With newspapers working out how to simultaneously appeal to their readers, monetise their content and be successful businesses, some publications are taking unusual steps to do so. Speaking at the World Association of Newspapers' Power of Print Conference in Barcelona, Kylie Davis of the Sydney Morning Herald and Sun-Herald, and Rodrigo Fino of Garcia Media described what steps their publications have taken.
Davis discussed the "sacrosanct" relationship between editorial and advertising, and how the Morning Herald and Sun Herald have toed the line between the two and come up with a profitable solution. They create high quality specialised magazines of 'advertorials', bundled with the newspaper but clearly separated from the main editorial.
The content of the magazines is written by news staff to strict standards, on a brief provided by the advertiser. ""We're not selling content, we're selling context," explained Davis. She said that the specialised publications have brought the newspaper company close to $5 million AU (€2.54 million) of new revenue in under 12 months.
Meanwhile, Venezuelan newspaper El Informador has increased its circulation by 14% this year. Fino, president of owner Garcia Media, described how this was largely to do with the papers redesign to focus on hyperlocal news, using the front pages to encourage comments and interaction from readers. "As a regional newspaper, we needed to fit in closely with readers, which means calling on important people in the region to give information on their specialties," he explained.
Source: World Association of Newspapers
Showing posts with label innovation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label innovation. Show all posts
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Friday, May 1, 2009
Innovations in Newspapers 2009: Murdoch stresses developing readers' trust
IN the new Innovations in Newspapers 2009 World Report, Rupert Murdoch said newspapers will succeed depending on the relationships they develop with their readers, regardless of how news is delivered. The Innovation International Media Consulting Group released the annual survey today (27 April) for the World Association of Newspapers.
"Our success will still depend on the bond of trust between readers and our content, not on how many platforms we use," said Murdoch, noting that the report depicts the state of the news media and how it is being reinvented in the digital age, "I believe newspapers have a wonderful future."
However Murdoch articulates that the real enemy of newspapers is not "competition from new technology, it is the complacency in our industry among people who have enjoyed monopolies, who have to compete for an audience they once took for granted, who don't trust their audiences and who have not responded constructively to challenges from readers who no longer think editors are omnipotent oracles."
Murdoch stresses that gaining the trust of readers will empower papers whether print or online. He says, "Our role is to give our readers great journalism and great judgment." John Temple, ex editor, president and publisher of the Rocky Mountain News, similarly said last week that journalism schools need to create storytellers, and not necessarily digital gurus. With the Internet, there is a definite increased stress on speed and quantity and many argue that there is a decrease in quality. To Murdoch and Temple, the crucial point to remember is that good journalism is what will carry on the industry.
Source: WAN press release
"Our success will still depend on the bond of trust between readers and our content, not on how many platforms we use," said Murdoch, noting that the report depicts the state of the news media and how it is being reinvented in the digital age, "I believe newspapers have a wonderful future."
However Murdoch articulates that the real enemy of newspapers is not "competition from new technology, it is the complacency in our industry among people who have enjoyed monopolies, who have to compete for an audience they once took for granted, who don't trust their audiences and who have not responded constructively to challenges from readers who no longer think editors are omnipotent oracles."
Murdoch stresses that gaining the trust of readers will empower papers whether print or online. He says, "Our role is to give our readers great journalism and great judgment." John Temple, ex editor, president and publisher of the Rocky Mountain News, similarly said last week that journalism schools need to create storytellers, and not necessarily digital gurus. With the Internet, there is a definite increased stress on speed and quantity and many argue that there is a decrease in quality. To Murdoch and Temple, the crucial point to remember is that good journalism is what will carry on the industry.
Source: WAN press release
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Can newspapers turn innovation into hard cash?
The Sun became the most popular UK newspaper online for the first time in February, registering an eye-watering 27.3 million unique users, according to ABCe figures.
The site, which includes sister title News of the World, benefited from high-profile celebrity stories such as Jade Goody's illness and classic tabloid fare such as 13-year-old Alfie Patten and the "Is he/isn't he the father?" tale.
Its unique users were up by five million compared to January and more than doubled year on year. By anyone's standards, the traffic attracted by UK national newspaper brands is impressive, although there is always the caveat that between 50% and 75% of it typically comes from overseas - only 8.3 million of The Sun's traffic is of UK origin, for example.
The Sun is looking to build on its success with a newly constructed £1m TV and radio studio at Wapping, which goes live with its first radio show, the Jon Gaunt-fronted Sun Talk, on Monday, 21 April, featuring Conservative Party leader David Cameron as its first guest. The plan is for News International journalists to generate audio and video content across all its titles and participate in live broadcasts.
However, the acid test will be the amount of income generated, for if newspapers are to have a long-term future, they must start making money out of their massive online audiences. For example, it is understood headline sponsorship of Jon Gaunt's Sun Talk was on offer for just £60,000, which is hardly going to replace the display and classified ad revenue haemorrhaging from NI's print coffers.
Other pertinent questions include: is overseas traffic any use to advertisers and, by extension, media owners? Can consumers be persuaded to pay for premium content, such as dating, mobile updates or fantasy football? Is traffic generated by clever search engine optimisation delivering audiences that are at all relevant to newspaper brands and their advertisers?
It's early days and it makes a change to be talking about positive and proactive developments when it comes to newspaper companies - for which The Sun should be applauded - but, ultimately, no one has yet crossed the threshold and turned innovation into hard cash.
Source: MediaWeek
The site, which includes sister title News of the World, benefited from high-profile celebrity stories such as Jade Goody's illness and classic tabloid fare such as 13-year-old Alfie Patten and the "Is he/isn't he the father?" tale.
