Sustainable Journalism

So Johnstone press are today attempting pilot schemes on six of their regional newspapers to see how they can charge for online content in a bid to save flailing print journalism. Included in the six will be titles such as the Whitby Gazette and Ripley and Heanor news, whose websites will either charge £5 for a three month subscription providing unlimited access, or be massively stripped down to force its readership out to buy a traditional hard copy.

Whacking paywalls up around online content is causing much debate at the minute, with the Murdoch empire looking set to start charging for their online content sometime in 2010. The demise on the local press due to falling advertising revenues is nothing new, so a move to start charging for online local news is no real surprise. However, that content needs to be worth paying for, and it shouldn’t stifle the potential for online conversation.

We had a guest lecture from Joanna Geary who works as a Web Development Editor for The Times Online, and she spoke with a great deal of positivity about the future prospect of paywalls. If people choose to pay for content, that can only strengthen the quality of the debate and feedback on articles. If people are paying to be there, then the journalist can in essence serve them more effectively.

I think this is a fine and fair way to approach the daily nationals, but for the local press it may not be as successful. Joanna gave us rundown of what she has managed to achieve in a very short amount of time, and it was all thanks to her interest and enthusiasm of exploring the online medium ahead of her peers. She transformed the online presence of her previous paper, the Birmingham Post, through creating a specialist blog network including academics and professionals across the city. She managed to do this upon a free platform, with an encouraging editor without being hemmed in behind a paywall. Could all this have been achieved behind closed doors?

Unless these local papers have been progressive enough to fully exploit the opportunity of blogs and social networking sites such as twitter before the paywalls are erected then I reckon they’re going to struggle. Argument is that local news is niche enough to warrant paying for online, but to get people to pay that 40p per week fortheir local news they can get elsewhere for free is going to be a tough call if the titles are behind the times.

Before my massive defection from the world of Architecture they always used to harp on with an age old maxim; or dreadful cliché, ‘a picture speaks a thousand words’. And in my postgrad I hear that immortal phrase once more, care of this weeks guest lecturer Daniel Meadows. Thats all well and good, but now I’ve started working with moving images we’re talking some serious numbers. 25 frames per second, so thats 25,000 words per second… right? I reckon thats almost an entire newspaper.

We all know the world of journalism is changing, and there have never been so many ways to tell a story, embedding them all in the one place, a blog or internet site. We all know we need to be able to do everything, but to be a master of nothing. And time is of the essence. If it can’t be blogged about/online mapped/tweeted now then whats the point?

If only for the luxury and affordability of time. This Daniel Meadows seemingly had in abundance in the 70′s when he finished art school. He set out on a quest to document the world (well okay the UK) and its people from a double decker bus.  The ‘Free Photographic Omnibus’ toured our towns between 1973-74 and contained a free portrait studio with self contained dark room on board to capture the nation as he saw it.

Sounds like stuff of complete fantasy nowadays, I’d give my hind leg to go on  a jolly on a double decker bus for ‘documentary’ purposes. Fortunately the bus itself was spared the scrapheap; I only care as I was warmed to learn that it’s a good old Barton Bus originating from my home town of Nottingham. Its no longer a photography studio though and is instead at some west midlands transport museum if thats your kind of thing.

Check out the checked shirts on these dapper lads, way ahead of their time

And these little scroats have captured Geordie Racer

Anyway I digress. To travel 10,000 miles round the country taking photos of people seems like a pretty convoluted and romantic way of telling a story. You wouldn’t be able to get away with it now with everyone’s gluttonous urgency for information.

In the 70′s his subjects were anonymous nameless faces from all walks of life. In 2001 he sought to try and find his subjects 25 odd years later by publishing his pictures in local newspapers.  to try and track them down and see how they were getting on. Had time been cruel?

After speaking of his nostalgic jaunt on the double decker he outlined the interim 25 years, which has seen him winning a BAFTA for his multimedia documentary work for BBC Wales and very much keeping on top of the digital revolution – a world away from where he started on that trusty Barton Bus. He is now heralded as one of the greatest digital story tellers of our times. Whats important for us to take away with us today then? To learn the ability to use the photographic medium to bring our copy to life. Alternative story telling is possible merely through pictures. Using slide shows and stills it was demonstrated to us that much can be implied through pictures alone to illustrate our journalism. So it seems having a digital camera handy at all times is a prerequisite and then straight back messing about on Photoshop to get them up online.

I’d much prefer to grow a fro, chuck on some flares, and buy myself a vintage double decker in all honesty.

