Shane Richmond, the Daily Telegraph's online editor, continues to muse about the internet's effect on newspapers after yesterday's posting. He identifies three problems. First, how do media organisations, specifically newspapers, remain relevant when readers have more choices and less time? Second, how do those organisations make money? And third, how do you maintain ownership of material when even individual articles can be fragmented to serve readers' needs?
He is honest enough to admit that there are no clear answers at present but offers some thoughts about how to prepare for an uncertain future. In so doing he reveals the thinking behind the Telegraph's integrated newsroom in its new Victoria office. It's also a superb practical guide for all journalists everywhere who are trying to move from print to online journalism (even if most of them should know it already!).
Richmond explains the need to serve fragmenting audiences - giving them different material through different channels at different times of the day - and to be humble enough to give them what they want. He points to the importance of journalists who specialise because their knowledge will be sought. Similarly, he acknowledges the pulling power of personalities whose opinions are sought. These will build audiences through their blogs. "If my previous point was scary for journalists, this one is likely to be scary for media owners and senior management", writes Richmond. "Many of them like to see journalists as interchangeable cogs in the newspaper machine. If you allow them to develop into personalities, with their own audience, even fans, they can become very powerful."
He also points to the need for speed. Breaking news has to go up online asap. Reporters must "work like an agency reporter" by filing copy "in chunks" to get the basics up first and then adding quotes, context and background in subsequent postings. And here's the rub: "If you have an exclusive, you have to be honest about whether it will hold until the print edition tomorrow. If it won't, publish it now and be first. A scoop is a scoop, whatever the medium."
Turning to the problem of monetising content, Richmond acknowledges that charging people - through subscription or one-off payments (aka micro-payments) - will not work. Advertising remains the best hope of providing an income stream. And this will depend, of course, on winning an audience for the editorial content.
Finally, he touches on the ownership of content in a world where search engine giants, such as Google, can point people to thousands of sources in an instant. It costs Google nothing to provide and costs the searcher nothing to receive. But he is not keen on the proposal - by Simon Waldman, director of digital publishing at The Guardian - to develop some kind of licensing system for content, arguing that it is "vulnerable" because some search engine might offer such a service and then simply refuse to pay. Instead, Richmond places greater faith in the development of specialist and personality journalism which, he claims, is "harder to break it up." I have to say that that's an interesting approach.
Richmond concludes: "The technology can't be ignored and it can't be uninvented. We must embrace it or be swept away by it." As Andrew Grant-Adamson pointed out yesterday, the thoughts of Shane Richmond have probably been written as much for his colleagues on the paper as the regular readers of his blog. Andrew also raises some interesting objections to Richmond's contentions today. Most pertintently he writes: "I have been critical of some of the points that Richmond makes although I feel his general thrust is right. I just feel is would be a great loss if some of the experience which made the Telegraph a great newspaper was thrown away through a revolutionary zeal." Yes, the transformation will need careful handling, which is the giant challenge facing the new editor, Will Lewis.
