Newspapers can't predict their future

This is not a required post, but I just want to share this with the rest of the class.

I picked up this story from The Editors Weblog. The headline says, "Newspaper executives can't predict future of industry." Indeed, it is also conventional wisdom now to think that the Internet is causing the "death of newspapers." But there is more to this ongoing trend. (Also read this related story from New York Times). Excerpt:

After years of endless discussions on the future of the newspaper industry, trying to figure out whether it will bounce back or is doomed, some top newspaper executives finally revealed the honest truth. They simply don’t know. These executives met at the annual media conference in New York – where The New York Times Co. explicitly refuted rumors about a change in their stock structure.

The ‘real news’ was the honesty that newspaper executives seemed to have agreed upon.

Week 4: Radio Style

Slug: Morning news 12-11-06/Erwin Oliva

(Focus: Intel helps hook up poor communities to the Net to narrow the proverbial digital divide)

One hundred fifty residents of General Trias in Cavite can now surf Internet, thanks to Intel.

Leighton Phillips, Intel World Ahead program manager, says Intel is investing one billion dollars in five years to train and connect more people living in remote areas to the Internet.

Phillips says this global project also intends to develop content relevant to rural communities because many people still have difficulty understanding the Internet.

He says Intel and the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nation are now working closely to help poorer communities become Internet literate.

In the Philippines, Intel is working with the Commission on Information and Technology, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization National Commission of the Philippines, and the Asian Institute of Journalism and Communication.

Florangel Rosario Braid, UNESCO National Commission chairperson for communication in the Philippines, says Intel is helping fulfill the organization’s plans to create relevant digital content for rural communities.

The newspaper's death explained

Slate's Jack Shafer tries to explain why newspapers are now pushing the "panic button," as readership numbers are dwindling. He writes:

A good three decades before the newspaper industry began blaming its declining fortunes on the Web, the iPod, and game machines, it knew it was in huge trouble. In the mid-1970s, two of its trade associations (which have since merged)—the American Newspaper Publishers Association and the Newspaper Advertising Bureau—sought to diagnose the causes of tumbling newspaper readership since the mid-1960s and recommend remedies.

But towards the end, he explains that the appetite for news has not really gone down. Generally, it is the behavior of readers that has changed a lot with the introduction of the Web, iPod and game machines, as he puts it. He goes on to quote Preserving the Press, which offers some solution to newspapers.

The solutions proposed by Preserving the Press and Shaw's article read like the standard prescriptions written today: Make an attempt to "reconnect" with readers, who feel alienated from newspapers. Make coverage more local. Hook kids when they're young. Let readers "sound off" about issues on special pages of the paper. Connect with and hire minorities. Expand the weather report. Introduce or expand op-ed pages. Spice up the design and print more color. Run more lifestyle, consumer, and personal-finance articles. Chase potential readers—and advertisers—into the deep suburbs.

Read more of this article here.

Essential tools for "backpack" reporters

As I was reading through Berkeley's Multimedia Reporting and Convergence online training module, I found this interesting feature by Jane Stevens that details what "backpack reporters"-- a term given to multimedia journalists -- need in the field. They include:

• Laptop computer loaded with Photoshop, Dreamweaver, iMovie or Pinnacle Studio 8 (or Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere if you're doing advanced video editing), Flash and a text editor such as Word.
• Video camera and accessories (lenses, filters, microphones, headphones, batteries, cables, tripod)
• Digital video tape (more than you think you'll need - tape's cheaper than missing the most important shot of the story)
• Lens cleaners (brush, tissues, solution -- clean your lens before every outing)
• Absorbent soft towel (for emergency lens cleaning)
• Duct tape (if some part of your camera breaks, as mine did in a Moscow subway station)
• Pocket knife (remember to put this in your checked luggage when traveling)
• Rubber bands (you never know)
• Extra batteries for microphones (replace these every few months)
• Camera and microphone manuals (unless you've memorized both)
• Plastic bags for camera (as emergency protection if you don't have a raincoat for your camera, or if you're moving between extremes of heat and cold and need the camera to adjust slowly)
• Plastic bags, small and zip-lock for used DV tapes
• Water bottle (for you)
• Power bars (for you -- you never know when you're going to skip a meal)
• Pens (if nothing else, to jot a quick ID on the tape you've just shot)
• Small notebook (of course, your camera is your reporter's notebook, but a small notebook is handy for writing down shots that you don't want to forget, especially if it's raining and you can't read what you've written on your hand)
• Backpack journalist vest with many pockets (you don't have to go the extreme of still photographers with their 87 pockets, but it's more efficient to have towel, batteries, DV tape, notebook, pen, knife and duct tape within easy reach)

WEEK 4: Multi-media journalism in the Philippines

Perhaps the closest example on how journalists in the Philippines are using “multi-media” techniques when they report is INQ7.net, the company I work for. When we started, our news website was called “shovelware,” which means content taken from the print edition is just “shoveled” into web. There was not much difference between the print and web version except the latter is online. Also the web version followed the “narrative” style of the print. There was not much interactivity.

A year after it was launched, INQ7.net covered the “People’s Revolution 2.” It was at this historic and defining moment that INQ7.net transformed into a semi-multimedia news website. We broke news as it happened – through our breaking news section. We worked like the wires. But that’s just text. Eventually, we incorporated videos taken from our partner TV station and provided links to videos related to stories. We also provided a streaming audio of a local radio station for people who wanted to hear almost real-time broadcast of the events at that time.

