Tag Archives: online medium

Taloussanomat: a case study in online-only newspapers – more from City University study

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As reported on Journalism.co.uk Neil Thurman and Merja Myllylahti’s study into online-only newspapers has suggested that going online alone is unlikely to bring an ailing newspaper title back into profitability.

Focusing their research on Finnish financial news site Taloussanomat, which folded its print edition in December 2007 after 10 years of publication), the pair found the title had suffered a drop in unique users of 22 per cent in five months of being online-only.

A week’s newsroom observation, access to web traffic stats and financial information, and interviews with journalists at Taloussanomat give context to the statistics and a deeper insight into the psychological and cultural barriers still at work in the title’s transitional newsroom.

Thurman and Myllylhati in their research article have been careful to point out that their predictions for the wider news industry and online-only newspapers stem from specific examples, so I think it’s important to put our report on their findings into the same context with the information below.

Firstly, the stats on traffic changes after the paper went online only – what size was its web and print audiences previously?

  • Between 2001-2006 its daily print circulation fell from 88,000 to 72,000; over the same period it recorded a 1,180 per cent rise in weekly ‘visitors’ to its website;
  • It is the second most popular (in terms of traffic) financial news site in Finland;
  • The site posted an initial rise in visitors after going online-only and sustained this growth for five months until June 2008 when weekly visitor numbers began to fall (from 292,059 in June to 185,714 in July)
  • By October 2008 (10 months after closing the print edition) the site is recording page impression figures 97 per cent higher than the week before it went online-only;
  • But, as the research points out, neither the page impressions figure nor the number of weekly visitors has performed better than a title with a print counterpart.

Challenges in the newsroom

Metrics

  • Metrics, central to this study, have become increasingly important within Taloussanomat’s newsroom and work practices, according to the research;
  • Journalists are increasingly aware of how individual stories ‘perform’;
  • There is an added pressure to this: advertisers, who would previously spend with a title based on its performance as a whole, will now look to the performance of individual articles or site sections;
  • “The fact that we need high visitor numbers on the site is part of being an online newspaper, but it has an impact on the journalistic work. The positive side of it is that we know what stories people find interesting. The negative aspect is that the journalists also know that,” Hannu Sokala, editor for development and strategy, told the study;
  • Increasing awareness of metrics may also be driving a more consumer/populist news agenda on the site according to some journalists interviewed.

Working patterns:

  • Despite supporting the amount of space to fill and experiment with online, journalists at Taloussanomat were found to sticking to traditional print work patterns e.g. filling at 5pm, keeping stories the same length as in print, not innovating with use of multimedia;
  • Journalists were also largely deskbound within the newsroom – a result of cut resources and also a desire to ‘feed’ the website with more frequent updates and content;
  • Yet, the researchers also noted a reluctance amongst journalists to file breaking news in short-form ways, because they view it as ‘incomplete’;
  • A higher frequency of online stories had also increased the newsroom’s reliance on agency copy.

The study concludes:

“The online-only newspaper should be freer to exploit the potential of the online medium without the burden of legacy content from a print or broadcast parent. The reality this study found is that the online-only newspaper carries other burdens – financial and logistical – that counteract its advantages. The cumulative effect means killing the print edition does not immediately transform a title’s ability to produce interactive, nonlinear, multimedia content. Nor does it mean that staff are ready or willing to service new publishing platforms or readers’ expectations for multiple daily updates.”

It’s early days – Taloussanomat is one of the first titles to have ditched its print edition to go online-only. According to the study, the fact that unique users decreased folowing the switch shows ‘just how much the medium, rather than the content it carries, determines how news is consumed’.

Yet, as Juha-Pekka Raeste, editor-in-chief and CEO, remarks in the research, practices such as the increased ‘churning’ of copy are not a long-term solution. Instead Taloussanomat needs to focus on niche content and coverage, he adds.

It is clear Taloussanomat and other online new entrepreneurs have ideas about how editorial content can be adapt successfully to online – but can the necessary staff resources and revenues need to fund this be adapted in the same way?

Myfootballwriter.com: a lesson in going online

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This blog post is part of the Carnival of Journalism hosted, this month, by Adrian Monck’s blog

In May, Rick Waghorn, founder of sports news website myfootballwriter.com, is hoping to attend a Las Vegas awards ceremony and hear whether his plans for sports news sites in the US will receive $2 million as part of the Knight News Challenge.

