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A survey of US journalists published by Cision finds that 56% say social media is important for reporting and producing stories.

This comes just a week after Peter Horrocks, the new director of BBC Global News said that social media is now an essential tool for journalists and those that were ignoring it should look elsewhere for employment:

“This isn’t just a kind of fad from someone who’s an enthusiast of technology. I’m afraid you’re not doing your job if you can’t do those things. It’s not discretionary”

With Sky News recently installing Tweetdeck on all the PCs in their newsroom it seems that social media is now a must have for all journalists.

Among the journalists surveyed by Cision, 89% said they turn to blogs for story research, 65% to social media sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn, and 52% to microblogging services such as Twitter. The survey also found that 61% use Wikipedia, the popular online encyclopedia.

Despite these figures and the enthusiastic uptake, it seems that there is still some wariness of using social media as a source. The research shows that reporters and editors are acutely aware of the need to verify information they get from social media. Eighty-four percent said social media sources were “slightly less” or “much less” reliable than traditional media, with 49% saying social media suffers from “lack of fact checking, verification and reporting standards.”

And we were pleased to see that PRs are still playing a vital role, with editors and reporters saying they depend on PR professionals for “interviews and access to sources and experts” (44%), “answers to questions and targeted information” (23%), and “perspective, information in context, and background information” (17%).

The Cision research was based on 371 responses conducted in autumn 2009. More than 47% of the questioned journalists had more than 20 years’ experience.

The pay wall debate rumbles on, with Patrick Smith on Journalism.co.uk asking last week how much is an article worth?

Patrick observes that there are 100 articles on any given day in The Times and you get all of this for £1 – that’s 1p per article.

He states that this means Murdoch will need to drastically reassess per-content pricing structures if an online subscription model is to work:

“But to reach a competitive pricepoint, he and other publishers will have to massively realign the value of each piece of news and comment from its current-day, paper value of one or two pence to fractions of pence.”

Patrick’s conclusion is obvious and one that I totally subscribe to:

“In reality, the real market value of news is what people will pay and the danger is that for an entire generation of readers weaned on the free-to-air internet, that price is nothing at all…”

John Thompson at Journalism.co.uk follows up with an interesting blog post comparing the cost per article of his website with a national newspaper:

“Taking into account wages, expenses and a percentage of overall overheads (rent, bills etc), but discounting non-news-related administration, aggregation, tip of the days etc, we calculated the average cost of an article (feature, news story or blog post) to be around £37.00.

“We have no intention of erecting a paywall around our news content, but if we were to, just to recoup that expenditure we would need 370 people to pay 10p each to read each article, or 3,700 to pay 1p each. In 2009, the average number of page views per article on our blog and main site was 440 (this includes all our aggregation posts, which probably skew the figure downwards slightly) but that means at current traffic levels we would need a model of 10p per article to be paid for by 84 per cent of our current readers.

“Factoring in the much greater overheads of national newspaper publications, I would guess that the cost per article could be as much as 10 times the cost to us, perhaps around the £400 mark.”

There are many questions to be asked here: is this is an unworkable economy? Does national news justify this cost? Is this cost necessary? Is the cost/profit margin of print media just impossible?

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The Guardian’s editor-in-chief, Alan Rusbridger is always good for a quote or two. He also, in my humble opinion, speaks a lot of sense about journalism, digital and technology; how the three are coming together and what they each mean for those in the media industry.

So his Hugh Cudlipp Lecture looking at the future of journalism was obviously going to be an interesting read, and it is. You can read the full text here, but I thought I’d highlight the most interesting bits:

Paywalls

The paywall debate just won’t go away and was fueled yesterday by rumours that Murdoch is to sell The Times because he knows that paywalls just won’t work. Rusbridger himself has some very interesting things to say on the issue:

“If you erect a universal pay wall around your content then it follows you are turning away from a world of openly shared content. Again, there may be sound business reasons for doing this, but editorially it is about the most fundamental statement anyone could make about how newspapers see themselves in relation to the newly-shaped world.”

