The post Newsroom evolution from digital denial to digital first first appeared on Media Helping Media.
]]>Fear, a lack of vision, laziness, and a failure to recognise and keep up with changing audience behaviour, are among the most common reasons for media organisations becoming irrelevant and struggling.
Continually monitoring how content is being consumed by the audience, and responding quickly to technological and market opportunities, is essential.
The four attitudes to digital news production, news gathering and news dissemination are digital denial, digital parallel, digital enhanced, and digital first.
Some media managers refuse to accept that there is a digital audience which needs to be served.
Others become digital evangelists who make production decisions that are not always backed with firm business logic.
Some prefer to focus on the old ways of working, and give little consideration to the digital audience and market.
Of course, each newsroom will have a different approach, based on local business logic, legacy issues, and political and cultural factors.
However, one fact is clear; without a converged/integrated newsroom, it’s difficult to make the most of the digital opportunities that might exist.
And although the essential elements of newsroom convergence might be similar for all news organisations, each solution has to be crafted according to local needs, based on solid business data that informs and justifies every suggested change.
Please refer to our training module “Creating a converged/integrated newsroom delivering content to multiple devices”.
Let’s look at the four typical scenarios. As you do, try to work out which scenario best describes your media house.
This is when there is no clear vision from the senior management about why newsroom convergence/integration is important, which often results in there being no buy-in from senior editors, and resistance from many.
There will have been a failure to invest in the digital technology required to produce content for use on multiple platforms/devices, and there will be little awareness of audience needs and changing audience behaviour.
Management and staff are stuck in a time warp, bogged down with legacy issues, doing what they have always done, and living in a false comfort zone.
This is where management acknowledges the digital needs of the audience but fails to realise its importance.
They will usually ask a couple of people to build a website and upload video from its main TV shows.
This operation will often not be connected to the newsroom. It might even be on a different floor. There might be little to no editorial supervision.
At times the online version will be a copy and paste version of what was broadcast, there will be no added value in terms of interactive assets that help explain the stories. There will be no user engagement.
The result will be a rather dull repetition of the TV output, often text heavy, updated once or twice a day, and offering no compelling reason for the audience to visit or return.
In some cases there is an online, multimedia and social media team embedded in the newsroom made up of trained journalists who are part of the news operation. In these cases the on-air, online and mobile versions are all linked.
There will be an attempt, often made during the morning meeting, to select the top three stories that require some added value online in terms of timelines, interactive maps, infographics, fact boxes, comments etc.
The source content will be much the same, but the user experience will differ depending on the platforms used by the audience.
Social sharing and encouraging the audience to comment will be a central part of this strategy.
There will be a healthy buzz in the newsroom. Journalists will be keen to see how the audience responds, and, after monitoring that interaction, will use the material to build on the interest generated.
As a result new angles will come to light and be developed. The output on all platforms/devices will feel fresh, relevant and timely.
This is where the newsroom operates around a central superdesk or hub acting as the main command and control unit for all output.
There will be shared forward planning. Stories will be created in advance for all output areas with carefully planned cross-promotion.
Interactivity will be dynamic, meaning that it will be controlled and updated from the newsrooms central database.
It will be built into detachable, shareable and embeddable multimedia assets, rich in links to background information, which the audience can take away to their own preferred social media space in order to extend the conversation.
That total user-engagement will be monitored by the social media team and fed back into the news production process so that the output continually reflects the changing needs/concerns/questions posed by the target audience.
The digital-first converged newsroom will work closely with business development, technological development, and sales and marketing to ensure that any opportunities are fully exploited for the benefit of both the audience and the brand.
All four models exist today in varying forms. Some media organisations, sadly, make a start on introducing convergence and then give up.
They sometimes blame the technology rather than their own inability to adapt. And there will be those who take comfort in retreating back to the known and dragging others with them.
But the challenge for media managers is massive. To survive they need to ensure that they have a plan for remaining relevant to changing audience demands while protecting their existing business.
The best strategy for survival and prosperity is a fully converged/integrated news operation delivering content to whatever device the users turn to for information.
The principle is clear – but news organisations should accept that there is no quick out-of-the-box one-size-fits-all solution.
Yes, it is possible to learn from what other organisations have tried successfully. But every media business has its own particular problems and opportunities.
They will need a bespoke strategy, tailored to their exact situation, in order to meet the changing needs of their own target audience.
The post Newsroom evolution from digital denial to digital first first appeared on Media Helping Media.
]]>The post Social media test for mainstream media first appeared on Media Helping Media.
]]>Does your media organisation have a social media strategy. Does it reach out and connect with your audience? There are many ways media organisations respond to social media, but here are three.
Media Helping Media recommends the third and final attitude in this list, but first check which one fits your media organisation and then think through what are can do about it.
A we-know-best attitude that fails to acknowledge changing audience behaviour and sees the audience as consumers rather than part of the news process. While this is going on, an increasingly informed and influential middle media is taking over the role of informing the public debate with people-focused stories published on blogs and distributed via the social networks that reflect diversity of opinion and offer perspectives which are often lacking in heavily-controlled news environments.
