Brauchli, who left the WSJ in April, will become the Washington Post’s new executive editor in September.
He will replace Leonard Downie.
FT.com: Washington Post hires ex-Wall Street Journal managing editor Marcus Brauchli
Leave a reply
Tag Archives: Managing Editor
Non-profit news site ProPublica goes live
ProPublica, the not-for-profit news website focusing on investigative journalism, has gone live.
Editor-in-chief Paul Steiger and managing editor Steve Engelberg welcomed readers to the site yesterday in an introductory post, saying the site would be committed to covering news that had slipped under the radar and to probing further into existing stories.
“Today, we take our first concrete step in building an investigative publishing platform that will produce original stories focusing on betrayal of the public trust and abuse of power.”
The site will feature original content, including long-term investigations working with other media partners, alongside analysis of current campaigns and news and an aggregation of investigative journalism online.
The launch follows the latest phase in ProPublica’s recruitment with seven new additions to its staff bringing the total to 20 out of a planned 27.
Online Journalism Scandinavia: How to kiss 713,000 teenagers and still make a profit
Norway’s largest city is in cyberspace, and its 713 000 ‘citizens’ are generating good revenues for the newspaper that owns it.
Schibsted-owned VG.no is not only Norway’s most read and most profitable news site, it also has a social network making a nice contribution to the news site’s admirable financial results.
A city of teenagers
VG is currently earning a gross margin of more than 50 per cent from this social network, called ‘Nettby‘ (Norwegian for NetCity), Jo Christian Oterhals, head of development, VG Multimedia & chairman of Nettby Community AS, Norway, told the audience at World Association of Newspapers (WAN) conference in Gothenburg last week.
The 713,000-strong city is in fact the biggest city in Norway, bigger than the capital, Oslo.
“Teenage girls are very active here, and we all know that if you get the girls, you also get teenage boys,” said Oterhals, who explained that Nettby’s 713 citizens make up for 61 per cent of all teenagers in Norway.
This demographic is obviously an attractive one for advertisers, but premium membership is also an important source of revenue. “Premium membership is really important for us now, we have more than 50,000 paying customers at any given time,” Oterhals added.
City guards key to success
Nettby is Norway’s second biggest social network after Facebook, but VG.no is not worried about the competition from the trendy website, because the users and purpose of the two social networks are so different:
“Nettby is a place you go to meet new people; on Facebook you keep up with existing friends,” Espen Egil Hansen, managing editor of VG.no, told me on a previous occasion.
Nettby is very much like a party where teenagers hang out, flirt and meet new friends.
“But you can’t just open the door, the best parties are well administered,” said Oterhals.
“That is why Nettby has city guards, volunteers who help moderate and control Nettby,” he explained, adding that these city guards were hand-picked by Nettby’s own people.
“To throw a good party you need good planning, a place, a host, basic rules, a bouncer, an invitation and a few introduction. We try to provide all this,” said Oterhals.
No recipe to make teenagers read news
“Currently there are almost no links between VG and Nettby other than the logo, as it was very important for us when we started Nettby that the kids who came in there did not get the impression that this was their fathers’ website,” said Oterhals.
In other words, Nettby has not been a recipe to get young readers reading newspapers – a topic much discussed during WAN.
Instead, Oterhals told journalism.co.uk, part of the rational for running this social network was to be part of what is happening on the web and to figure out how young readers use the web.
“What is your competitor online is not as easy to figure out online as in print – it could be Google, it could be Facebook – so we stay awake at night thinking about what the next big thing will be, who our new competitors are,” he said
VG.no has also launched the site in Sweden, where it failed due to many Norwegian teenagers hanging out there, and more recently in Spain, where it is an add-on to the online operation of 20 Minutos, Schibsted’s Spanish freesheet.
“Analysts said Nettby’s success will last for six years max, so the challenge for us is to look at how can we repackage and launch it as new products. I think that will be our strategy for the future,” said Oterhals.
WAN 08: Disparities between pay of web and print journalists – a problem all over the world for integrating newsrooms
Integrating newsrooms isn’t just a matter of putting all you desks in a spoke and fulcrum formation and projecting the web traffic figures on the wall.
The small matter of how you remunerate journalists expected to work both for print and web is an issue for newspapers across the globe.
It’s an issue that the Guardian and Telegraph, to name just two in the UK, have been wrestling with as they bring their divergent print and online editions closer together.
International editors sitting on a panel looking at whether integrated newsrooms are really working at the World Editors Forum, today in Goteborg, Sweden, admitted to a similar set of problems.