“The second issue it [paywalls] raises is the one of ‘authority’ versus ‘involvement’. Or, more crudely, ‘Us versus Them’… Here the tension is between a world in which journalists considered themselves – and were perhaps considered by others – special figures of authority. We had the information and the access; you didn’t. You trusted us filter news and information and to prioritise it – and to pass it on accurately, fairly, readably and quickly. That state of affairs is now in tension with a world in which many (but not all) readers want to have the ability to make their own judgments; express their own priorities; create their own content; articulate their own views; learn from peers as much as from traditional sources of authority. Journalists may remain one source of authority, but people may also be less interested to receive journalism in an inert context – ie which can’t be responded to, challenged, or knitted in with other sources.”

Rusbridger goes on to give an example of how a paywall would have presented a challenge for the Guardian in its breaking of the Google China story recently. It’s an example that is worth noting from a PR viewpoint as well:

“Had there been a universal pay wall around the Guardian that would have been a difficult story to handle.- Wait and publish in print? But we knew that Google was about to post the story on its own blog at 6pm Eastern.- Publish digitally and hope that people would buy a day pass to read it? But in the time it took to key in your credit card the essence of the story would have been Twittered into global ubiquity. It is one of the clichés of the new world that most scoops have a life expectancy of about three minutes. A valuable three minutes for the FT or the Wall Street Journal if it’s market sensitive information. Most people, with most information, and without subscriptions paid for by their companies, are happy to wait.”

Journalists v bloggers v readers

One of the themes he keeps coming back to is whether journalists can now expect to be seen as the gatekeepers or the voice of authority. In a social media world, this is surely impossible and futile.

“Many of the Guardian’s most interesting experiments at the moment lie in this area of combining what we know, or believe, or think, or have found out, with the experience, range, opinions, expertise and passions of the people who read us, or visit us or want to participate rather than passively receive.”

He mentions liveblogs, crowd-sourcing, Comment is Free etc. as ways in which the Guardian is innovating and changing the way it delivers content.

As for me, this is the key for journalism. Yes print will die and yes, the digital age is a real challenge for publishers. But, it is also an opportunity. Publishers like the Guardian that don’t just go for the quick financial win (think paywalls) and try to provide value not found elsewhere are surely the ones that will end up thriving.

The Guardian has today revealed it’s iPhone app. It’s a pretty slick user interface and is sure to be a hit amongst commuters as it comes complete with offline browsing.

I caught up with Jonathon Moore, Product Manager at Guardian.co.uk (Twitter), to find out a bit more:

Why the iPhone?

The iPhone is dominating our mobile traffic right now so it seemed reasonable to open our emerging mobile app strategy on that platform. We have to start somewhere – and we have a great strategy of where we’d like to go next.

You’re a bit late to the game compared to other UK newspapers. Why the delay?

We are late to the game. But we feel that’s ok. It does change our approach, however. We’re not first to market – but we definitely want to be best to market.

Oh – and we’re touching 1m uniques via our mobile browser site (in just over six months from a standing start) which also makes us the UK’s number one digital newspaper on mobile. So being slightly late certainly hasn’t seemed to have done us any harm!

What were the key challenges? What were the key areas you wanted to get right?

We wanted to create an excellent content discovery experience, something that’s traditionally been massively difficult to achieve on mobile (remember the RAZR?).

I also – and this is just a personal comment – felt the experience within the News category needed a lift. Nothing really inspired me too much. We also wanted to create something that offered a full guardian.co.uk experience and – crucially – something that looked like it had been created with love. Believe me – this has. Our users are passionate about our content so I wanted them to be passionate about the product too.

You’ve decided to charge for the app. Why is this?

