1) The article discusses how media companies need to adapt to the digital age by embracing new technologies and data analytics. Journalists need to learn how to use analytics to better understand their audiences and compete against large tech companies like Facebook and Google. 2) It emphasizes that media outlets should experiment digitally by allocating resources to innovation and keeping digital priorities at the heart of decision making. They also need to produce original, relevant content that motivates audiences. 3) The BBC in particular is expanding its language services, planning to offer programs in 40 languages, while ensuring editorial independence. It trains journalists to think digitally and prioritize platforms like video and mobile.

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INTERVIEW
Journalistic originality remains the core of what we do, but with
all the technology and monitoring software we are employing in
newsrooms, journalists and editors need to learn to use analytics
and data if they want to compete against the most powerful
players out there – the Facebooks and Googles of this world
A modern newsroom is a laboratory
in which each innovation is both an
editorial and a tech thing. Unlike in
the old days, when publishing content
meant the job was done, in the digital age,
however, with all the technology and monitoring
software telling journalists and editors who their
customers are, their job is just beginning, says
Dmitry Shishkin, Digital Development Editor at
BBC World Service Group, who is helping editorial
teams to transform themselves in the digital world.
What are the major mistakes media outlets
make when trying to catch up with going
digital?
— First of all, let me start by saying that no one
knows everything in the digital sector – if they say
they do, they are not being truthful. The digital
sector, especially in news, is changing all the time,
with new players and conditions coming along,
and new ways of working emerging, so the biggest
mistake a company can make is to be rigid and
averse to change. Digital is all about experimen-
tation, so you must allocate a certain amount of
resources to do just that (say 10%, as not many
companies could push it to 20%) – you should
remain alert to new opportunities and have the
capacity to determine what these opportunities
mean for business. This used to relate to social
media – I still remember the time when editors
would raise their eyebrows in 2009 when I’d
mention ‘something happening on Twitter’ – then
the same thing happened to chat apps or mes-
saging apps, and now we are experimenting with
360-degree video and think about what virtual
reality will mean for publishers and broadcasters.
Another big mistake is keeping the old structure
– you really should put digital at the heart of all
decision-making happening within your compa-
ny. If digital is an afterthought, then you will fail.
How has going mobile changed the overall
rationale for showing content?
— Mobile news consumption and, more widely,
mobile consumer behaviour, has changed the way
media companies interact with their audiences. A
growing number of people are consuming content
on the go, and this has to reflect on how we offer
them content – from the editorial and product
sides. Mobile also means social, so in all likelihood
your audience will likely come across your content
on social media or as a link in Whatsapp or some
other chat app. Editorially, we need to appreciate
the competition – we are not competing against
other content providers, rather we are competing
against the most powerful players out there – the
Facebooks and Googles of this world, which have
a much better understanding of who we are and
what we might want than publishers. Google’s
Accelerated Mobile Pages project should help
get our content to users faster, while individual
publishers will have to decide on what to do with
Facebook Instant Articles – whether to be ‘all-in’
or ‘all-out’, and either risk diluting their brand and
be dependent on a platform they don’t control or
risk being deprioritised and lose referral traffic.
Geolocation and relevant notifications also signify
great future battles for attention. However, techni-
cal innovations don’t mean anything if you are not
producing content that people want to consume.
In Africa there’s a phenomenon of youth mobile
consumers skipping lunch to save money for more
mobile data, so you really ought to be asking your-
selves constantly – is my offer good enough for
someone to skip their lunch? It’s as simple as that.
What skills are needed in the editorial room
and among journalists in order for them to
satisfy the demands brought by the afore-
mentioned shifts?
— Journalistic originality remains at the core of
what we do – content is indeed king, so we are
constantly on the lookout for interesting stories
or unusual angles from which to tell that story. I
come from an organisation that provides interna-
tional news, features and analysis in English and
another 30 languages – and in each and every
market we operate in, from Afghanistan to Zim-
babwe, we understand that two things will always
bring audiences to us. Those two things are orig-
inality and relevance. Another important change
that has happened in newsrooms – especially
those that have been transforming from strict-
ly radio or television to become multiplatform
– relates to what happens to content once it is
published. Whereas your job was previously done
once your package was prepared for broadcast, in
the digital era your job is then only beginning –
with all the technology and monitoring software
we are employing in newsrooms, journalists and
editors can learn a lot about consumer behaviour,
social promotion, recirculation, SEO and lots of
other disciplines. This is part and parcel of mod-
ern digital journalism and we do train our staff in
the use of analytics and data.
What is the right blend between reliance on
algorithms and the gut feeling that editors
like to rely on when making decisions in the
newsroom?
