Tag Archives: Chris Cramer

Global Thinkers: Television is going vertical

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Thomson Reuters’ global editor, multimedia, Chris Cramer on the future of broadcasting and why narrow-casting not linear television networks are the way forward:

The days of linear television networks are coming to an end. I think only people with very large amounts of money or people who are stupid will launch linear television networks in the future. People won’t be launching a single channel with programmes that go one after the other, you’re going to launch a vertical channel (…) So people want to play a part in media consumption these days, they don’t want to sit there and just take it. They’re not going to make appointments and sit there with their legs crossed and their faces washed and watch TV anymore. It doesn’t make it depressing, it makes it really exciting.

Full interview on Global Thinkers at this link…

#aop3c: Reuters’ Project Insider: ‘narrowcasting’ in beta

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Chris Cramer, global editor for multimedia at Reuters, dropped a new project into a speech at the AOP Publishing Summit 2009 that welcomed social media as the ‘first resort’ in newsgathering.

The development in question is Project Insider, he outlined in the next session, and will see clients provided with specifically targeted content via PDAs.

It’s narrowcasting, not broadcasting, Cramer said.

Currently in beta for selected clients, it delivers live financial markets coverage, analysis and breaking news through a web-based TV service.

Users are able to tag specific points in videos to share with others, and can engage with producers to invite them ask questions of an interviewee, he said.

“It doesn’t attempt to replicate what’s already in the marketplace,” Cramer said, adding that ‘at this moment in time, it’s unique’.

And – he was speaking in a social media session – it is ‘driven on the basis of social media. There is a sub-strata in there which is social media’.

“It’s about the financial professional who wants to know smart data now before their competitors,” he said.

More to follow from the summit throughout the day: in the meantime, follow this tweet stream featuring choice 140ch updates by digital journalists and publishers at the event.

Journalism Daily: Academics boycott Observer, theblogpaper’s launch and AOP conference

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Subbing debate continues on Radio4’s Media Show with Greenslade and Cathcart

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If you missed it yesterday, this week’s Media Show presented by Ed Stourton is worth listening to. In light of the recent bush fires in Australia, Stourton asks his guests (Reuters’ Chris Cramer and Channel 4’s Lindsey Hilsum) about generational changes in journalism when reporting in emotional or distressing situations. Then, a look at the fate of Teletext. But then to a debate that’s been dominating newspaperland over the last week following Roy Greenslade’s declaration that subs – as we know them – are becoming redundant.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00hklvr/The_Media_Show_18_02_2009

Brian Cathcart and Roy Greenslade (on the line from Brighton) talk to Stourton.

A quick summary:

BC:

  • “There is this army of people who are out there serving the industry of journalism, who police this and in quite a private and quiet way (…) [They] check the grammar and spelling, check some of the facts (…) check the sort of general thrust of the story, that it all makes sense (…) cut it to length and put a headline on top.”
  • “I don’t think they [subs] should be at the front of the queue for the chop.”

RG:

  • Makes it clear that his comments apply to regional/local and broadsheet or serious newspapers, rather than tabloids. Subs are ‘key workers when it comes to tabloid newspapers.’
  • Subbing outsourcing is already happening, with sub-editors working cross-titles at many papers.
  • “The change I’m expecting next is that subs will be eliminated or re-purposed (…) what we need are writers, reporters who can produce copy which is already accurate and obeys the law, and so on…”
  • Radio and TV presenters are expected to produce material speedily and accurately; “why is it that we don’t expect NP journalists to do the same thing?”

Then to the Midlands to meet the Birmingham Post editor, Marc Reeves (@marcreeves) and one of the media production journalists who works across several of the group’s titles.

MR:

  • The paper is ‘saying to people we need you to be used to this new way of working’.
  • The titles will ‘always need people to look after the finessing of the output (…) certainly the traditional role of the subeditor will be redefined.’

‘Trust and integrity in the modern media’ – Chris Cramer’s speech to Nottingham Trent University

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This is the full transcript of a speech given by Chris Cramer, global head of multimedia for Reuters’ news operations, at Nottingham Trent University last night. Journalism.co.uk’s report on the address can be read at this link.

So I accepted this invitation shortly after I retired from CNN international – where I was managing director and where I’d been for 11 years or so.

I became a consultant for Reuters news in January and now, in the last few months, have become their first global editor for multimedia.

So, I’m talking to you today as a working journalist, broadcaster and manager for 43 years now and what I would like to talk about is ‘trust and integrity in the modern media’.

I also want to ask the question of you whether the media has maybe lost the message somewhere along the way?

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