away books or DVDs with the Sunday paper, sell them cheap on your website.
Stop selling ad-space, get commissions for selling products directly on your pages.
You have a brand, if you get people to identify with it they’ll buy what’s associated with it. I don’t go to Starbucks, but I like their mugs.
And if you want more ideas from me you’ll have to pay me as a consultant. I’m joking, but depending on the strengths of each company there are many different options to make more money than with just the news. You have to evaluate what kind of information based products you can create and see if there are any markets for them, and stop thinking that you’re only a newspaper, or a radio station, or whatever news company fits you. And you are dealing directly with your audience, so you must get the most out of it.
You are a place where people go for coffee but have the option to get pastries, have lunch or a nightcap, and that’s what keeps you afloat. Not the least expensive product on the list.
Jan/113
O futuro do impresso e outras perguntas para as quais dou as respostas possíveis
Volta e meia tenho alguns estudantes de jornalismo a enviarem-me perguntas para fazerem trabalhos académicos. Se entram em contacto comigo é por recomendação dos professores (creio eu), logo não tenho grandes problemas em responder, já que a minha opinião vale o que vale: às vezes digo umas coisas giras, outras vezes nem por isso. Mas tento sempre contribuir para uma melhor nota destes alunos, e como ainda me lembro dos meus tempos de estudante tento ser o mais útil possível.
Desta vez foram duas alunas do Instituto Superior Miguel Torga que entraram em contacto comigo, e que levantaram algumas questões para os seus projectos escolares. Como ando um bocado ocupado, cá vão as respostas neste post. Espero que sejam úteis e que não saia grande asneira. As duas primeiras respostas são para as duas, já que perguntaram-me essencialmente o mesmo.
Acha que perante a evolução que o jornalismo online está a registar, os jornais tradicionais vão sobreviver?
Esse é o erro, achar que há um jornalismo tradicional e um jornalismo que é a sua antítese. O que existe é um modelo de produção baseado numa plataforma e que está estabelecido – o impresso – e que se confunde com jornalismo. Jornalismo é uma actividade, um jornal em papel é uma plataforma assim como a sua versão digital, e os conteúdos é que deveriam ser tidos em conta quando se fala de “jornalismo”.
O processo jornalístico no fundo não varia em 95% da sua totalidade de um meio para o outro, é preciso perceber ainda o que é notícia, como verificar a informação, tratá-la, validá-la. Os outros 5% são a forma como transmitimos esses conteúdos, que podem ser num texto estático em papel ou online, ou usando narrativas digitais. Cada uma destas formas de transmissão de conteúdos têm características próprias, riquezas e propriedades únicas que não definem a qualidade do jornalismo efectuado.
Esta comparação é sempre feita entre jornais em papel e os formatos digitais e nunca com a televisão ou a rádio, dois meios com narrativas mais próximas do potencial do online e que ninguém questiona se vão desaparecer ou não. Isso é porque se pensa no digital como uma duplicação do que está no papel, e os formatos e linguagens que podemos usar ultrapassam largamente o texto. Como as linguagens da televisão e da rádio são dinâmicas não se questiona tanto a sua sobrevivência, mas o risco é igual para todos.
No fundo, acredito que o meio, a forma como as notícias são transmitidas, é muito importante mas não é essencial. É preciso repensar os meios tradicionais de forma a que forneçam o que o online não pode transmitir, e que permita aos consumidores terem experiências ricas de consumo de informação, dentro das características próprias do suporte. Os meios tradicionais que consigam fazer isso irão sobreviver. Mas é preciso que estejam cientes da lógica do online e das suas potencialidades e, acima de tudo, das suas diferenças em relação aos formatos existentes.
Na sua opinião, que modelos de comunicação têm de adoptar os media tradicionais perante o digital?
Acima de tudo, não copiar outros modelos e transferi-los para o digital. Não fazer televisão para o online mas narrativas video que sigam a lógica do ambiente digital, nem copiar o papel para o digital mas fazer algo que use o potencial do digital, nem que seja a utilização de links, o nível mais básico de implementação de ferramentas online para um texto. Os modelos de comunicação têm que ter em conta os factores de interactividade, interacção social – partilha, recomendação, participação – e a utilização de linguagens dinâmicas.
Cada meio tem características próprias, se os respeitam nos formatos que conhecem, porque não respeitar as características do meio digital?
Quais são os casos, jornais tradicionais, na sua opinião que correm sérios riscos de no futuro encerrar edição?
É uma pergunta à qual não quero responder. Quando falamos de encerramentos estamos a falar de pessoas que vão perder o emprego, muitas vezes já precário, e não gosto de falar disso, o mercado de trabalho está mal preparado para esta evolução que foi ignorada pelas direcções (e que continua a ser em alguns sítios). Pode haver é uma aposta prioritária no online, como no caso do Público, que recentemente reforçou a sua equipa, duplicando o número de jornalistas da redacção online, mas isso não significa que haja publicações a fechar, mas apenas a reinventar-se para o meio digital.
Havia uma espécie de bolsa de apostas informal onde se apontavam alguns nomes de publicações que podiam fechar, mas de acordo com algumas previsões isso já deveria ter acontecido no ano passado. Felizmente não aconteceu, mas muitas estão em situações complicadas. Espero que estejam a ser definidas estratégias sensatas e realistas para que se possa enfrentar o futuro de forma mais pragmática e optimista.
Não vou apontar nomes. Tenho respeito a quem trabalha no duro todos os dias em condições difíceis, e que está no jornalismo porque gosta da profissão, e estaria a faltar a esse respeito se indicasse algum caso em particular.
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E é isto. Espero que as minhas ideias sejam úteis. Mas queria deixar uma nota: eu estou disponível para ajudar no que for preciso, mas por favor, não me enviem logo perguntas de rajada sem me dizerem para o que é ou porquê. E se não puder responder não fiquem chateados, neste momento sou um gajo bastante ocupado, e às vezes não dá mesmo para nada. Se forem simpáticos, partilhem os resultados do vosso trabalho comigo, muitas vezes não sei qual foi o destino das minhas respostas.
Obrigado por se terem lembrado de mim, e boa sorte, que é uma coisa que não acontece se não fizermos por ela.