We think a small charge for increased functionality that is specific to a single device is a really small trade-off. But of course the app has to be great. No-one wants to pay for something below par – so the challenge was to make it both beautiful and useful.

If you were to ask me my favourite aspects – I’d say the ability to dip into quite niche content via the keyword pop-up, simple access to our great audio content and off course offline. I hope we’ve achieved something our guardian audience will like. We’ll find out. Initial reaction is really encouraging and positive.

There doesn’t seem to be any advertising on the app, will this change?

We haven’t ruled anything out but there are no current plans to add advertising.

I’m assuming this is the first iteration and there will be improvements in the future? What are you hoping to include at a later date?

Yes you’d be right. Well we know what’s missing: Twitter, video and commenting (ability to read and write) so while I’m not promising timescales – that gives you an indication of the things on our list.

But we also want to push things forward more. We’re really ambitious about this. This is our v1.0, others have been in the AppStore for months if not years. But even without that I think we’re ahead in many areas already.

Do you foresee a time when print newspapers won’t exist and apps like this will be the way we consume our news?

Ooooh big question. Not for me. I still love the feel of paper too. Ultimately the consumer will decide though – so it’s really about choice. We want to offer our superb content in every way possible – with the same level of excellence in mobile product design that goes into the journalism.

It’s been a dramatic week in the media world, with a number of key developments. Here’s a quick recap in case you missed any of it…

Guardian Technology supplement

As we reported last week, more than 100 editorial and commercial jobs are to be cut at Guardian News & Media and the Guardian’s Thursday Technology print section will cease publication at the end of the year.

More: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/nov/11/guardian-news-and-media

Revolution

From now on, Revolution Magazine, published by Haymarket, will now be distributed as a quarterly supplement with Marketing magazine. The online content will be incorporated into Brand Republic.

More: http://www.allmediascotland.com/press_news/23585/Media-Week-Closed-Down

Media Week

Lord Heseltine’s Haymarket Publishing is also to close Media Week after almost 25 years as part of a restructure of its marketing and advertising trade titles, including Campaign and Marketing, that will see the loss of 18 editorial jobs.

More: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/nov/17/media-week-to-close

Computer Weekly

Computing editor Bryan Glick has been poached by fierce IT rivals Computer Weekly. He began his new role as editor this week. Our inside sources have suggested that Computer Weekly is hoping Bryan will help revitalise the online side of the brand, akin to his achievements at Computing, as it has been losing ground to it’s main rival.

If you didn’t catch our interview last month with Bryan, you can find it here

More: http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/editors-blog/2009/11/a-new-custodian-for-this-blog.html

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It’s no secret that the traditional media industry is in chaos at the moment. Today, the tech sector felt the force of this with the announcement that the Guardian’s Thursday print Technology supplement is to close at the end of the year.

This came alongside news of over 100 job cuts at the Guardian, following revenue losses of £33m.

As if this wasn’t enough doom and gloom for the Guardian Media Group, yesterday it was revealed that the Observer, whilst still suriving, will lose its monthly Music, Sport and Woman magazines.

Declining advertising revenues, combined with more news being available for free online, not to mention the rise of professional blogging, has really hit the media sector and the tech industry is no clearly no different.

So what’s the answer? Rupert Murdoch has made no secret of  plans for properties in his media portfolio, including The Times, which will move to a paywall charging structure online from next Spring.

The Guardian’s technology editor Charles Arthur was hinting at a similar outcome this afternoon on Twitter (see right).

Whilst Arthur was quick to point out that charging separately for online technology news wasn’t currently being considered, it does beg the question: would you pay for specialised content? And if so, how much would you pay? And what would you want to receive?

Only last week, we covered news about how NMA are to begin charging for subscriber-only content.

