WAN-IFRA launches World Newspapers Congress in India

Today sees the start of the 62nd World Newspaper Congress and 16th World Editors Forum in Hyderabad, India, hosted by WAN-IFRA.

Interestingly, the overall theme for the conference is 'Newspapers: A Multi-Media, Growth Business', something that may raise eyebrows of those watching their newsrooms struggle with plunging advertising revenues and shrinking circulation for their print products.

Naturally, how to tackle these hurdles is at the forefront of most of the keynote speeches and panel discussions.

Already, according to WAN’s own Shaping the Future of the Newspaper blog, Are Stokstad (Norway), executive vice president at A-Pressen, suggested that e-readers now make it necessary for newspapers to build strategies that combines both the traditional newspaper and the business model for e-reading.

He described how large investments have been made to expand the opportunities for online newpapers. Social networking sites have become a large part of the generation of these new online papers.

"This past year 3,000 print pages originated in social media. Next year we hope to increase this number to 30,000," he told the conference.

Social networking sites create groups of people interested in similar topics and activities. Many online newspapers are targeting their articles towards these groups, increasing online readership.

Meanwhile Martha Stone (USA), director of Shaping the Future of the Newspaper Project (pictured), talked about the opportunities available to newspapers through mobile phone technology.

"Text message advertising has become one of the hottest new ways to advertise," she said.

Stone also explained how mobile phones have become more than a way to just communicate with others.

She described how phones are becoming more advanced and can now be used not only for talking and texting, but also for online searching, television, blogs, advertising, alerts, and much more.

World Digital Media Trends, created by the SFN project, conducts research each year to show the latest revenue and newspaper trends. This year's study was posted in June and predicts the continued growth of digital media.

The Shaping the Future of the Newspaper blog will continue to bring full coverage of the conference, which will include discussions on Google featuring Kees Spaan, President of the Dutch Newspaper Publishers Association and Gavin O’Reilly, CEO of Independent News and Media as well as a presentation on what newspapers need to know for the digital future by Les Hinton, CEO of the Dow Jones newswire.

You can also follow the conference via the following Twitter feeds @NewspaperWorld and @WANindia2009, using the hashtag #WANindia09, or on Facebook at the conference page. There is also a dedicated congress blog.

Berlin Wall project: a lesson in multimedia?

If you have been watching coverage of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, chances are you may have seen the multimedia project by City University graduates that they have dubbed "a documentary on online journalism".

As reported on journalism.co.uk, the Berlin Project, which was launched on the 5th November, plans to provide 7 days of initial coverage (till the 12th November) using a variety of tools, including audio service Audioboo, Twitter and mobile video service Qik.

The article states how the project will assess how free services can be used to create, consume and distribute multimedia reports.

The project has been partnered by Reuters who, according to team leader Alex Wood, have been using the team to cover more unusual stories surrounding the anniversary in a range of media.
The team previously collaborated to provide coverage of the G20 summit protests in April using Twitter and Qik.

G20 Live attracted more than 80,000 unique users to a site only built the night before, but the Berlin Project will be about more than using mobile and mixed media for journalism, said Wood.

"It's about connecting the dots [between different mediums]. It's all about context rather than just content," he added, explaining that how a reader of viewer watches the team's work will inform their choice of tool and medium for covering an event. The quality of video streaming offered by Qik, for example, would be used to cover events that might be watched back on mobile.

Think of it as a documentary on online journalism. For online journalism the rules aren't written, so we're trying a different thing."

Interestingly, the team have kept navigational features to a minimum in order to allow users to 'get lost' and discover new reports and features. Content will also be published on Facebook and Reuters.

Showbiz Blog Sells For Over $10M

Entertainment news blog Deadline Hollywood Daily has been purchased in a deal estimated to be in excess of $10 million (£6.2m).

The 24-7 breaking news blog is written by established showbiz journalist Nikki Finke and is now owned by Mail.com Media Corporation.

According to the Guardian, newspapers have received tip-offs that the purchase price stands somewhere between $10m and $15m.



Breaking the news of the landmark deal on DHD, Finke assured loyal readers that the blog would retain its editorial independence.