Its unique users were up by five million compared to January and more than doubled year on year. By anyone's standards, the traffic attracted by UK national newspaper brands is impressive, although there is always the caveat that between 50% and 75% of it typically comes from overseas - only 8.3 million of The Sun's traffic is of UK origin, for example.
The Sun is looking to build on its success with a newly constructed £1m TV and radio studio at Wapping, which goes live with its first radio show, the Jon Gaunt-fronted Sun Talk, on Monday, 21 April, featuring Conservative Party leader David Cameron as its first guest. The plan is for News International journalists to generate audio and video content across all its titles and participate in live broadcasts.
However, the acid test will be the amount of income generated, for if newspapers are to have a long-term future, they must start making money out of their massive online audiences. For example, it is understood headline sponsorship of Jon Gaunt's Sun Talk was on offer for just £60,000, which is hardly going to replace the display and classified ad revenue haemorrhaging from NI's print coffers.
Other pertinent questions include: is overseas traffic any use to advertisers and, by extension, media owners? Can consumers be persuaded to pay for premium content, such as dating, mobile updates or fantasy football? Is traffic generated by clever search engine optimisation delivering audiences that are at all relevant to newspaper brands and their advertisers?
It's early days and it makes a change to be talking about positive and proactive developments when it comes to newspaper companies - for which The Sun should be applauded - but, ultimately, no one has yet crossed the threshold and turned innovation into hard cash.
Source: MediaWeek
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
News Media Innovation, Convergence and Sustainability
Interview with Don Carli Executive Vice President of SustainCommWorld LLC, and Senior Research Fellow with the Institute for Sustainable Communication.
DON has been a leading researcher, author, educator and speaker addressing the sustainability of media supply chains for the last decade, and for over 25 years has been a respected media technology and marketing strategy consultant to major advertisers, agencies and publishers.
RI: Why are newspapers and other traditional publishers pushing the issue of eReaders as a communications medium when something like less than one third of one percent of the reading population of the United States owns these products? Is it a paper sustainability issue? Is it a cost issue? What’s the justification?
DC: Other than pushing the “cool” factor, one of the main selling points being made by marketers of eReaders is that they are greener than print. It is little surprise that the common view held by consumers who don’t know the backstory is that going digital means going green and saving trees. Many are in for a rude awakening. When subjected to “cradle-to-cradle ” Lifecycle Analysis eReading is not nearly as green as many naively assume it is.
There is no question that print media could do a better job of managing the sustainability of its supply chains and waste streams, but it’s a misguided notion to assume that digital media is categorically greener. Computers, eReaders and cell phones don’t grow on trees and their spiraling requirement for energy is unsustainable.
Making a computer typically requires the mining and refining of dozens of minerals and metals including gold, silver and palladium as well as extensive use of plastics and hydrocarbon solvents. To function, digital devices require a constant flow of electrons that predominately come from the combustion of coal, and at the end of their all-too-short useful lives electronics have become the single largest stream of toxic waste created by man. Until recently there was little if any voluntary disclosure of the lifecycle “backstory” of digital media.
Sadly, print has come to be seen as a wasteful, inefficient and environmentally destructive medium, despite the fact that much of print media is based on comparatively benign and renewable materials. In addition, print has incredible potential to be a far more sustainable medium than it is today… and a truly digital medium as well. Despite its importance to business, government and society, print has been cast in the role of a dark old devil in decline. Digital media has been cast as the bright young savior on the rise.
Ironically the future of digital media and eBook readers is likely to be based on flexible polymer electronics manufactured using printing presses rather than silicon semiconductor fabrication technologies. In fact, the next generation of eReaders will most likely be digital AND be printed. For example, major components of the soon to be released PlasticLogic eReader are printed flexible polymer electronics.
RI: What is the demand for eReaders now though?
DC: Well it’s a category that has been “emerging” for over 15 years. What one can say is that eReaders are once again capturing media attention and there appears to be significant latent demand for gadgets that can replace printed media, but mainstream adoption still remains years away. E-reader device sales and eReader content revenues are still rounding error in relation to print media revenues. In a survey of attendees at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair 40% predicted digital book content sales would overtake traditional printed book sales by 2018, but over 30% said digital content would never surpass traditional books sales, and 66% said they expect traditional books to dominate the market for the next decade.
We’ll likely see many fits, starts and failures with different products, media formats and business models over the next five years to ten years until someone hits on the sweet spot and develops a business model that supports the profitable creation of content as well as a system of commercially practical devices and a sustainable supporting infrastructure. One of the major problems is that people tend to be fixated on the announcements of cool new devices rather than on the development of business models and sustainable supply chain business ecologies.
For an example of what I mean, consider why Edison was successful. Edison didn’t invent the first electric light bulb, but he did develop the first commercially practical incandescent lighting system. It encompassed every aspect of the lighting lifecycle including not just the bulb but also a business model for a successful electric energy generation and distribution system.
I think a comparable challenge exists for eReaders. People focus on the eReader devices, but it’s not the invention of the coolest e-reader that matters most, it’s the availability of a sustainable business ecology that matters most. I don’t think traditional publishers or device manufacturers have yet identified that sweet-spot combination of content, medium and business model that’s required for e-readers to become mainstream.
