A lot of rumours are floating around at the moment about how publishing companies are developing digital platforms for the print offerings.
Condé Nast recently showed off a concept video of Wired’s supposed iTablet application at Wired’s New York store. The video shows Wired magazine as an interactive title that’s updated with not just print but video content. Techcruch meanwhile have seen a demo of Sports Illustrated’s concept for tablet computers (above). The Wonder Factory have worked with Sports Illustrated’s publisher Time Inc to create a video that like Wired’s concept shows how Sports Illustrated would work (below).
These are interesting times for the news and publishing industries. I said some time ago that Apple could come into the market with a tablet based device that would aggregate your favourite titles on an iTablet. Such system would use iTunes to work and manage your subscriptions. The Sydney Morning Herald ran a story at the end of October claiming that Apple had in fact ‘sent specifications of the device to Australian media companies in an effort to sound out whether they would be interested in delivering their content to the tablet.’ None would go on the record though.
And Rupert Murdoch is very much considering putting up a paywall in front of his titles while taking these off Google. This could well help the news industry bring in much needed subscription income.
The fact is that news and print as we know will have to evolve and provide more that just words and pictures if people are to subscribe. The evidence though is pointing to the fact that media companies are redesigning their business and their offerings.
Newman stated that what we are currently seeing in journalism is a, “quiet revolution.” Between 2007-2009 there’s been an explosion in participation, ‘driven by user-friendly internet tools, better connectivity and new mobile devices. Social Networking and UGC have become mainstream activities, accounting for almost 20 per cent of internet time in the UK and involving half of all internet users. This dramatic change has forced traditional news organisations to take note.’ And news outlets have reacted by abandoning attempts ‘to be first for breaking news, focusing instead on being the best at verifying and curating it.’
#newsrw: how is journalism developing?
Tuesday, January 19th, 2010We all know how the downturn in advertising spend has affected the press and publishing industries. Newsrooms appear to have been decimated as publishers across all sectors laid journalists out to pasture. In far too much haste commentators wasted no time in penning the obligatory obituary for their own industry. But how wrong they appeared to have been.
If there was one thing that came from last week’s news:rewired conference at London’s City University it was that journalism is rediscovering itself and using technology and it’s audience to do an even better job. The fact is that while the decline in advertising has decimated newspapers and magazine, publishers have been fighting back, restructuring and getting their journalists to use social media and networking platforms not just for promoting content but for reaching out, developing contacts and finding great stories.
Professor George Brock opened the day with a series of seminal questions, is there such a thing as news, is authority in the crowd or the expert, does news stay in bundles and how do we [journalists] tell what is true?
Brock challenged the news model and gave examples of how outlets in the US are re-establishing themselves. In his keynote speech he encouraged those present to not look at technology as the saviour of journalism, but to look backward and remember traditional journalism.
Using the 2009 Iranian election protests as an example Brock cited that while Twitter and video were important during the uprising, “it’s a less well known that one of the most effective ways of opposition ideas was slogans stamped on banknotes.” He added that opposition messages were, “now stamped on so many banknotes that the governor or the Iranian Central Bank – not very sympathetic to the authorities – is in an argument with the authorities who want them removed from circulation. Of course, in an economy you can’t just withdraw large numbers of banknotes [as] you will trigger an economic crisis. So the message remains in circulation!”
Technology and social media platforms are tools that support communications. They support journalism and public relations. BBC College of Journalism Editor Kevin Marsh highlighted how the BBC Newsroom had adopted web-centric journalism skills that allow engagement with its audience. Something that I’ve written about before.
Kevin Marsh at news:rewired 2010 from BBC College of Journalism on Vimeo.
Marsh confirmed that new skills and platforms are just that, new. They are there to back up traditional newsgathering skills such as organising an outside broadcast, gathering information from a court case or persuading people to talk and go on the record.
Seminars that took place confirmed that journalists have to learn and adapt to how people are moving online. Journalists needed to pick up new skills on how multimedia newsrooms work, the power of social media for journalists, crowd-sourcing and data-mashing.
Content and stories are online and it’s a journalist’s job is to find and report them depending on their beat. To use content to back up what contacts can provide.
But why is this so important to public relations professionals? Why should this shift matter to those who build and shape brands and reputations?
In my opinion it matters a lot. It matters because journalists are using citizens as an extension of their profession. And citizens that are happy to contribute. They are happy to be the eyes and ears on the ground.
During the crowd sourcing session tempers nearly got the better of some who objected to the term ‘citizen-journalists.’ Some attendees coined the term ‘eye-witness-journalists’ as professionals found it objectionable that people with no training described themselves as ‘journalists’. While it was a very well argued point, the fact is that while many people can contribute to a story it is a trained journalist that can filter out the coal from the diamonds.
All this matters to PRs because people that unhappy customers can be found very easily. Technology has herded people into online pens and it is the job of a good journalist to find them and work them into a story.
The same people want to receive their content through their social media platforms, online and on their mobiles. The same devices that can now capture any bit of breaking news.
Of course journalists are learning on the go as the news and publishing industry moved online. A channel where readers and viewers are less faithful. Loyalty will depend on the speed at which content is updated.
Award-winning videojournalist and Southbank artist-in-residence David Dunkley Gyimah shows us what can be done and possibly what journalists should be. Watching David confirmed that journalists might have to be multi-disciplined.
A brief visual history of videojournalism from david dunkley gyimah on Vimeo.
Journalism is evolving and the new technology that for so long had been blamed for its potential demise might in fact be its saviour. And that is important for everybody, not just journalists, and not just PRs.
Tags: #newsrw, bbc, communication, content, internet, journalism, journalists, media, news, newspaper, online, pr, publishing, reputation, social media, web2.0
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