Dan also covered research recently, which suggests that if the publishers think we are all going to start paying for online content, then they should really think again…

What do you think? Would you pay for tech news from the Guardian? Or do we already have enough access to content online that the print supplement was a superfluous?

new media age announced yesterday a change to its online offering:

On Tuesday, Claire and I went on a Wildfire field trip. With the wide-eyed wonder of the little PRs that we are, we spent the morning exploring the halls of a national newspaper. We took in the sites and sounds of the busy newsroom, and, overwhelmed with curiosity, we bombarded our journalist host with all the questions we had always wanted to ask about the inside workings of a national paper.

We talked about the best way to secure coverage in the national papers, ways PR can make it easier for journalists and the process an article goes through between the editor and journalist. One of the biggest reoccurring themes we discussed was the changes and effects the internet has had and will have on newspapers, specifically paid content.

In a recent blog, Danny wrote about the Harris Interactive survey for Paid:Content UK that found that “if their favourite news site begins charging for access to content, three quarters of people would simply switch to an alternative free news source”. And a new survey from Lightspeed Research and The Global Web Index found similar results, that nine in 10 UK consumers would never pay for news stories online, regardless of how cheap it was.

So, things are not looking good for the online newspaper sites that are considering charging for content. But what about the Sunday paper’s content?

Our journalist host’s opinion was that news is broken in the dailies and this is the type of news people could find free elsewhere online, from sites like the BBC, if a newspaper website started charging. But the Sundays offer something beyond just news, they have news analysis, opinion articles, in-depth reviews, thorough travel stories and the longer investigative articles. This is the type of content that people could not find anywhere else and if any content has a chance as pay-per-view online, it would be the Sundays.

What do you think? Would you pay online to view the unique content that the Sunday papers offer or is even that not enough to get you to open your wallet?
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Following the announcement last week that London’s Evening Standard is to become a free paper, the Guardian’s director of digital content, Emily Bell, has an interesting piece in today’s Media Guardian supplement.

In it, she asks some poignant questions about the reasons behind the move and the effect this will have on London’s newspaper scene and the wider media industry. The main questions posed are:

- Will this spell the end for the London Lite?

- Will the Standard draw enough offline advertising to support the move?

- What will be the impact on the national dailies?

This last question is particularly interesting. As Emily states:

“At the moment the afternoon distribution of the Evening Standard means it does not fully compete with the national morning papers which have heavily biased metropolitan readerships (such as the Guardian and the Independent), and whilst many purchasers don’t value the Evening Standard in the way they would their own paid-for paper, the presence of something more than London Lite but less than the Times will begin to test the boundaries of the “enough” economy. In other words, a free Standard might be less good than your daily paper but is it “enough” to stop the daily purchase?”

In my mind, the growth of online news distribution will certainly lead to a position where commuters might conceivably forgo buying their daily paper in the morning and instead make do with online news consumption during the day, ending with a (free) evening paper for the commute home.

Whether the Standard will be able to capitalise on this is another question that will need to be answered, but it is certainly an interesting possible outcome.

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It seems that the BBC website is about to get a makeover that will integrate ’social media’ to a much greater extent.

I think most people generally acknowledge that social media isn’t just a passing fad and that it’s here to stay, but further integration in one of the UK’s biggest and most visited websites will surely take adoption to new levels.

And to be honest, I’m surprised that it has taken the BBC so long to make this move. It’s not just the BBC either. Other major media websites have been slow to adopt social elements on their sites and I’m not quite sure why.

Even really simple elements are either missing or are cumbersome. Try tweeting about an article or sharing content on Facebook directly from a website – it’s really hard to do, and this makes no sense. [Brand Republic is one of my real bugbears - there is no option to tweet an article, no RSS feed and the URLs are ridiculously long!]

Surely the benefits of social media are clear – just ask a site like Mashable or Econsultancy. And whilst these sites are clearly ahead of the curve in terms of user adoption, the Facebook generation is well and truly mainstream.

Harnessing this ’social power’ is the challenge for the BBC and its competitors. And its competitors better watch out, because it sounds as though the new site developments could be yet another game changer.

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