Unfortunately many of the business models that drive media companies still have both the content and production/distribution aspects of the business intertwined. They are struggling to find ways to uncouple them and remain profitable. We saw companies like Kodak face the same challenge in trying to decouple the business of capturing and preserving memories from the business of selling analog film photography and photofinishing systems. They are still struggling with a profitable transition to the use of digital imaging technologies. Newspapers are likely to face similar problems trying to decouple newsgathering, journalism, creative and advertising from production and delivery in print to delivery via networked digital eReaders and handsets.
RI: What other examples of fundamental business model failure can you give me?
DC: Sure. One example is the failure to recognize the value of “waste” and the true cost of externalities like greenhouse gas emissions or water use. Print media value chains have become extremely complex and tend to cross-subsidize and institutionalize wasteful and inefficient flows of energy and materials. A case in point of institutionalized waste is the fact that more than 60% of magazines distributed to newsstands never get sold or read. Another example is the failure to consider the full lifecycle costs or carbon footprint of media. Newspaper publishers deliver newspapers but they don’t typically recover them and recycle them or use them as an energy source locally. Few if any know what the carbon footprint of their products are. Why is that?
Until recently, companies like Nine Dragons were shipping our waste paper half way around the world to make cardboard out of it, and then shipping it back to us as packaging which we were sending to landfills. Going forward, the carbon cost of print and digital media will no longer be swept under the rug. It will soon have to appear on the balance sheets of advertisers, publishers and retailers. It will also appear in the price tags of goods and services. The climate crisis is another market failure that is now coming to light.
Business models that fail to recognize full lifecycle cost and value will be unlikely to succeed going forward. As we exit the global recession we will simultaneously be transitioning to a low carbon global economy that will change the meaning and value of waste and inefficiency. As we do so, print will survive if it reconfigures its supply chains to use energy and materials more eco-efficiently and publishers will survive if they can decouple the message from the medium while meeting the requirement for “triple bottom” line results that are economically viable, environmentally restorative and socially constructive. The growing demand for sustainable business practices, lifecycle analysis and environmental product disclosure will impact eReader manufacturers and digital media companies as well.
I expect there will be new opportunities for sustainable digital printing and print on demand to compete with toxic eReaders and coal-powered digital media. I also think there will be exciting new opportunities for printed electronics to blur the categories of print and digital media. Ultimately both print and digital media will have to become more sustainable if either of them is to survive, and judgment of which is environmentally preferable or cost effective will increasingly be based on comparative lifecycle analysis, carbon footprints and environmental product declarations based on standards such as ISO 14040, PAS 2050 and ISO 14025. Sustainability science and the triple bottom line are becoming an increasingly important aspects of business and public policy decision-making. There is every reason to believe they will also become increasingly important in media business and policy decisions.
RI: What have you seen in other countries that sticks out in your mind?
DC: When you leave the Stockholm’s airport to get on the high-speed train to downtown Stockholm there are book vending machines! While some may choose to download content to a phone or eReader, for many a book, a magazine or a newspaper will continue to be preferred. One of the major challenges print needs to address is waste, and another is the customization of format and content. There is no technical barrier to replacing newsstands and vending machines with hard copy media output devices or “fabricators” that could produce customized or personalized books, magazines or other media objects on demand. That would be one of the ways print media could compete with the immediacy and customization potential of digital media while also eliminating newsstand distribution waste.
RI: Sounds to me like the future is looking digital.
DC: As I said earlier, the distinction between print and digital media will ultimately vanish. The media of the future will be digitally printed and printed digital devices.
RI: Will people still care where they get their news from?
DC: I don’t think people care so much about where their news comes from, but journalism… yes I believe they still care. Anyone can make news and anyone can report it, but journalism is different and that difference matters. For example, Twitter is fast becoming one the most important source of breaking news, but it isn’t journalism. I think a robust Fourth Estate capable of independent investigative journalism is essential. The first tenet of sustainability is having a political system that secures effective participation of its citizens in decision making. That is the role served by journalists and the media channels that deliver and store their content.
The capacity of our society to effectively participate in decision making is contingent upon our having sources of news, journalism and dialogue that represent a diversity of informed opinions as well as a diversity of textual, graphical and other content types. Likewise, the sustainability of our society is dependent upon the supply chains and media that carry that content being diverse and sustainable as well. While much of current media debate is about the future of journalism as the sea change shift to digital media is occurring, we need to recognize that our current digital media supply chains and media types are unsustainable before we kick print media to the curb and entrust our future to an ephemeral and uncertain digital media monoculture.
As publishers struggle to extricate themselves from the advertising business models that encumber them, we are likely to see them continue to trim editorial staffs and funding for investigative journalism. However we are likely to begin to see syndicates of content creators and journalists emerge who are independent of any particular distribution channel or media type. Spot.us is an example of how journalists may increasingly be directly supported by their audiences rather than by a publisher who is supported by advertising.
If the capital structure of traditional media cannot support the research and legal expenses that investigative journalism demands then those entrepreneurs will find other sources of funding for their efforts.
RI: So do you have to go to newspapers to get journalism?
DC: No, as I said, we’re already starting to see things like spot.us and syndicates, as well as entrepreneurial journalists operating outside of mainstream media advertising supported business models.
RI: Last question. What should I be asking you right now?
DC: The real question is “how can we encourage both advertisers and publishers to consider the sustainability of the media supply chains they depend on?” Whether they are print or digital, they consume energy, and neither are sustainable. Will they have to learn the way fish learn about the importance of water? Will they only be aware of it when it is gone?
