This document discusses changes to the online strategy and operations of the Portuguese newspaper Jornal de Notícias. It describes the redesign of the newspaper's website in 2008 to be more user-centered and multimedia-focused. It also discusses how the changes impacted the newsroom, requiring journalists to take on new skills and roles in breaking news, user-generated content management, and multimedia production. The discussion section reflects on challenges newspapers face with collapsed business models, lost user trust and loyalty, and an need for journalists to be more transparent and conversational partners rather than just authoritative news sources.

1. ISOJ’09, Austin, TX
Why should we expect worlds to collide?
- Exploratory reflections departing from a case study
analysis of “Jornal de Notícias” (Portugal)
Luís Antó nio Santos and Manuel Pinto
(Universidade do Minho – Portugal)

2. ISOJ’09, Austin, TX
JN in brief
• Portugal’s 2nd
widest audience daily
(average 08 circulation of 101
thousand)
• traditionally stronger
in the North / quality
popular
• first on the web
in PT (July 95)

3. ISOJ’09, Austin, TX
JN in brief

4. ISOJ’09, Austin, TX
JN in brief
• after the initial enthusiasm it never went
beyond the shovelware phase / it got
integrated into a portal
• 2005: bought by current owners
• 2007: renegotiation of agreement with host
portal…and new online strategy

5. ISOJ’09, Austin, TX
JN online
• new site was online on May 2008
(2 days shy of 120th anniversary)
• major changes:
– No longer published all the paper content
– Lost generalist forums
– Option to depart from presenting a thematic distribution similar to
that of the paper
– New user centred spaces: Community, Blogs, Citizen Reporter,
Multimedia

6. ISOJ’09, Austin, TX

7. ISOJ’09, Austin, TX
JN online
JN - UVisitors
0
500000
1000000
1500000
2000000
2500000
3000000
Jan Fev Mar Abr Mai Jun Jul Ago Set Out Nov Dez
2007
2008

8. ISOJ’09, Austin, TX
JN online
0
1000000
2000000
3000000
4000000
5000000
6000000
Feb
08M
arch
08
April08
M
ay
08
June
08
July
08August08
Sept08
O
ct08
Novem
ber08
Dec
08January
09
JN
Público
CManhã
DN

9. ISOJ’09, Austin, TX
JN online
• first 6 months:
– 278 videos
– 29 infographics
– 309 photo-galleries
– 59 audios
– 11 multimedia special features
– (by the end of October) more than a thousand
user blogs had been created

10. ISOJ’09, Austin, TX
JN online
• e-business (3 relevant operations):
– Sept 08: Deal with PowerSoccer for 2 soccer
related games (+ 20k users in the first month
plus added revenue from ingame ad deals)
– Feb 09: Partnership with 4 other media groups
to use shared contextual ad platform
– March 09: (the group) Exclusive commercial
representatives fo CBS interactive

11. ISOJ’09, Austin, TX
JN online – changing newsroom
• “no full integration”
• incremental ‘digital awareness’ strategy
• online newsroom growth (from 3 to 8+) in
tandem with newsroom major shift –
creation of a non-thematic, flexible, news-
desk (Actualidade) – and followed by
symbolic room change

12. ISOJ’09, Austin, TX
JN online - effects
• shift in perception of time and ‘deadline
rationale’
• Shift in the perception of ‘workload’ and in
the ‘what-is-expected-of-me-whilst-on-
assignment’ framework
• Enhance awareness of users’ presence:
UGC / permanent access to stats

13. ISOJ’09, Austin, TX
JN online - work/skills
• 2007
– Adapt to 2 publishing platforms
– Average writting skills
– Sensible communication skills
– …

14. ISOJ’09, Austin, TX
JN online - work/skills
• 2008 (all +)
– Breaking news
– Press review
– UGC management
– Presence in editorial meetings
– Permanent linkage to Actualidade
– Production of new/ongoing multimedia work
– Expected to handle voice & image recording
equipment (N95’s for BN) and to perform basic editing
tasks
– …

15. ISOJ’09, Austin, TX
JN online /death of newspapers debate
• Three broad ideas:
1. The collapse of rigid business models
2. Breakdown of producer/user trust/loyalty
3. Failings of a self-centred and entrenched
professional (the journo)

16. ISOJ’09, Austin, TX
Discussion
1.
Editorial:
Changes in the site
Integration of new user geared funcionalities
creation of semi-autonomous micro-sites
e-Business:
promotion of cross-product added value
capture income from non-hard news related sites

17. ISOJ’09, Austin, TX
Discussion
2. Living in times where – as Singer puts it – “no
single message is discrete” is not easy.
Rethinking loyalty: UGC spaces, promotion of
event or theme-centred micro-sites, production of
sense-making materials
(infographics/multimedia), increased direct talk
(e-mail, twitter), usage of ‘conversation
expansion’ tools (i.e. CoveritLive)

18. ISOJ’09, Austin, TX
Discussion
3. …still unconfortable at times with the
demise of the ‘authenticator’ role, with
pressures for greater transparency, with
sheer volume of user activity, but…
more used to:
- producing medium-neutral information
- providing added accountability
assurances

19. ISOJ’09, Austin, TX
JN online
• Far from full ‘audience-centred-part-of-the-
conversation’ production yet…
– Produced by a group of people with
heightened social profile in the newsroom and
less bound by incentives to standardize work
practices.

20. ISOJ’09, Austin, TX
Thank you,
lsantos@ics.uminho.pt
mpinto@ics.uminho.pt