A round-up of some key recent developments in the world of journalism related to evolving and emerging business models. These slides outline changes in consumption and advertising, as well as innovations in content creation, consumption and distribution. Finally, it also explores whether our concepts of journalism need to evolve and how the sector might move forward.

1. Damian Radcliffe
July 2014
@damianradcliffe
damian.radcliffe@gmail.com
Reinventing Journalism
Trends, Innovations and Unanswered Questions

2. Damian Radcliffe is an Honorary Research Fellow and
Doctoral Student at the Cardiff School of Journalism,
Media and Cultural Studies.
He has written about journalism, technology and media
innovation for a range of outlets including:
Abramis Academic Publishing, BBC College of Journalism,
Huffington Post, journalism.co.uk, Knowledge Bridge
(Media Development Loan Fund), NESTA, Online Journalism Blog,
Ofcom, StreetFight, Routledge, Talk About Local and ZDNet.
View Damian’s extensive writing and research portfolio
at: www.damianradcliffe.wordpress.com/writing
About the Author

3. In this presentation:
1) Changes in consumption and advertising
2) Innovations in creation, consumption and distribution
3) Do our concepts of journalism need to evolve?
4) Ideas for moving forward

4. Part 1. Journalism under threat (?)

5. “…These days, being a journalist shares
at least one quality with being a shark.
If you‘re not moving
forward, it's over.”
Margaret Sullivan, public editor of The New York Times

6. Well known story
Including:
1. Cyclical vs Structural problems
2. Declining circulations
3. Declining revenues
4. Fewer jobs for journalists (?)
5. The impact of social
6. Resistance to change
And more…

7. New data shows the shift to mobile

8. Print punching above it’s weight

9. Newspaper reliance on print revenue

10. Perhaps the most topical question is…
Can legacy media “do” digital?

11. It’s not that long ago that
many people felt that the
NYT had “nailed it”…

12. What a difference a year makes…

13. We cannot hold back the tide
And shouldn’t try.
Embrace and ride the wave!
Reasons to be cheerful
Technology, failing legacy
models and new entrants
have all provided a basis for
innovation / evolution

14. Part 2. The evolution of Journalism
10 recent trends
and developments

15. Obligatory use of this quote…

16. 1. Emergence of new funders
eBay founder
Pierre Omidyar
says his new
flagship site for
First Look
Media will
cover news,
entertainment,
sports and
politics, plus “a
family of digital
magazines.”
Jay Rosen reports Omidyar has committed $250m to the venture.

17. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos meanwhile
spends $250m buying the Washington Post…

18. 2. New funding models
CROWDFUNDING
German project
“Krautreporter” aims
to find 15,000 people
who commit to paying
60 Euros ($80) a year
to fund the site.
The Texas Tribune,
used Kickstarter (+ a $10k matching
pledge from the Knight Foundation) to
purchase equipment to livestream
the 2014 Texas governor’s race.

19. 3. Big players acting like start-ups

20. The rise of TV like content
Increasingly regular feature
On platforms who didn’t start out this way…
4. Newer entities acting like old media

21. 5. Everyone embracing social
"The challenge is not to get
the story published, but to
get the story into people’s
feeds — into their Twitter
timelines, into their inbox
and into their chat."
- Zach Seward, Quartz
-----------------
Buzzfeed gets:
• 50% referrals via mobile
• 75% via social BBC News Video on Instagram

22. Some news organizations have embraced new consumer
realities and provide an editorial proposition reflecting this.
As GigaOm pointed out, Circa
stories are actually longform in
disguise:
“…since it allows users to
“follow” a specific story, and get
updates only about new
developments on that story, it
essentially is building a long-
form news story over time —
just in bite-size chunks.”
6. “Mobile First” approaches

23. 7. “Video first” services
• 25 staff
• 8-10 videos each a day
On all the usual social
platforms.
Plus Kindle Fire
and
Roku
Which enable TV viewing

24. “As soon as I saw Google Glass, I realised that it would
allow me to do what I always do with this first-person live
recording, but my hands would be free.”
Tim Pool, Vice
Pool used Glass as part of his coverage of 2013 protests in
Istanbul, getting up to 750,000 views a day of his stream.
8. New storygathering tools

25. 9. The impact of Big / Little Data
1. .
The Bay Citizen Bike Accident Tracker
Used data from 14,113 incidents reported to the police
between January 2005 and December 2009. Can filter by
road conditions, lighting and other factors such as ‘who is at
fault’ to determine the safest routes to use and/or avoid.
Single, searchable,
database allowing users
to search for physicians or
medical centers to receive
listings of all matching
payments.