Looking at Print media, we can basically agree that it is dependent on paper. The paper making industry in the United States is in tragic decline. We haven’t built a paper mill in the US for over 12 years and we’ve shut down hundreds of paper making machines. We’ve exported more waste paper than any other product. In fact waste paper is this country’s single largest export! The paper has gone primarily to China where it is recycled into cardboard and shipped back to us as containers and then ultimately devoted to landfill.
We’ve effectively put ourselves in a situation where in short order we may be as dependent on imported paper as we are dependent on imported oil. If we don’t address the strategic importance of an intact infrastructure for papermaking in the US we may not have print media in time because we won’t be able to afford the substrate to print it on. Hopefully the current administration’s focus on renewable energy holds promise for the reinvention of America’s papermaking industry.
Over the next 10 years we need to transition from making paper in outmoded papermills mills build by our grandparents to producing paper, fuels, energy and renewable chemical and pharmaceutical feedstocks in a new generation of integrated biorefineries.
Likewise we need to transition from printing methods that employ wasteful and inefficient mass production to those which employ leaner greener digital printing and printed electronics manufacturing that support mass customization and dematerialization.
Looking at digital media from the same perspective it is not economically or environmentally sustainable either. During 2006 energy consumption from data centers and servers consumed 61billion kilowatt hours of electricity. The consumption rate for data centers doubled from 2000-2006 and is set to double again in 2010. Additionally, e-waste now constitutes the most significant toxic waste stream in our landfills and it is the single largest toxic waste export. We are about to witness a veritable tsunami of toxic e-waste as people turn in their CRT TV’s and buy new HD digital sets to cope with the FCC’s analog to digital mandate.
RI: Ok, that wasn’t the last question. After you mentioned exporting toxic waste to other countries I’m wondering; what are the global implications of publishers switching to new media /new medium?
DC: Thinking that we can transition from books to ebooks, and satisfy the fundamental needs of all 6.7 billion people on the planet is a fallacy. We don’t have clean water in many countries, let alone 3G towers to feed our Kindle’s today’s newspaper news. 2 billion people don’t have clean water in the world. As publishers, advertisers, and consumers, we have to find ways to encourage development of both sustainable print and digital media supply chain management technologies. We need to reframe the issue. Today’s print vs. digital media debates are a zero sum game. Regardless of which media wins the war of words we all lose. The fact is we will need both print and digital media for many years to come and we need them to both become far more sustainable than they are today.
RI: Thank you for sharing your ideas with metaprinter regarding news media innovation, convergence and sustainability. When is your next upcoming conference and what can people learn there?
DC: SustainCommWorld’s next Green Media Conferences will be held on June 9, 2009 in Washington DC and on June 23 in Chicago. The Green Media Conference website has detailed program information on it and the Green Media Connect Social networking site is where attendees can network, blog and share information before during and after the events. In addition, I post news items and exchange tweets with the thousands of people who follow me on twitter each day. Thank you for taking time to speak with me about this important topic. I look forward to seeing you and your readers at the Green Media Conferences in June.
Source: Metaprinter
DON has been a leading researcher, author, educator and speaker addressing the sustainability of media supply chains for the last decade, and for over 25 years has been a respected media technology and marketing strategy consultant to major advertisers, agencies and publishers.
RI: Why are newspapers and other traditional publishers pushing the issue of eReaders as a communications medium when something like less than one third of one percent of the reading population of the United States owns these products? Is it a paper sustainability issue? Is it a cost issue? What’s the justification?
DC: Other than pushing the “cool” factor, one of the main selling points being made by marketers of eReaders is that they are greener than print. It is little surprise that the common view held by consumers who don’t know the backstory is that going digital means going green and saving trees. Many are in for a rude awakening. When subjected to “cradle-to-cradle ” Lifecycle Analysis eReading is not nearly as green as many naively assume it is.
There is no question that print media could do a better job of managing the sustainability of its supply chains and waste streams, but it’s a misguided notion to assume that digital media is categorically greener. Computers, eReaders and cell phones don’t grow on trees and their spiraling requirement for energy is unsustainable.
Making a computer typically requires the mining and refining of dozens of minerals and metals including gold, silver and palladium as well as extensive use of plastics and hydrocarbon solvents. To function, digital devices require a constant flow of electrons that predominately come from the combustion of coal, and at the end of their all-too-short useful lives electronics have become the single largest stream of toxic waste created by man. Until recently there was little if any voluntary disclosure of the lifecycle “backstory” of digital media.
Sadly, print has come to be seen as a wasteful, inefficient and environmentally destructive medium, despite the fact that much of print media is based on comparatively benign and renewable materials. In addition, print has incredible potential to be a far more sustainable medium than it is today… and a truly digital medium as well. Despite its importance to business, government and society, print has been cast in the role of a dark old devil in decline. Digital media has been cast as the bright young savior on the rise.
Ironically the future of digital media and eBook readers is likely to be based on flexible polymer electronics manufactured using printing presses rather than silicon semiconductor fabrication technologies. In fact, the next generation of eReaders will most likely be digital AND be printed. For example, major components of the soon to be released PlasticLogic eReader are printed flexible polymer electronics.
RI: What is the demand for eReaders now though?
DC: Well it’s a category that has been “emerging” for over 15 years. What one can say is that eReaders are once again capturing media attention and there appears to be significant latent demand for gadgets that can replace printed media, but mainstream adoption still remains years away. E-reader device sales and eReader content revenues are still rounding error in relation to print media revenues. In a survey of attendees at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair 40% predicted digital book content sales would overtake traditional printed book sales by 2018, but over 30% said digital content would never surpass traditional books sales, and 66% said they expect traditional books to dominate the market for the next decade.