I’m being somewhat facetious with my title, as I very much enjoyed our endearing guest speaker ruskin147 this week.

As Rory Cellan-Jones was so on top of his game in 2008 when he last came to speak to the Postgraduate Journalists, all the issues he spoke of then are still as pertinent today. Well, kinda, although a year ago twitter had not exploded into the mainstream as it has now and the iPhone that he waved around was also a lot shinier and newer.

Although he’s  the BBC’s Technology correspondent he doesn’t profess to be an expert, having started off covering economics and getting sucked into reporting on internet stories from this perspective during the dotcom boom. Having then being offered the chance to report on new gizmos and gadgets on the back of that, he’s not an oracle on all things technological, being  regularly lambasted by techno geeks on his blog who reckon know more than he does. This however he takes on the chin as thats not what he’s here for. It’s about being able to explain a complex and sometimes boring subject, to a mass BBC audience in an understandable and interesting way, and this I think he does very well.

Another tip which is maybe contrary to some of the stuff that has been drilled into us from the off, is that it’s all fine and dandy being an all-rounder, but this must be underpinned by core journalistic skills. It sounds obvious really (I alluded to it in another previous post),  but there’s absolutely no point whatsoever in being able to make a podcast, online map a story, record a piece to camera, produce a radio programme, tweet all day long, etc, etc,if you’re a mediocre journo to start with.

Yet, back it comes to the importance of blogging which Rory reckons means that he probably works longer hours now than he ever has done before. He’s continually tweeting and always updating his blog, which explains how in the space of an hour he’s put a twit pic of us lot up and had a shed load of tweets advising us poor newbies about our career to come.

We have heard this bit before though, technology needs to be interwoven in all that we do until its takes over our lives, like it or lump it. It’s intrinsic to modern journalism and theres no getting away from it. And now Orange are purveyors of the iPhone, it’s probably good that I can concede to this fact on this, the eve of my last night of relative 3G freedom. Tomorrow an iPhone will graft itself to me as if an extra limb, and in a week or two I’ll probably feel very lost without it.

Twitter, Audioboo, and countless Apps will never be as far away than the bottom of my linty pockets. Googlewave- Rory’s latest plaything, I’m leaving to the boffins, its way ahead of my time…

If you’ve managed to stay with me on my journalistic journey up to now, you’d know that for the last few weeks I’ve been taking my tentative first few steps into the ‘blogosphere’. And it’s not proving to be all that bad, so much so that I’ve started another one (cue shameless plug). I’ve noticed myself falling into the trap of logging in a lot to see how many people have looked at them though, and the word ‘traffic’ has started to mean a little more to me in the internet sense rather than being stuck in a queue on the M4.

Woweeeee, my WordPress stats say four whole people have looked at my blog today! How exciting. I check an hour later and its five, YES! My life is complete. Maybe I’ll pester all of my Facebook and twitter friends with a link to let them know I’ve put more pearls of my wisdom on the internet. Then I might get to six! Something’s telling me you can get a bit obsessed with this.

It was suggested to us by guest lecturer Adam Tinworth from Reed Business Information, who are the largest Business to Business magazine publisher in the UK (thats trade mags to you and me) that you can. Think of all those highly glamorous titles such as ‘Poultry World’, ‘Truck & Driver’ and ‘Photocopier Gazette’ (alright so I made the last one up). Mock as I may, there are big bucks to be made in business to business publications and on average the revenue generated is second only to national newspapers. However, like the rest of the media industry the internet boffins at RBI have been striving hard to keep profit margins healthy with advertising revenues eroding as we move further into a completely digital world. They have had to stay on top of the game, and have done so by developing their online presence, through, you guessed it – blogs.

Pretty picture showing internet connectivity between blogs I think

The presentation was pretty slick, diagram heavy and got the message across. I still a little confused about internet blog network diagrams though – lets face it they look fairly pretty but I’ve got no idea what they mean! From what I could glean the depict the connectivity of users when building up a network. As far as I can gather each dot is a user who then shares/links the blog to another and it maps the extent to which that can spread over the internet. So THIS is what happens when i prostitute my blog on Facebook and twitter, all these nice pictures.

The key messages were: successful blogs need a niche, need enthusiastic contributors and regular posts. Screwed with those three then. The crux however was: Traffic = Money.  So I’m not going to make a fortune either.

Economics aside, he made some interesting proposals for the future in this type of journalism. It stays profitable because of the channelled content, and the old school notion of the journalist as a Trilby wearing beat reporter is back (minus the drink problem unfortunately). With the journalist providing exceptional niche content they are able to build a loyal community which can share and contribute in the conversation in real-time unlike traditional print media. In the business sense this can then be milked through advertising, making money for the publisher, without whacking a paywall around it as the Murdoch Media empire see the need to do.