Jim Roberts, editor of digital news at the New York Times, told delegates that the Times’ own integration plans were hampered by the different contracts and lower pay web journalists were receiving compared to their print colleagues.
Roberts is overseeing the introduction of a ‘horizontal’ news production system where each separate news department has web producers embedded with them to encourage multimedia content production, oversee publication.
The Times is trying to spread multimedia, video, podcasts and interactive features across all its news verticals – even to the point where the Times is reverse publishing blog content as columns into the printed edition of the newspaper.
This drive for web content has also brought a renewed thirst to keep the newspaper print edition fresh, as Roberts said ‘to redirect this energy back into print’.
But as staff are now expected to work for both web and print, the different contracts they work under has led to union wrangles. WSJ.com managing editor Almar Latour and Javier Moreno, editor-in-chief of El Pais, Spain, agreed that they faced similar contractual problems on their integration projects.
Washington Examiner appoints ex-Townhall.com managing editor Mary Katharine Ham
The Washington Examiner has named Mary Katharine Ham as online editor for the paper’s soon-to-be launched website – dcexaminer.com.
Ham, who will take up the new post on June 10, joins the Examiner from online political community Townhall.com, where she was managing editor.
“Her [Ham’s] hiring demonstrates again our commitment to building a great news and information company that excels in three channels, including newspapers, online and video,” Vivienne Sosnowski, editorial director of Clarity Media, which publishes the Examiner, said on the site.
Reuters: Robert Thomson named managing editor of Wall Street Journal
Former Times editor Robert Thomson has been appointed editor-in-chief of Dow Jones and managing editor of the Wall Street Journal, succeeding Marcus Brauchli.
An op-ed to be published in today’s Journal, will see Thomson admit he made mistakes in his involvement with Brauchli’s departure.
WSJ’s managing editor Marcus Brauchli steps down
Marcus Brauchli, managing editor of the Wall Street Journal, is quitting, a press release from the company has confirmed.
Brauchli, who took on the position last May, will become a consultant to News Corporation.
“Following the change in ownership of Dow Jones and the Journal, I have concluded the time is right to consider new career possibilities,” Brauchli said in the release.
“I revere the Journal and hold my colleagues here, both old and new, in the highest regard. There isn’t a better team in journalism, and I will greatly miss working with them on a daily basis.”
Online Journalism Scandinavia: VG online awarded investigative prize for biggest ever multimedia project
Kristine Lowe’s (left) Online Journalism Scandinavia this week looks at a groundbreaking multimedia project run by VG newspaper that led to awards recognition.
Journalists from Norway’s VG online were last week awarded an investigative prize for developing the newspaper’s biggest ever multimedia project.
VG journalists Anne Stine Saether and Anders Sooth Knutsen were presented with the Skup-diploma for investigative journalism for their online project on domestic killings.
“In contrast to other countries, we did not know how many women were killed by their husbands, partners and boyfriends in Norway,” said the jury who awarded the prize.
“VG’s project required extensive research, meticulous accuracy and careful ethical considerations. Wounds had to be ripped open, next of kin contacted and identification approved for 72 murders committed over a period of seven years.”
On 12 November 2007, the print edition of VG dedicated its front page (above) to portraits of women killed by their men.
The story was planned and executed across all platforms simultaneously, the paper’s front page splash was accompanied by a dedicated website with articles, blogs, chats and a series of video interviews with some of the murderers, next of kin, psychologists and academics on VGTV.
“The idea for the project came as a result of my own anger and feeling of impotence half a year ago. Yet another woman had been murdered and the story was buried far back in the newspaper, I thought, dammit, this happens all the time, which lead to the idea to spray the front page with the faces of women who’d suffered such a fate,” said Kjersti Sortland, the managing editor of the award-winning journalists.
She explained that it was a very simple journalistic idea, but it required massive research. VG started with anonymous homicide statistics and large blank Excel sheets, and used all the archives and registers they could access to produce the multi-media project.
It eventually took half-a-year to complete to project. But it was worth it, VG’s coverage of the issue was groundbreaking and eventually led to a change in how murders are reported in Norway.
The government has pledged to map domestic murders, and from 2007 on, Norwegian police began registering the relationship between the murderer and the victim when reporting crimes of this nature.
Social Media Journalist: ‘Services like ustream or qik that live stream video from DV cams and phones have huge potential’ Damon Kiesow
Journalism.co.uk talks to reporters across the globe working at the collision of journalism and social media about how they see it changing their industry. This week, Damon Kiesow, Nashua Telegraph.