We’ll likely see many fits, starts and failures with different products, media formats and business models over the next five years to ten years until someone hits on the sweet spot and develops a business model that supports the profitable creation of content as well as a system of commercially practical devices and a sustainable supporting infrastructure. One of the major problems is that people tend to be fixated on the announcements of cool new devices rather than on the development of business models and sustainable supply chain business ecologies.
For an example of what I mean, consider why Edison was successful. Edison didn’t invent the first electric light bulb, but he did develop the first commercially practical incandescent lighting system. It encompassed every aspect of the lighting lifecycle including not just the bulb but also a business model for a successful electric energy generation and distribution system.
I think a comparable challenge exists for eReaders. People focus on the eReader devices, but it’s not the invention of the coolest e-reader that matters most, it’s the availability of a sustainable business ecology that matters most. I don’t think traditional publishers or device manufacturers have yet identified that sweet-spot combination of content, medium and business model that’s required for e-readers to become mainstream.
Unfortunately many of the business models that drive media companies still have both the content and production/distribution aspects of the business intertwined. They are struggling to find ways to uncouple them and remain profitable. We saw companies like Kodak face the same challenge in trying to decouple the business of capturing and preserving memories from the business of selling analog film photography and photofinishing systems. They are still struggling with a profitable transition to the use of digital imaging technologies. Newspapers are likely to face similar problems trying to decouple newsgathering, journalism, creative and advertising from production and delivery in print to delivery via networked digital eReaders and handsets.
RI: What other examples of fundamental business model failure can you give me?
DC: Sure. One example is the failure to recognize the value of “waste” and the true cost of externalities like greenhouse gas emissions or water use. Print media value chains have become extremely complex and tend to cross-subsidize and institutionalize wasteful and inefficient flows of energy and materials. A case in point of institutionalized waste is the fact that more than 60% of magazines distributed to newsstands never get sold or read. Another example is the failure to consider the full lifecycle costs or carbon footprint of media. Newspaper publishers deliver newspapers but they don’t typically recover them and recycle them or use them as an energy source locally. Few if any know what the carbon footprint of their products are. Why is that?
Until recently, companies like Nine Dragons were shipping our waste paper half way around the world to make cardboard out of it, and then shipping it back to us as packaging which we were sending to landfills. Going forward, the carbon cost of print and digital media will no longer be swept under the rug. It will soon have to appear on the balance sheets of advertisers, publishers and retailers. It will also appear in the price tags of goods and services. The climate crisis is another market failure that is now coming to light.
Business models that fail to recognize full lifecycle cost and value will be unlikely to succeed going forward. As we exit the global recession we will simultaneously be transitioning to a low carbon global economy that will change the meaning and value of waste and inefficiency. As we do so, print will survive if it reconfigures its supply chains to use energy and materials more eco-efficiently and publishers will survive if they can decouple the message from the medium while meeting the requirement for “triple bottom” line results that are economically viable, environmentally restorative and socially constructive. The growing demand for sustainable business practices, lifecycle analysis and environmental product disclosure will impact eReader manufacturers and digital media companies as well.
I expect there will be new opportunities for sustainable digital printing and print on demand to compete with toxic eReaders and coal-powered digital media. I also think there will be exciting new opportunities for printed electronics to blur the categories of print and digital media. Ultimately both print and digital media will have to become more sustainable if either of them is to survive, and judgment of which is environmentally preferable or cost effective will increasingly be based on comparative lifecycle analysis, carbon footprints and environmental product declarations based on standards such as ISO 14040, PAS 2050 and ISO 14025. Sustainability science and the triple bottom line are becoming an increasingly important aspects of business and public policy decision-making. There is every reason to believe they will also become increasingly important in media business and policy decisions.
RI: What have you seen in other countries that sticks out in your mind?
DC: When you leave the Stockholm’s airport to get on the high-speed train to downtown Stockholm there are book vending machines! While some may choose to download content to a phone or eReader, for many a book, a magazine or a newspaper will continue to be preferred. One of the major challenges print needs to address is waste, and another is the customization of format and content. There is no technical barrier to replacing newsstands and vending machines with hard copy media output devices or “fabricators” that could produce customized or personalized books, magazines or other media objects on demand. That would be one of the ways print media could compete with the immediacy and customization potential of digital media while also eliminating newsstand distribution waste.
RI: Sounds to me like the future is looking digital.
DC: As I said earlier, the distinction between print and digital media will ultimately vanish. The media of the future will be digitally printed and printed digital devices.
RI: Will people still care where they get their news from?
DC: I don’t think people care so much about where their news comes from, but journalism… yes I believe they still care. Anyone can make news and anyone can report it, but journalism is different and that difference matters. For example, Twitter is fast becoming one the most important source of breaking news, but it isn’t journalism. I think a robust Fourth Estate capable of independent investigative journalism is essential. The first tenet of sustainability is having a political system that secures effective participation of its citizens in decision making. That is the role served by journalists and the media channels that deliver and store their content.
The capacity of our society to effectively participate in decision making is contingent upon our having sources of news, journalism and dialogue that represent a diversity of informed opinions as well as a diversity of textual, graphical and other content types. Likewise, the sustainability of our society is dependent upon the supply chains and media that carry that content being diverse and sustainable as well. While much of current media debate is about the future of journalism as the sea change shift to digital media is occurring, we need to recognize that our current digital media supply chains and media types are unsustainable before we kick print media to the curb and entrust our future to an ephemeral and uncertain digital media monoculture.