26. 10. J-School evolution
• Computational Journalism
• Data Journalism
• Entrepreneurial Journalism
Case Study: Cardiff University's Community Journalism MOOC
• 8,828 learners signed up for the course
• Learners came from over 113 countries worldwide
• Over 13,400 comments throughout the course
• #Flcommunityjourno was tweeted out over 900 times

27. Part 3. Unanswered Questions
10 emerging
issues to consider

28. 1. What is 21st Century Journalism?
Issues include:
* Changing reading habits
* Discoverability
* Branded content
* Joining up your business
* Getting - and keeping - audience attention
Does our concept need to be updated?

29. Using analytics to shape story length
Aka why Quartz does not publish 500 - 800 word articles…

30. Explanatory journalism – creatively informing audiences
e.g. Ampp3d explained recent British elections, using Lego bricks…

31. Tech can automatically repurpose your content
Wibbitz
automatically turns
text into video

32. 2. Are other people doing our job?
A number of NGOs are doing great work in terms of:
• Promoting independent media
• Publishing untold stories
• Driving media – and information – literacy
• Holding authority to account
• Developing next generation tools
• Using this for social change/impact
What can we learn from them re: content creation, distribution
and empowering audiences? How we can work together?

33. Makes websites and tools to empower
citizens in the UK and around the world
TheyWorkForYou
• Who your local MP is, summaries of how they voted, written questions
submitted to government departments, and the answers they’ve got back.
FixMyStreet
• Report a problem in your area. Reports automatically go to the people in
charge of fixing them. Data published online for sharing / discussion.

34. “Now near-indispensable source or insight and reference for
anyone covering international affairs.
I class this as content innovation because they are doing
what news media should be doing and aren't.
They're making sense of things. They're also doing it with fluency,
economy and a good editorial sense.
By far and away the best NGO website on the planet.”
George Brock
Former Managing Editor of The Times , Board Member World Editors Forum

35. 3. Can regulation keep up?
Examples include:
1. Drone Journalism
2. Internet of Things
3. Aereo
FACT: Disrupters will always be ahead
of regulators and policy makers…
…And incumbents won’t like it!

36. 4. How do we measure success?
Circulation, TV ratings and page views aren’t enough…
Engagement including:
– Social comments / shares
– Time spent online
– Perception of brand
– Impact on communities
We need new metrics to reflect new consumer realities

37. 5. Privacy post-Snowden
Post-Snowden – and in a world of ever increasing connected
devices – these issues will continue to loom large.
Examples include:
1. Ensuring Anonymity for sources.
2. The right to be forgotten.
3. Filming/consent via Google Glass.
And evolving issues around verification…

38. 6. Can a pivot to digital save print?
German media giant Axel Springer has acquired one company
per month since 2006 as part of a move to use digital income to
support/underpin (or slowly shed?) their print business.
They are divesting of
some title however,
such as their

39. 7. How can we be proactive?
Identifying what are fads and what are trends.
• Experimenting e.g. with new social networks
• Home Entertainment e.g. virtual reality
• Adding news/civic dimensions to apps
WhatsApp sharing button
Oculus Rift headset
Google owned Waze

40. 8. The impact of wearable tech
Cisco predicts the number
of wearable devices in use
will jump from less than 22
million in 2013 to almost
177 million by 2018.
What might this
mean for journalism?
e.g. Combined with
push notifications and
content using location
based triggers?

41. 9. How can we use LBS?
HypARlocal was a UK pilot using
augmented reality to blend local
media content through Layar.
Geo-tagging content will therefore
become an important part of your
content’s metadata.
They are divesting of
some title however,
such as their

42. 10. Next generation UGC
But: new Tow report shows UGC is only used when other
content is not available to tell the story; and labeling including
credits for creators is poor and inconsistent.
Do attitudes towards UGC need to change?
CNN announced in May 2014 that citizen journalists can
interact with their newsroom directly via Google Glass app.
The Nokia Lumia
1020 offers a 41MP
camera sensor, full
HD video and stereo
audio recording.