“Know this: I did not sell out. I really meant it when I said that DeadlineHollywood Daily.com will continue to be an independent editorial voice – and I would retain complete control over everything reported on the website - so that DHD’s credibility with its readers could remain intact.”

She added that new infrastructure and resources means the site will now expand to cover east-coast entertainment news, with a New York-based reporter set to join the ranks soon.

Finke, who has worked for Newsweek and the LA Times among others, first wrote DHD as a column for LA Weekly before starting the website.

Reporter Launches Bristol Site

A journalist is going it alone by launching his own website dedicated to news and events in Bristol.

Bristol 24-7 is the creation of Chris Brown, who took voluntary redundancy from the Western Daily Press earlier this year.



Speaking to Journalism.co.uk, Brown asserts that the site is a full-time commitment as he attempts to create the go-to news website for Bristolians with a mix of original and aggregated news.

The former Independent journalist also plans for the website to become the first online port of call for visitors to the city.

At the moment, Bristol 24-7 is a one-man show so Brown is editor, reporter, photographer and videographer – among other things.

However, he hopes that interaction with readers will provide him with fresh perspectives.

“What goes on the site will be determined by my skills as an editor,” he said.

“I'll either make the right or wrong calls, but hopefully readers will let me know soon enough what they think of my decisions and will suggest better stories on the day.”

And Brown believes that his one-man band operation has the requisite flexibility to become attuned to the needs of an online audience.

“I have believed since I came up with the idea that I can produce a better online newspaper than the traditional media groups; do it at a far lower cost; and develop it faster and more intuitively to the demands of the readers.”

As for revenue, Brown is seeking site sponsorship and will provide digital marketing services to interested parties.

“It’s not just the better value for money that digital marketing offers businesses now, it is the proactive approach which looks at exactly what a business wants to achieve and uses the new technology to make it happen that will rule the day.”

Find out more about Brown’s long-term ambitions for the site in his interviews with Journalism.co.uk and HoldtheFrontPage.co.uk.

Newsroom Innovation

A multimedia report from the Nieman Journalism Labs offers an inside look at five innovative newsrooms, all experimenting with novel approaches to getting the news out.

* Two are associated with traditional newspapers, one national and one regional: the Daily Telegraph and the Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Washington.

* Two are new media enterprises: Talking Points Memo, a souped-up blog that recently won a prestigious award for investigative reporting, and the edgy, gossipy New York City-based Gawker. Both these newsrooms feature an open layout with reporters working at long tables.

* The last is the brand new Valley Independent Sentinel, a hyperlocal, online-only news startup in Connecticut launched just this month with funds from the Knight Foundation.

Other ideas can be found at the Next Newsroom Project's website, a place for sharing information and ideas about "building the ideal newsroom for the next 50 years."

Saving News – Future Business Models

The month of March saw an outpouring of blog posts and online essays on the subject of news models for the future.

From Clay Shirky’s provocative piece about the way the industry handled change to the latest State of the News Media report from PEJ, academics and bloggers spent last month sharing their hopes, fears and suggestions for the future.

Professor Jay Rosen from New York University described March as a period of “deep think as people came to terms with the collapse of the newspaper model, and tried looking ahead”.

On his PressThink blog, he has therefore produced a “Flying Seminar in the Future of News”, featuring links to 12 of these essays.

He has also included a review under each link, outlining some of the main talking points.

Among the pieces featured is a post about paid content from Reflections of a Newsosaur blogger Allan Mutter and a post on digital structures and content from Josh Young of Network(ed) News.

Uni Launching Online Journalism MA

Online journalism is one of the new subject areas to be offered as a Masters degree by Birmingham City University .

Journalism.co.uk reports that the Online Journalism MA will be open to students from this September.

The course will be led by academic and blogger Paul Bradshaw, who said that the year-long MA will cover themes such as news-gathering and news distribution.

In addition, Bradshaw revealed that students will also be exploring new business models in online news rather than only concentrating on existing newsroom set-ups and jobs.

“Ultimately the industry is crying out for this and there’s clearly a demand for it,” he said.

The founder of the Online Journalism Blog added: “We will be exploring new business models and I think that is the chief difference. We’re certainly not relying on the existing structures.”

In addition to the online journalism course, the university will also be offering a new MA in Social Media at the start of the new academic year.