As publishers struggle to extricate themselves from the advertising business models that encumber them, we are likely to see them continue to trim editorial staffs and funding for investigative journalism. However we are likely to begin to see syndicates of content creators and journalists emerge who are independent of any particular distribution channel or media type. Spot.us is an example of how journalists may increasingly be directly supported by their audiences rather than by a publisher who is supported by advertising.
If the capital structure of traditional media cannot support the research and legal expenses that investigative journalism demands then those entrepreneurs will find other sources of funding for their efforts.
RI: So do you have to go to newspapers to get journalism?
DC: No, as I said, we’re already starting to see things like spot.us and syndicates, as well as entrepreneurial journalists operating outside of mainstream media advertising supported business models.
RI: Last question. What should I be asking you right now?
DC: The real question is “how can we encourage both advertisers and publishers to consider the sustainability of the media supply chains they depend on?” Whether they are print or digital, they consume energy, and neither are sustainable. Will they have to learn the way fish learn about the importance of water? Will they only be aware of it when it is gone?
Looking at Print media, we can basically agree that it is dependent on paper. The paper making industry in the United States is in tragic decline. We haven’t built a paper mill in the US for over 12 years and we’ve shut down hundreds of paper making machines. We’ve exported more waste paper than any other product. In fact waste paper is this country’s single largest export! The paper has gone primarily to China where it is recycled into cardboard and shipped back to us as containers and then ultimately devoted to landfill.
We’ve effectively put ourselves in a situation where in short order we may be as dependent on imported paper as we are dependent on imported oil. If we don’t address the strategic importance of an intact infrastructure for papermaking in the US we may not have print media in time because we won’t be able to afford the substrate to print it on. Hopefully the current administration’s focus on renewable energy holds promise for the reinvention of America’s papermaking industry.
Over the next 10 years we need to transition from making paper in outmoded papermills mills build by our grandparents to producing paper, fuels, energy and renewable chemical and pharmaceutical feedstocks in a new generation of integrated biorefineries.
Likewise we need to transition from printing methods that employ wasteful and inefficient mass production to those which employ leaner greener digital printing and printed electronics manufacturing that support mass customization and dematerialization.
Looking at digital media from the same perspective it is not economically or environmentally sustainable either. During 2006 energy consumption from data centers and servers consumed 61billion kilowatt hours of electricity. The consumption rate for data centers doubled from 2000-2006 and is set to double again in 2010. Additionally, e-waste now constitutes the most significant toxic waste stream in our landfills and it is the single largest toxic waste export. We are about to witness a veritable tsunami of toxic e-waste as people turn in their CRT TV’s and buy new HD digital sets to cope with the FCC’s analog to digital mandate.
RI: Ok, that wasn’t the last question. After you mentioned exporting toxic waste to other countries I’m wondering; what are the global implications of publishers switching to new media /new medium?
DC: Thinking that we can transition from books to ebooks, and satisfy the fundamental needs of all 6.7 billion people on the planet is a fallacy. We don’t have clean water in many countries, let alone 3G towers to feed our Kindle’s today’s newspaper news. 2 billion people don’t have clean water in the world. As publishers, advertisers, and consumers, we have to find ways to encourage development of both sustainable print and digital media supply chain management technologies. We need to reframe the issue. Today’s print vs. digital media debates are a zero sum game. Regardless of which media wins the war of words we all lose. The fact is we will need both print and digital media for many years to come and we need them to both become far more sustainable than they are today.
RI: Thank you for sharing your ideas with metaprinter regarding news media innovation, convergence and sustainability. When is your next upcoming conference and what can people learn there?
DC: SustainCommWorld’s next Green Media Conferences will be held on June 9, 2009 in Washington DC and on June 23 in Chicago. The Green Media Conference website has detailed program information on it and the Green Media Connect Social networking site is where attendees can network, blog and share information before during and after the events. In addition, I post news items and exchange tweets with the thousands of people who follow me on twitter each day. Thank you for taking time to speak with me about this important topic. I look forward to seeing you and your readers at the Green Media Conferences in June.
Source: Metaprinter
Monday, March 23, 2009
Sky News: Integration and innovation in the newsroom
WALKING into Sky's newsroom for the first time, you can't miss the studio: no walls, remote camera operation and its circular shape have removed barriers between the everyday presenting faces of the channel and the news operation behind it.
The open plan newsroom, which puts senior editors and producers on the same 'eye-level' as reporting teams, was part of a series of constant innovations in the organisation's 20-year history.
Bulletins were originally broadcast from a cupboard space, I'm told during a tour of the Osterley headquarters. More space was required, the cupboard left behind, and presenters began sitting in the round.
Closer integration of all newsgathering operations and outputs, from mobile and Sky Active to online, led to the compact, concentric layout around the 'studio' space.
Geography is everything: from its former home secreted on another floor, the online team are now in earshot of bulletins as they are broadcast and can grab producers and new news angles as the cameras roll.
Live feeds from the newsroom floor are broadcast from between desks, where online news chats are being carefully moderated – on my visit the topic of discussion being whether a mother should pay for sex for her Down's syndrome son.
Taking part in this is the recently appointed, and much-discussed, Sky News Twitter correspondent – another innovation by the team driven by experimentation and a desire to reach new audiences [listen to executive producer Julian March's thoughts on this below].
"We lucky in that we have a culture in the newsroom where we are not afraid to fail," March tells Journalism.co.uk.
Perhaps even more fortuitous is the team of developers overseen by head of technology Steve Bennedik, residing in an upstairs office.
New features of the website and flash templates are being built by a dedicated team, says Marsh, that other broadcasters would kill to have.