43. Part 4. Moving forward
A few quick thoughts….

44. 1. Innovation is happening globally…
We need to cast
our gaze wider…

45. 1. x.
Rappler (Philippines) trains young people as citizen
journalists. It combines social action with journalism.
Meanwhile Project Agos is a data, social and visualisation project providing:
“a unified information platform that will bridge disaster preparedness and
response initiatives of the government, civil society, and the citizens.”
Look at Rappler in the Philippines

46. Netherlands: “All articles of all
newspapers and all important
magazines are available in one
web app, with one pay wall.”
“…users will only
have to pay for the
articles they read.
We think that
unbundling of
journalism is the
Holy Grail in getting
young people to
pay for journalism
again.”
Blendle in the Netherlands

47. As well as examples closer to home
Clark Gilbert speaking at Harvard University’s Nieman
Foundation last year revealed that at Deseret Media:
"In 2009, legacy revenue accounted for 90 percent of the
business and digital came only from 10 percent.
In 2012, he said that legacy revenue
channels would account for only
33 percent of overall revenue."

48. 2. We must avoid the usual suspects
By learning from other people and industries
They can all contribute to the debate

49. This includes…. NGOs
Blending independent journalism and/or access to information to promote
civic engagement in creative and innovative ways. Examples include:
• BBC Media Action
• Code for America
• Internews
• Frontline SMS
• Media Development Investment Fund
• Open Society Foundations
• Sunlight Foundation

50. SimSim-Participation Citoyenne (Morocco)
• Nouabook, a web platform facilitating MP - citizen engagement in Morocco.
Focal Integrity Team for Cameroon (FITCAM)
• ‘Project to monitor schools’ expenditure via SMS.
iWatchLive (Nigeria)
• Web application allowing citizens to access Nigerian government budget data
and report back on incidences of corruption and poor service delivery.

51. Advertising, PR and Digital
Insights into changing – and emerging - consumer behaviors,
which are applicable to publishers.
Why?
• Transferable audience insight
• Proactive
• Not Reactive
NYT innovation report showed that these sides don’t
necessarily talk to one another. And that they need to!

52. Retailers
What can we learn from them re LBS?
1. Content/offer needs to be valuable
e.g. discounts, reviews etc.
2. This is a growing market.
Is it a potential
source of
revenue that
news publishers
can tap into?

53. And other businesses
And those constantly exploring
changing consumer habits
• Coca-Cola
• Pepsi
• McDonalds
Like:
• Music
• Publishing
And other legacy
industries which have
been disrupted by digital

54. Only by getting into unusual spaces…
Can we think differently…
• CES
• IBC
• Internet.org
• “Gig City” - Chattanooga
Talk to:
• Trend watchers
• Ethnographers
• Anthropologists

55. 3. Partnerships are essential
For Storygathering….
Journalists, Hackers and Open Data supporters brought
together by the World Bank Institute’s Global Media
Development program to create OpenData Latinoamérica.

56. For effective business models…
Such as the merger between St. Louis Beacon (web) and St.
Louis Public Radio.

57. For distribution…
The Washington Post’s new partner program offers
digital content for free to other newspapers’ paid subscribers.

58. “In fact, I think in the long run, we’re going to look back
at many facets of old media and realize that we were
living in a desert disguised as a rain forest.”
Steven Johnson
There’s going to be a few bumps,
But I do believe the future is bright…

59. QUESTIONS?
Thank you for reading
Email: damian.radcliffe@gmail.com
Twitter: @damianradcliffe
Thanks for new ideas and inspiration:
Kevin Anderson, Paul Bradshaw, George Brock, Bart Brouwers, Tom Glaisyer, Zahera Harb,
Abraham Kamarck, Jan Keulen , Jon Kingsbury, Chris Lawrence, Andy Martin, Charles Miller,
Nic Newman, John Owen, Ramaa Sharma, Judith Townend and Claire Wardle.