Yet, before the potential glitz and glamour of Vegas, myfootballwriter.com will compete in the EDF Energy East of England media awards (award ceremony: Whipsnade Zoo).

The site is in the running for the Website of the Year award and comes up against the site of Waghorn’s former employer, the Norwich Evening News, who after 14 years handed Waghorn a redundancy package and the financial – and personal – impetus to go it alone online.

Having started as a sports news site dedicated to Norwich City FC, myfootballwriter.com has since spawned an Ipswich Town site and in a recent recruitment drive attracted more than 70 young journalists to apply for reporting positions on new sites.

While the eveningnews24 site should be applauded for investing in its online operations, that myfootballwriter is competing directly against it is a case study in favour of the changing shape of the industry.

The site has used its online-only status – with no backing from a print product such as the Norwich Evening News or the same size editorial team – to its advantage: rolling deadlines mean rolling news coverage, while being dedicated to one locality and subject allows for more in-depth analysis and reporting.

What is more, Waghorn says he is still ‘a footsoldier’, attending matches and press conferences, filing reports and chasing transfer rumours. At the same time he can develop and innovate with the site – as he is doing with the plans to move into the US and the development of a locally-focused advertising system.

Waghorn stresses that he has by no means ‘cracked it’, yet what he has achieved so far should be used as an aspirational model by both his former paymasters at Archant and the rest of the print media in their attempts to ‘crack’ the online medium.

The NUJ and new media: What’s all the fuss about?

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The ‘fuss’ was started by an article from Donnacha Delong, a member of the NUJ‘s multimedia commission, published in the Journalist (we’re still waiting for our copy because of the postal strikes, but you can read the whole thing on Delong’s blog).

The article is an introduction to a report by the NUJ’s commission on multimedia working to be released in full next month and, according to the blogosphere, it makes some sweeping arguments that suggest the NUJ is anti-digital media.

Communities editor of Telegraph.co.uk Shane Richmond’s initial reaction to the article on his blog described it as ‘scaremongering’, ‘reactionary’ and ‘badly-argued’.

In a further blog post, Richmond takes to task the whole spread of articles on convergence in the Journalist in which Delong’s article features. He challenges several of the ideas it raises, including:

  • that journalists need protection from new media
  • that online publishers replicate their competitors producing “a dull uniformity of content and presentation”
  • that the online medium restricts design and opportunities for user experience

Jeff Jarvis, whose first reaction to the NUJ’s article was that it was a “whiny, territorial, ass-covering, protecting-the-priesthood, preservation-instead-of-innovation faux” report, is now urging a different approach.

In an updated post on Buzzmachine Jarvis writes that “if you’re a union representing journalists today, you probably don’t know which way is up and who’s the enemy and what you’re fighting for. All the old reflexes and relationships are archaic.”

The idea that the NUJ’s structure as a union body needs to be adapted to better accommodate online journalism is echoed by Roy Greenslade, who has resigned from the NUJ in reaction to its approach to digital media.

As Greenslade says in his blog:

“[Shane] Richmond rightly points to the NUJ’s underlying assumption that the net is a threat to journalism when, of course, it is much more a threat to the union itself. Why? Because the union, as with the print unions of old, cannot possibly adapt to meet the revolutionary demands of a new technology.”

The debate is spreading – as a round-up by Shane Richmond shows even US site Valleywag has picked it up.

Final verdicts await given that the full report won’t be available until mid-November we are assured.

In the mean time take a look at Martin Stabe’s summary of the commission’s initial findings, which points out the following:

“The commission’s survey on NUJ chapels found that 50 per cent of chapels had experienced redundancies since the web operation was introduced; 75 per cent of chapels said their workloads had increased; 37 per cent said journalists were working longer hours. Only 34 per cent said the quality of new media was professional, 52 per cent called it adequate, and 14 per cent said it was poor.”

While the union’s structure and attitude to online journalism should and is being scrutinised throughout the blogosphere, if some of the experiences of journalists found by the commission and reported by Stabe are true then these are worrying developments that the industry must act upon. Unfortunately, these articles suggest that the NUJ may not be fit to do this.