Fair enough if you’re a trade mag, but in the wider world of journalistic output the dilemma rages on. If you’re interested in ‘the NEWS’ you want a global perspective, snippets of lots of stories. All this niche blogging business, although it works for specific interests, seems a tad blinkered when looking for the wider solution to how to make content pay for itself if you ask me.

Its been twice in the space of a week that we have seen the ever powerful force that twitter commands to create a media storm. It might now be a good time to admit that I’ve spotted the humble pie and I’m not that adverse to a slice, in response to my previous misgivings. Jan Moir’s disgustingly insensitive and homophobic article in the Daily Mail being the more recent example, was first attacked using said social networking site. On this I will not dwell too much, Charlie Booker’s done a stellar job already, and I urge you to take a little bit of time to pay attention to the hint at the very end of his piece. It doesn’t take long. And he’s right, I’m sure the Daily Mail would love the attention.

Anyway, the occasion with which I am referring to is the super-injunction that lawyers Carter Ruck (acting on behalf of their client, British Oil giant Trafigura) tried to impose upon the Guardian at the start of the week. Until Tuesday I was blissfully unaware of this story at all, so if you’re as ignorant as me here’s a quick rundown. I had tried to explain this weeks furore in my own words in a previous edit of this post, but it made it almost 800 words long and I don’t trust my own ability to hold anyone’s attention for that long. Therefore I’ll bat you back over to the Guardian and Robert Booth’s ever so eloquent version of events instead.

So back to my consumption of that ever so small slice of humble pie. This whole debacle has demonstrated the power of collective wisdom and citizen journalism at work. Twitter was able to overthrow the courts, as on Thursday Carter Ruck backed down and the Guardian was free to print as it pleased. The Internet has completely bypassed the legal system, and this time has proved extremely powerful for the right reasons. Freedom of Speech in Parliament has been restored, but does it jeopardise the legal system at large? The answer is plainly yes.

When the Baby P scandal unearthed itself last year the court rightly placed an injunction on the media, preventing them from revealing the identities of those accused so as not to jeopardise the trial.  However, anyone can say anything they like on the internet, and if you so wanted you could find their names using a search engine and a few clicks of a mouse. In the old days all you had to do was silence print, radio and tv and such a media blackout would be more than capable of protecting those involved. This included witnesses and ensuring the jury could not be influenced by what they read in the paper or saw on the news. Now the almost omnipresent force of the internet can expose the details of practically anything, as it can be done anonymously and spread like wildfire.

What I am trying to say is, hoorah for twitter for unearthing the corrupt actions of massive corporations, and vilifying those trusted in the public eye for publishing extreme discriminatory views. But booooo for its potential to undermine the judicial system generally. With a lack of regulation, the Carter Ruck vs The Guardian case only demonstrates the futility of trying to keep sensitive information under wraps, and it poses rather wider questions on the inherent weakness that the entire legal system has against the internet.

Okay so after my severe attack of internet cynicism last night I’m pleased to say that after a bit of real interpersonal social activity I am today feeling a little more embracing of technology. That’s not just because I had a good laugh with an old friend last night down the pub, but I’ve been inspired in part by some of the 17 declarations in this manifesto, and some points made in Alison Gows reaction to it.

Yes, the use of the internet and digital media should excite todays journalist and we should not fear the unknown, it is a useful mechanism in which to discuss, debate and research. Whether, as suggested in point 3 of the manifesto that “They [social networks] are as accessible as the telephone or television” I might contest; plonking yourself in front of the TV as a window into the world is a much more passive activity than getting the kit to physically get yourself onto the internet. We certainly take this privilege for granted in the western world. However you could never deny the innumerable possibilities that the internet has given iin terms of contacting, producing and sharing information.

Alison Gow’s critique of the manifesto helps to contextualise to the modern newsroom, in terms of how new multimedia platforms should play an intrinsic part in todays newsgathering and distribution. A reluctance to get on board now will in the end prove futile. You have to keep moving forward. This I agree with, but in a world of 24 hour news channels and ever expanding platforms will the quality of the journalism suffer? I know its important to be a ‘jack of all trades’ but I fear that spreading yourself too thin may dilute the quality of the output. It’s a tough call, especially as money in the industry is tight, but each specialism should be given its own space to breathe with resources shared, rather than creating android journalists who are expected to do a lot more in much less time.