— One of my most favourite quotes that I use
when doing change management in newsrooms
(which happens to take up at least 50 per cent
of my work time) is “Without data you are just
another person with an opinion”, stated by Amer-
ican statistician W. Edwards Deming. When you
take editorial decisions based on numbers and
data rather than hunch and gut feelings, you are
more likely to get things right for the audience.
Data-backed arguments win editorial discussions
and ensure people see your decision-making
process as transparent. I am not saying that if
cats do well on the web, then lets all do cats –
not at all. However, if helping editorial teams to
transform themselves in the digital world taught
me anything, that would be exactly that – know
your audience and offer it stuff it enjoys reading/
watching/listening to. And you will only be able to
discover what works better and why by analysing
your traffic, its sources, peaks and preferences. If
your audience is into personal finance, don’t offer
them macroeconomics; if your audience comes to
you regularly from another news site, don’t offer
them a standard set of today’s news, as they will
have already seen it.
How can media companies successfully
blend editorial and technical innovations?
Who should take the lead in experimenting
with new approaches?
— I’ll explain our own set-up within BBC World
Service – I head a group of highly skilled digital
practitioners that sit between 27 editorial teams,
on one side, and technical/product teams, on
the other. This means that I talk with a single
editorial voice to product teams, then I present
our engineers, designers and product people to
the editorial teams. My team is responsible for the
practical implementation of digital innovation (for
example, a couple of years ago we hired some-
one who received the title of “Chat apps editor”,
probably one of the first in the industry. A few
years before that, the same person went for social
media – in 2007-2009 not a lot of people were
doing it. So, as I said earlier, digital innovation is
an ongoing thing, you can’t just do a bit of it and
consider the job done. Equally, you can’t say that
innovation is either an editorial or a tech thing – it
really belongs to both.
How does the BBC see its future in terms of
offering its programme in other languages,
besides the 28 in which it is already availa-
ble. What are the underlying factors in choos-
ing which languages to run the service?
— BBC World Service is currently funded by
British licence payers, just like all other parts of
the BBC, while the Foreign and Commonwealth
Office still has the final say on the establishing
or scrapping of foreign language services. Just
recently the UK Government announced addition-
al funding for World Service, so we could expand
in a further 12 languages, mainly in Africa and
India, launch lots of digital video across the whole
of portfolio and expand into TV too. This is a huge
development that will allow us to expand our
reach and the quality of our journalism around the
world, but new money coming from the govern-
ment will still be given on the basis of us retaining
total and complete editorial control of what we do
with it – impartiality and trust are fundamental
to the BBC’s existence. I hope that within the next
18 months or so we should be operating in 40
languages, which is great.
What does the future hold for the BBC in
terms of your point that we are all now dig-
ital journalists; how does such an approach
shape BBC content?
— We are expecting all BBC journalists, especially
those on the broadcast side, to think digital-
ly – irrespective of the platform for which they
actually work: radio, TV. All our commissioning
and planning starts with the digital-first approach,
while the same goes for newsgathering in the
field. Whereas in the past a TV journalist could be
working on a package for the evening news, now
we’d expect that team to provide mobile-friendly
digital video for our digital platforms, including
chat apps and social media.
Video is the most important platform to get
right. We appreciate that video is a medium that’s
showing phenomenal levels of engagements and
growth – on BBC platforms and on third party
platforms. We are experimenting with video in
all sorts of ways – video with superimposed text
or graphics, enabling people to watch without
headphones; vertical videos to reflect the fact that
the majority of people use their phones vertically;
short videos to be mindful of data costs and time
considerations. We are also trying to figure out
how to tell a story in video for different platforms,
using a coherent approach: different social plat-
forms have different requirements and expecta-
tions for video formats, so our editors are expected
to think of all of them, rather than concentrating
on on-site and Youtube platforms, as they did in
the last few years – there are chat apps, Instagram
and many more. We have also just launched an
incredible project using automated translation
and voice synthesis when converting video clips
from English to other languages. This is an in-
credibly exciting and innovative project, perhaps
even ground-breaking in the media sector – and
definitely the most complex and ambitious project
I’ve led from an editorial perspective. It will allow
us to create more videos and to create them faster
and in more languages.
DMITRY SHISHKIN
Digital Development Editor at BBC World Service Group
CONTENTISKING,BUT
ITSHEARTISDIGITAL
IF HELPING EDITORIAL
TEAMS TO TRANSFORM IN
THE DIGITAL WORLD HAS
TAUGHT ME ANYTHING IT IS
THAT YOU MUST KNOW YOUR
AUDIENCE AND OFFER IT
STUFF IT ENJOYS, BY
ANALYSING YOUR TRAFFIC
AND ITS SOURCES, PEAKS AND
PREFERENCES