Special websites have also emerged at that time. We created these sub-websites within the news portal for special features. It usually contained text, audio and videos, and other information we deemed useful for our readers.

The level of “interactivity” or multimedia techniques used in INQ7.net are not as sophisticated as the examples of Touching Hearts or 360 Degrees, which are in fact, larger projects that take time and specialized skills to develop. INQ7.net is, however, evolving and will feature more of "less linear", multi-media news.

WEEK 3: The best of both worlds

The online medium provides the "best of both worlds" of broadcasting and print. With faster computers and Internet connection, it is now possible to deliver text, videos, and audio through an online media. Users can choose what they want. They may even opt to have news pushed to them via mobile phones --which extends the online medium further. The online media is at the "cutting edge" of journalism. While it won't replace journalism as we know it, it changes paradigms, mindsets, and business models. Online medium can deliver news quickly and around the clock. It provides an endless web of information through links and recently, blogs. Newspapers are now putting up video content, complimented with audio, which can be a short news clip or a streaming Internet radio program. Blogs have also provided another way to engage readers .

The biggest weakness of the online medium is accessibility and cost. Not all people have Internet access and computers. But mobile phones are becoming an alternative. Nonetheless, the online medium opens up opportunities for the news "business." It creates additional revenues (through advertising and syndication) for newspapers, television, and radio. With the online medium, they can have a bigger and younger audience born in a multimedia world. Traditional media that refuse to change remain the biggest threat to online media.

A paper titled, "Newspaper websites deliver local consumers" by the Newspaper Association of America, states a general trend in the US, which is now happening in countries like the Philippines:

The number of Web users visiting newspaper Web sites continues to grow—from 40 percent of everyone online in 2002, to 48 percent in 2004 and 51 percent in 2006.

Tag that magazine

In the "spirit" of convergence, a Philippine magazine introduced a new marketing gimmick in their magazine. It involves taking "snapshots" (using a mobile phone camera and a special software) of a bar code-like symbol placed in the cover of the magazine. The Tag Mobile System (TMS) -- as it is called -- will take the mobile phone owners to a special website (a WAP site) that will contain other information and goodies. As this blog states, TMS is:

TMS is a convenient way to download any form of multimedia into your mobile by turning your phone camera into a barcode scanner.

Just imagine the possibilities. Magazines or any publication (actually the TMS works on websites too) can now push information via mobile phones. If you're using a smart phone, you could conduct transactions (say buy a product from the magazine or view more photos on your mobile phone). I remember an old article written by my editor Leo Magno years back. With convergence, content is now portable to any device/medium. With technologies such as TMS, content will be "spiraling" up and around all these mediums/devices. Thus he writes:

This consequently is redefining the word “media" as we know it. The flow no longer comes from a broadcaster’s or publisher’s point of view down to the audience, where the old communications model of sender-message-receiver is followed. Information flow in this day and age is no longer linear. With the participation of citizens -- the audience -- as both content consumer and producer, it has become multi-dimensional, spiraling up and around several evolutionary ladders of communications.

College kids going online for campus news

I know this is beyond the 300-word requirement for this week, but I wish to highlight this study I picked up from Poynter Institute.

Baltimore Sun's Nick Madigan wrote that College campus papers are becoming popular despite the dwindling newspaper readership. However, there is a growing number of students going online for news. Excerpt:

At the same time, college students are still reading the papers' print editions. A Student Monitor study says 76 percent of college students surveyed during the spring semester this year read one out of the previous five print editions of their campus paper. That number has remained roughly consistent for almost two decades, never dropping below the high 60s, said Eric Weil, managing partner of Student Monitor, which twice a year surveys 1,200 full-time students on 100 four-year campuses.

The difference now, he said, is that 38 percent of students regularly read an online edition of their campus paper, and they spend an average of 19 minutes doing so, Weil said.

WEEK 2: Convergence is inevitable

Convergence in journalism involves the marriage of old and new mediums. "Mass media" is no longer enough to describe today's new media. The audience is growing because it is spreading virally through blogs and other social networking services such as YouTube or Flickr. Instead of the old paradigm of "one to many," the convergent media is now a medium of "many to many."

It also has gone "multimedia."

Blogs have allowed anyone to become a "journalist." Mainstream media is now embracing technologies, such as blogs, to deliver news. According to this paper from the University of Essex, titled "Blogging: personal participation in public knowledge building on the web,"

Blogs have emerged from a humble beginning to become a highly networked mass of online knowledge and communication. All kinds of research, from searching for the best price of the latest mobile phone, to more rigorous forms, are conducted through the blog medium.

Blogs or blogging have become "cheaper" and efficient means to publish information on the Internet and deliver news to a bigger audience. This is just example on how convergence has spread so quickly worldwide. Anyone with an Internet connection, a decent computer, and a good command of English can become a journalist. Thus we've seen the rise of citizen journalism, which is now gradually being embraced by MSM.

Convergence is happening in the Philippines. With a growing population of Internet users, a close to 40 million mobile phone users, it is evident that Filipinos want news pushed to them via new mediums. The company I worked with, INQ7.net, now sends breaking news to 20,000 mobile phone subscribers. Everyday, the local news website gets more than one million unique visitors -- that's about three times more than the current readership of our sister firm running the print medium.