While building flash templates is an investment in the long-term, the site is keen to continue experimenting and exploiting the undefined boundaries of online journalism, says Marsh.
Current projects include a data mash-up of the UK's job crisis, multimedia coverage of Pakistan week, Dermot Murnaghan's 'Economic Cycle' and plans for a backpack journalist to cover a project in China 'free of the encumbrances of broadcasting'.
New ways of storytelling are very much the focus of developments, which - thanks to the site's relaunch last summer - are now all the more possible:
Source: Journalism.co.uk
The open plan newsroom, which puts senior editors and producers on the same 'eye-level' as reporting teams, was part of a series of constant innovations in the organisation's 20-year history.
Bulletins were originally broadcast from a cupboard space, I'm told during a tour of the Osterley headquarters. More space was required, the cupboard left behind, and presenters began sitting in the round.
Closer integration of all newsgathering operations and outputs, from mobile and Sky Active to online, led to the compact, concentric layout around the 'studio' space.
Geography is everything: from its former home secreted on another floor, the online team are now in earshot of bulletins as they are broadcast and can grab producers and new news angles as the cameras roll.
Live feeds from the newsroom floor are broadcast from between desks, where online news chats are being carefully moderated – on my visit the topic of discussion being whether a mother should pay for sex for her Down's syndrome son.
Taking part in this is the recently appointed, and much-discussed, Sky News Twitter correspondent – another innovation by the team driven by experimentation and a desire to reach new audiences [listen to executive producer Julian March's thoughts on this below].
"We lucky in that we have a culture in the newsroom where we are not afraid to fail," March tells Journalism.co.uk.
Perhaps even more fortuitous is the team of developers overseen by head of technology Steve Bennedik, residing in an upstairs office.
New features of the website and flash templates are being built by a dedicated team, says Marsh, that other broadcasters would kill to have.
While building flash templates is an investment in the long-term, the site is keen to continue experimenting and exploiting the undefined boundaries of online journalism, says Marsh.
Current projects include a data mash-up of the UK's job crisis, multimedia coverage of Pakistan week, Dermot Murnaghan's 'Economic Cycle' and plans for a backpack journalist to cover a project in China 'free of the encumbrances of broadcasting'.
New ways of storytelling are very much the focus of developments, which - thanks to the site's relaunch last summer - are now all the more possible:
Source: Journalism.co.uk
Maybe what your news organization needs is a 'spontaneous bashing together of ideas'
RATHER than take a hipshot off those headlines, though, we're going to be proactive on OJR this week, starting with this piece from Eric Ulken, who offers a roadmap for established news organizations to enliven their online efforts.]
In a nondescript training room in the BBC's White City building in West London, about 80 people are huddled around tables with placards bearing names like "Dr. Who" and "Top Gear" [BBC TV show titles], engaged in discussions on topics ranging from user-generated content to alternate-reality gaming.
The assembled thinkers and tinkerers represent many different arms of the British media behemoth, from radio news to Web production to technology. About the only things they have in common besides an employer are an interest in innovation and an eye to the future.
They're taking part in the second BeeBCamp, an "unconference" in the tradition of BarCamp (and partly inspired by the Guardian's GameCamp) that aims to bring together forward-thinking staffers and a few outsiders to talk about themes loosely related to the future of the BBC. [Disclosure: I was one of those outsiders, and, in the everybody-pitches-in spirit of the unconference, I talked about my work in data journalism at the L.A. Times.]
BeeBCamp, according to the BBC blog's write-up of the event, "is designed as a collective, spontaneous bashing together of ideas, with no set structure to the day." A whiteboard goes up first thing in the morning, and anybody who has an idea for a discussion or presentation claims a spot on the schedule. For example, one participant wrote: "We own twitter.com/bbc. What should we do with it?" (Some ideas here.)
I'm a little late with this post, as it's been almost a month since the Feb. 18 gathering. There's already ample coverage of the discussions and presentations (plus tags on Twitter and Flickr), so I won't rehash all that. Instead I'd like to consider the broader idea of BeeBCamp and similar gatherings as they relate to the need to foster innovation in traditional media organizations. BeeBCamp and events like it are great examples of how "big media" — often seen as bureaucratic and impenetrable — can break down walls, open themselves up and facilitate the development of new ideas.
Why might a media company want to host an event like this? Some reasons:
Silo-busting: BeeBCamp brings together staffers from disparate parts of a huge institution — folks who might never have a business reason to talk to one another but whose goals and interests mesh, often in unexpected ways. (I got the feeling a number of the BeeBCamp participants had never met before.) The interdisciplinary nature of the gathering is what makes it so useful, as experts apply their unique perspectives and skills to common problems.
Openness: Everything at BeeBCamp is on the record, unless somebody holds up a sign that says "unbloggable". This means a lot of what is said will get rebroadcast and commented on by people outside the organization, which is, at the least, a way of showing the world that the BBC is thinking and talking about the future, and at best a way to engage in an informal dialogue with the audience.
Innovation: Sometimes it's useful to get away from the desk for a while and talk informally with colleagues. Not the ones you sit next to, but the folks across the building (or across town, or across the country) whom you wouldn't ordinarily interact with. Crazy, silly ideas flow, which beget less silly ideas, which occasionally lead to completely sane and doable ideas. And because people are free to blog the discussions, there's a good record of what's said, which can be a useful starting point for follow-up discussion and action.
