NAA: The march to video

The Newspaper Association of America‘s new survey of newspaper Web site’s production of local video provides one of the best snapshot’s I’ve seen lately of newsrooms in transition, and the transition may be significant. A year ago, many of the newsroom leaders at Knight Digital Media Center’s annual Leadership Conference saw aggressive pursuit of local video as a priority for 2007. Like many of their peers, they saw the value of video in enriching news coverage, increasing traffic and possibly creating a new advertising revenue stream. They were searching for tools and strategies.
The new NAA report suggests many traditional news organizations have leapt into video—or at least have a toe in the water. It also suggests there is more work to be done.

Here are a few highlights of the NAA survey, entitled “Newspapers’ Online Video:”
- News (breaking), features sports and entertainment dominate online local video content. Interestingly, the report notes, while people frequently go to a news site for weather information, only about a third of the sites surveyed feature weather or traffic video.
- Most site visitors watch video in the morning (32 percent from 6 to 10 a.m.) or in the middle of the day (27 percent 10 am. to 2 p.m.). Nearly a third of those responding didn’t know the most popular times for visiting their Web sites. (It’s also important to keep in mind, as Rick Hirsch at the Miami Herald and others have noted, that readers of different topics may be hitting the site at different times.)
- Photographers are most often shooting video (86 percent) but reporters are not far behind (74 percent).
- Most newsrooms provide video training (58 to 80 percent provide it, depending on size).
- Pre-roll is the dominant format for online video advertising. About half of the newspapers surveyed feature pre-roll. At smaller newspapers, 43 percent reported selling pre-roll advertising. At larger newspapers, 78 percent feature pre-roll advertising. Banner adds and sponsorships also are popular. Fewer than 10 percent feature post-roll advertising or ads that run across the bottom of the screen.

The NAA survey is based on 213 responses out of 1,117 solicitations that went to newspapers. That’s a decent response rate (19 percent) and newspapers of all sizes are represented. But NAA notes that “it is possible the conclusions may not fully represent the entire U.S. newspaper industry.” My own guess is that those who were more engaged with video were more likely to respond, so the survey may be a snapshot of early adopters rather than the industry as a whole. Still it’s encouraging.

How does your news organization compare with organizations in the NAA study? What tips can you offer other editors seeking to improve their online video offerings?

Inventing a new ecology for news

News Tools 2008 is now history. As Joe Grimm explains here, it was an unconference that eschewed expert panels and speakers and instead relied on participants to shape the agenda and convene sessions.

I saw abundant bursts of energy and creativity, rather than the carefully crafted storyline more traditional conferences seek to create.

That may also be an apt description for an emerging ecosystem for news collection and distribution in the digital age: Increasingly individuals and smaller collections of people will create significant amounts of news content and make it available to the public online.

Key to this new ecosystem is entrepreneurship. Journalists - many from downsizing newsrooms - are exploring ways to get paid directly by the public or by community foundations or even private investors.

How would this work? Here are a few experiments:

-- Small payments or subscriptions that pay for journalists to cover specific stories or issues. Would parents in a local community, for example, be willing to pay small amounts for more detailed coverage of their children’s schools than the local metro newspaper is providing? Journalist David Cohn is working on online tools to help journalists monetize their efforts.

-- In a similar vein, the just-launched ReelChanges Web site will allow people to make tax-deductible contributions to support production of documentary journalism.

-- Could a community hire a journalist to provide local coverage? Journalism professor Len Witt has a grant to try that idea out in Northfield, Minn., where a “representative journalist” will be hired to add professional reporting to an existing community site.

These experiments are fraught with potential and with risks. The journalists will need to take care to protect their journalistic independence as they step into the world of fund raising.

All the same, experimentation and risk-taking may pave the way for future journalism that can supplement and enrich what traditional news organizations provide.

Dan Gillmor, who heads the new Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship, says it’s a great environment for young journalists.  “What I’m telling students is that they chances that they would get on career ladder that people of my age got on are shrinking rapidly… That is not a problem because there’s never been a better time in journalism to invent their own jobs This is an incredible time of opportunity for young journalists”

These efforts may provide little solace to traditional news organizations coping with a digital tsunami and a diminishing bottom line.

Still, they may suggest opportunity. How will traditional news organizations interact with an increasingly diverse and potentially chaotic news universe? Do these developments suggest an emerging role for large traditional news organizations? As news system atomizes and diversifies, who is better equipped to synthesize as a more coherent whole?

How to talk to your programmer

As I am learning at News Tools 2008, the tech-journo divide is both wide and deep, despite journalists’ great intentions and enthusiasm for all things digital. Different cultures and miscommunication are key factors. So I’m happy to pass along a great set of tips from Lisa Williams, “Thirteen Ways of Talking to a Programmer.”
What are you doing to move your newsroom culture across the digital divide?

Location-based media: Take the survey

Paul Lamb points to a survey that Medill graduate students are conducting to find out more about how newsrooms are using location-based technologies such as GPS-enabled devices, mobile phones, interactive maps and audio tours. If you’re in a newsroom, you can help by filling out the quick survey here. I wrote more about the Medill project here.

Links: NAA-ASNE convention presentations

ASNE and NAA are posting slides from presentations at their joint Capital Conference (Sunday through Wednesday in D.C.).
Link to the main directory here.
Two Sunday presentations caught my eye:
- David Stoeffler has a good basic overview of online tactices in ”Dynamic Web Strategies for Small Newspapers.”
- A panel including Gannett’s Jennifer Carroll, Placeblogger founder Lisa Williams and Media Management Center’s Mike Smith, explores ”Building Audience in a Fragmented Media World.”

Credibility study: It’s the engagement, stupid

A new survey on the credibility of online news brings into focus some old school vs new school tensions that news executives, other journalists—and the people who rely on them for news—face.

“The Online Credibility Gap,” sponsored by the Reynolds Journalism Institute and the Associated Press Managing Editors, was released Tuesday via a Poynter News University Webinar. For all the details, read the full report package here.

This morning, I sat in on a Webinar exploring the survey hosted by Poynter’s NewsU and led by by John Bartosek, editor of The Palm Beach Post and chairman of APME’s Credibility Committee.

One top takeaway was the finding that a half the 161 readers surveyed thought it would be beneficial to have “journalists joining the conversation online and giving personal views.” In contrast, only about one fourth of the 1,200 editors surveyed felt that way, and nearly 60 percent thought it would be harmful. I suspect some of the editors on the “harmful” side had visions as they answered that question of journalists ranting and taking sides. My mental response to that thought was “Still?”

I think the public answer is less about wanting opinions and more about wanting engagement and transparency to be part of the information package. Years ago (pre digital revolution), as ombudsman at The Oregonian, I spoke or e-mailed with thousands of readers and worked on a newspaper credibility project. Even then it was clear that the same people who might distrust the motives of journalists they had never met were perfectly willing to trust a journalist they met or spoke with on the telephone. The Web has increased both the expectation—and the opportunity—to engage more fully. I would like to see some comments on how newsrooms are meeting this challenge.

In his NewsU presentation, Bartosek some practical steps editors may want to consider:
-- Does your news organization have a clear policy for making online corrections and is it applied consistently?
-- Do staff and readers understand the terms and conditions of using the Web site, particularly as it pertains to standards for comments? Do users know that they can report offensive or inappropriate comments and that the site will take action to remove them?

The survey also points to a divide between online news users and editors about whether anonymous comments should be allowed. More on that soon.