This model is in its death throes or already dead.
We realise social networking is popular, we understand the benefits of viral marketing and distribution, and we see it as a way to disseminate our material to a wider audience. Our sales and marketing department is on the case. Every now and then we are happy to refer to social media in our bulletins and stories, and sometimes it might be part of a story, but only in terms of showing a trend or in cases where social media offers access to voices we would not normally reach.
Containment, with a firm grip on the amount and scope of social networking in output. Regular references to social media as a phenomenon and an increasing awareness of its use as a possible newsgathering tool, but the main thrust of output is still based on wires, diary events and reporter/correspondent input from newsroom meetings, their contacts and their specialist beats.
This “engage with on our terms” model will work well as a part of a transition from the “broadcast/publish at” model, but is not a recommended survival strategy.
We see social networking as central to all we do. By tapping into this rich vein of stories, perspectives, and first-person witness and thought we are able to enhance our output. This enriches our news and current affairs and highlights real concerns. It adds genuine comment and ensures that our output is relevant and revealing.
A healthy strategy, adapting to changing audience behaviour, letting loose of content to hold tight to the audience, while, at the same time, reflecting the priorities, concerns and thinking of that audience.
The post Social media test for mainstream media first appeared on Media Helping Media.
]]>The post Social media in news production and news dissemination first appeared on Media Helping Media.
]]>Social media is an increasingly disruptive force on the media landscape. It challenges traditional, mainstream media to reconsider how they operate.
Social media often releases information about which mainstream media might not have been aware, and information that mainstream media might have tried to ignore.
It can offer a wider, more diverse perspective on life than that covered by traditional media.
It challenges mainstream media’s editorial standards, and makes editors think again about their values and ethics.
It offers mainstream media opportunities to tap into conversations, learn about social change, and connect with those who were previously out of reach.
It provides a direct link from a media organisation to a connected, empowered, and active audience, and, in doing so, totally changes that relationship.
And yet, surprisingly, some media organisations fail to take social media seriously, or, perhaps worse, totally misunderstand what it’s about and, therefore, respond inadequately.
In an earlier module we looked at the importance of “Identifying the target audience and its information needs”, then we considered “Adapting to changing audience behaviour and monitoring the market”.
Those modules looked at who makes up the target audience, the issues that concern them most, the devices they use to consume and share news, and how they interact with news.
We then looked at how a media organisation should adapt to meet the challenges and opportunities presented by changing audience behaviour in our module entitled “Newsroom evolution from digital denial to digital first”.
Now we look at what a social media strategy could mean for a media organisation.
But first, let’s look at how we got to this stage in media’s development.
The media is in a constant state of change, or at least it should be.
Technological advances result in changing audience behaviour resulting in altered attitudes to how news is consumed and shared, which means that a media organisation can’t afford to stand still.
Innovation is needed, but only if it makes business sense.
There have been many stages of media evolution over the years, below we look at three. The “broadcast AT or publish AT” model, the “engage with on our terms” model, and the “participate in” model.
This is the model where the broadcasters and publishers thought they knew best.
They would broadcast and published programmes and information to a passive audience who consumed what they were given.
There was no interactivity, and the output reflected the choices made by the journalists, not the audience.
This resulted in a limited perspective of society, usually representing that of the owners of the media organisation, the state, or the editors and journalists who were producing the content.
That model is dead.
In this model, mainstream media offered limited interactivity. It could be in the form of studio debates, vox pops conducted in the street, or, in the case of print, letters to the editor.
Some media organisations had websites, and would run polls and invite comments, but these were usually heavily pre-moderated and monitored, and were about issues that the broadcasters and publishers wanted to discuss.
Audience participation was carefully controlled, with the audience selected based on a journalists assessment of the public’s value to the story.
That model is in its death throes. Now we are in the ‘participate in’ model.
The ‘participate in’ model is where audience engagement is part of the editorial proposition.
It’s where stories are built around the issues the audience is discussing in the street, in their homes and on social media.
Please refer to our modules entitled “Identifying the target audience and its information needs” and “Establishing a market differential with original, in-depth, issue-led journalism”.
It’s about having an active unit in the newsroom who use social media to monitor what the audience is saying, share stories from the newsroom, stimulate a debate, and then watch that debate develop while feeding those developments back into the news production process.
This strategy will not only bring a media organisation closer to its audience, but it is also likely to increase engagement around the content being produced, while, at the same time, winning audience trust.
It will mean that output will be enriched to reflect audience concerns.
A modern media organisation needs to have a social media editor, or at least a member of staff whose job it is to monitor social media. Ideally, they will be sitting at the central superdesk in a converged newsroom. Please refer to our training module entitled “Convergence, roles and responsibilities and workflows”.
The social media editor or producer has an important role to play. They will:
Smart media managers will realise that for the news to truly reflect the concerns of the target audience they will need to exploit the opportunities and benefits of social media, and not see it as an unwelcome distraction.
And if you are thinking in terms of a wider reach via social media on new, continually-developing platforms/devices, you will be helping to ensure that your media organisation is always responsive to new revenue-generating opportunities.
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