BeeBCamp is just one example of how media organizations are opening up the process of innovation. Here are some formats that have been used:
Hack day: This concept, which originated at Yahoo, typically calls for giving techies (often working in concert with product and content folks) 24 hours to build an idea into a functional prototype. After trying out the format internally in 2005, Yahoo conducted the first open hack day in 2006 and continues to do both internal and public hack days. Matt McAlister, one of the instigators of hack day at Yahoo, is now at the Guardian, which did its own internal hack day (with a few outside guests) last year. McAlister has a round-up of the results, complete with video highlight reel, on his blog. (I'd be interested in hearing if other media have hosted hack days.)
Meetup: The Chicago Tribune has been making good use of meetups (or tweetups, i.e., meetups organized via Twitter) to engage in informal dialogue with readers. It works like this: The Trib (in the persona of Colonel Tribune) invites local bloggers, twitterers and interested readers of all stripes to meet – no agenda — usually at a local bar. The result: Ideas direct from readers, kudos in the blogosphere and good karma all around. Last year the Trib also invited local bloggers to tour the paper.
Unconference: BeeBCamp, BarCamp and the recent regional NewsInnovation BarCamps fall into this category. Here's how you might organize an unconference in your organization: Find interested colleagues. Bring in some clever outsiders. Get them talking about the future and see what happens. Make it clear to people that what's said is on the record. You want folks to feel free to blog and comment about what they see and hear, for reasons mentioned above.
Source: Knight Digital Media Center
In a nondescript training room in the BBC's White City building in West London, about 80 people are huddled around tables with placards bearing names like "Dr. Who" and "Top Gear" [BBC TV show titles], engaged in discussions on topics ranging from user-generated content to alternate-reality gaming.
The assembled thinkers and tinkerers represent many different arms of the British media behemoth, from radio news to Web production to technology. About the only things they have in common besides an employer are an interest in innovation and an eye to the future.
They're taking part in the second BeeBCamp, an "unconference" in the tradition of BarCamp (and partly inspired by the Guardian's GameCamp) that aims to bring together forward-thinking staffers and a few outsiders to talk about themes loosely related to the future of the BBC. [Disclosure: I was one of those outsiders, and, in the everybody-pitches-in spirit of the unconference, I talked about my work in data journalism at the L.A. Times.]
BeeBCamp, according to the BBC blog's write-up of the event, "is designed as a collective, spontaneous bashing together of ideas, with no set structure to the day." A whiteboard goes up first thing in the morning, and anybody who has an idea for a discussion or presentation claims a spot on the schedule. For example, one participant wrote: "We own twitter.com/bbc. What should we do with it?" (Some ideas here.)
I'm a little late with this post, as it's been almost a month since the Feb. 18 gathering. There's already ample coverage of the discussions and presentations (plus tags on Twitter and Flickr), so I won't rehash all that. Instead I'd like to consider the broader idea of BeeBCamp and similar gatherings as they relate to the need to foster innovation in traditional media organizations. BeeBCamp and events like it are great examples of how "big media" — often seen as bureaucratic and impenetrable — can break down walls, open themselves up and facilitate the development of new ideas.
Why might a media company want to host an event like this? Some reasons:
Silo-busting: BeeBCamp brings together staffers from disparate parts of a huge institution — folks who might never have a business reason to talk to one another but whose goals and interests mesh, often in unexpected ways. (I got the feeling a number of the BeeBCamp participants had never met before.) The interdisciplinary nature of the gathering is what makes it so useful, as experts apply their unique perspectives and skills to common problems.
Openness: Everything at BeeBCamp is on the record, unless somebody holds up a sign that says "unbloggable". This means a lot of what is said will get rebroadcast and commented on by people outside the organization, which is, at the least, a way of showing the world that the BBC is thinking and talking about the future, and at best a way to engage in an informal dialogue with the audience.
Innovation: Sometimes it's useful to get away from the desk for a while and talk informally with colleagues. Not the ones you sit next to, but the folks across the building (or across town, or across the country) whom you wouldn't ordinarily interact with. Crazy, silly ideas flow, which beget less silly ideas, which occasionally lead to completely sane and doable ideas. And because people are free to blog the discussions, there's a good record of what's said, which can be a useful starting point for follow-up discussion and action.
BeeBCamp is just one example of how media organizations are opening up the process of innovation. Here are some formats that have been used:
Hack day: This concept, which originated at Yahoo, typically calls for giving techies (often working in concert with product and content folks) 24 hours to build an idea into a functional prototype. After trying out the format internally in 2005, Yahoo conducted the first open hack day in 2006 and continues to do both internal and public hack days. Matt McAlister, one of the instigators of hack day at Yahoo, is now at the Guardian, which did its own internal hack day (with a few outside guests) last year. McAlister has a round-up of the results, complete with video highlight reel, on his blog. (I'd be interested in hearing if other media have hosted hack days.)
Meetup: The Chicago Tribune has been making good use of meetups (or tweetups, i.e., meetups organized via Twitter) to engage in informal dialogue with readers. It works like this: The Trib (in the persona of Colonel Tribune) invites local bloggers, twitterers and interested readers of all stripes to meet – no agenda — usually at a local bar. The result: Ideas direct from readers, kudos in the blogosphere and good karma all around. Last year the Trib also invited local bloggers to tour the paper.
Unconference: BeeBCamp, BarCamp and the recent regional NewsInnovation BarCamps fall into this category. Here's how you might organize an unconference in your organization: Find interested colleagues. Bring in some clever outsiders. Get them talking about the future and see what happens. Make it clear to people that what's said is on the record. You want folks to feel free to blog and comment about what they see and hear, for reasons mentioned above.
Source: Knight Digital Media Center
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