1. Who are you and what do you do?
I am the Managing Editor/Online at The Telegraph in Nashua, NH. I am responsible for the overall news presentation and strategy for our digital publications including NashuaTelegraph.com, NHPrimary.com, FeastNH.com and EncoreBuzz.com.
We have a staff of about 50 in the newsroom and nashuatelegraph.com was a finalist in two categories in this year’s Newspaper Association of America Digital Edge Awards.
2. Which web or mobile-based social media tools do you use on a daily basis and why?
On a typical day:
I use each for a variety of reasons. Delicious is my reigning favourite due to the huge filtering and early warning effect it provides. I follow about 78 people, mostly digital media professionals.
A few times per day I review their most recent bookmarks to keep up to date on what they are thinking about and what new tools and toys they have discovered.
I know many of them do the same and some of my ‘best’ ideas we have implemented at the paper have come from those bookmarks.
Twitter serves a similar purpose – and I am following many of the same people as on Delicious. But I like Twitter for the flexibility (IM, phone, PC, Web) and both the immediacy and asynchronous nature of the service.
It is just a great way to stay in touch with people without the burden of reading or responding to email or phone calls.
I use Ning mostly every day to visit sites like wiredjournalists.com, and we have created several Ning sites for the newspaper including Encorebuzz.ning.com.
I have been on LinkedIn for 5 – 6 years and it is still the best place to accumulate business contacts. I probably do not use it every day, but a few times a week I get requests to connect.
Facebook is one I use just due to the critical mass of people they have online. I check it every day and we do have a few small applications running on the service that feed out breaking news from the newspaper. Most of my time there is spent ignoring Zombie and Pirate invitations.
3. Of the thousands of social media tools available, could you single one out as having the most potential for news either as a publishing or a news gathering tool?
If I had to choose from just the tools I use regularly – I would pick Twitter. They have really focused on a core concept and seem very open to letting people expand on it.
It is too early to say if Twitter will be a huge hit for us as a newspaper but we pick up a few followers a week and the trend seems to be increasing.
I like the fact that we can use it both simply to push content (using twitterfeed.com) and as a two-way conversation with readers. We follow anyone who follows us and try to be responsive to questions or comments that come in via our Twitter friends.
In terms of other products – I think the most likely winners this year will be services like ustream.tv or qik.com that allow live streaming video from DV cameras and cell phones respectively.
This has huge potential both as a newsgathering tool and as a social media/self publishing phenomena. We are just starting to experiment with both of these services.
4. And the most overrated in your opinion?
At the moment I consider Facebook to be the most overrated. Things are beginning to change but it is still a walled garden for the most part.
I would not be comfortable investing a lot time or effort in using Facebook as a social media platform for the newspaper without some continued opening up of their API and clarification of their terms of service.
Social Media Journalist: ‘USG is the most overrated social media ‘news’ craze’ Jack Lail, Knoxville News Sentinel
Journalism.co.uk talks to journalists across the globe about social media and how they see it changing their industry. This week, Jack Lail of Knoxville News Sentinel.
1) Who are you and what do you do?
My name is Jack D. Lail. I’m the managing editor/multimedia for the Knoxville News Sentinel in Knoxville, Tennessee.
I am in charge of the editorial content on our family of websites that include knoxnews.com and govolsxtra.com.
2) Which web or mobile-based social media tools do you use on a daily basis and why?
AIM, Twitter and Facebook mainly. I dabble in lots of others. Email? Is that a social media tool? Live in it. Google Reader? Certainly use it every day.
3) Of the thousands of social media tools available could you single one out as having the most potential for news either as a publishing or newsgathering tool?
I continue to think the unsexy RSS feed has the largest potential and is the most important tool. Twitter and Facebook have potential.
Next is blogging, if you consider that a social media tool. It is critical for mainstream media to adopt and adapt. Because it is a web native publishing platform as well as a social network, it engages and creates community in very effective ways.
Not a software tool, but the iPhone is the biggest game changer in terms of new platform. I’m actually starting to believe the hype about the mobile web.
Users get that product and every other hardware maker is improving their smart phone offerings at a more rapid pace. Did we just go from Gopher to Netscape in the mobile space?
4) And the most overrated in your opinion?
YouTube and Facebook notwithstanding, user-generated content seems to be the most overrated social media ‘news’ craze or the most ineptly executed by traditional media organisations.
I think you’ll see a few sites that thrive at this and nail it and everybody else will suck. There seems to be a difference also in layering in news in social media sites and creating community around news.
Obviously, there are more social media sites being launched than can be supported by audiences or business models. Is it spring and time to prune?