Can magazines help newspapers navigate Web 2.0?

Newspapers navigating the tricky Web 2.0 Age should look to the magazine industry for some coordinates, Alan Moore suggested at the 5th Journalism Leaders Forum in Preston last week:

"Trust, engagement, connectivity, life-enhancement, life-simplification and navigation sums up magazines and their current success, not least through internet contact with their readers."

Perhaps Moore is on to something. A look at the 2006/2007 World Magazine Trends report from the International Federation of the Periodical Press or FIPP (Fédération Internationale de la Presse Périodique) certainly suggests rather more optimistic figures than those typically reported in the newspaper sector:

The [UK] consumer magazine industry was valued at £2,984 million in 2005, up by £135 million on the previous year. Consumer expenditure increased by 6.2% year-on-year to reach £2,157 million while advertising expenditure rose by 1% to £829 million. Total annual sales increased by 7% to 1,438 million copies per annum which means that since the year 2000, consumer magazines have enjoyed continuous year-on-year growth in both annual sales volume and purchasers’ expenditure. The number of consumer titles published rose by 42 to 3,366 between 2004 and 2005, the fourth consecutive year of growth.

The magazine industry is certainly not suffering the declines that are so typical of newspapers, but the extent to which that is due to that's because the magazine industry is Net-savvy isn't obvious. And listening to Janice Min, editor-in-chief, Us Weekly, at the Media Summit New York last week (see below), it’s clear that her magazine, at least, is still ‘trying to figure out what is going to make people come to the website in addition to buying the magazine”. (Sound familiar?)

So, if the magazine industry's edge isn't digital, perhaps it's worth examining how the industry's practice as it relates to the other issues to which Moore points: 'Trust, engagement, connectivity, life-enhancement, life-simplification and navigation".

Replay the 'Media Mashups' Forum debate - and keep the discussion going

After more than an hour and half, we hit ‘pause’ – not ‘stop’ - on the provocative 5th Journalism Leaders Forum discussion on the challenges facing traditional media in the Web 2.0 Age.

At the time, the distinguished panel - Jane Singer, Alan Moore, Heather Hopkins and Mark Tungate – were responding to this question posted online by Mark Comerford from Sweden:

still talking to a large extent about your "traditional" base. How do you extend your brand to audiences you dont traditionally reach?

Afterwards, Jane Singer, the new Johnston Press Chair in Digital Journalism at UCLan, had this to add in response:

One of the advantages that traditional media have in the online world is their
'institutional memory' of their own communities, commonly stretching back through
many years and many generations -- which they can draw on in a variety of ways
and in combination with the new voices of users (including those both new to the
community and those with their own long-term knowledge and connections with it
as their home). None of the other companies jumping online and providing content
have a comparable capability that comes from long-term association with and deep
knowledge of a particular place, its people and its issues.

You can review a (unedited) recording of the Webinar here - and join the discussion by posting your comments on this blog. Or you can joining us for the 6th Journalism Leaders Forum scheduled for 15 May 2007. Better yet, why don't you do both?

Co-author of "Communities Dominate Brands" joins Forum on Media Mashups

Alan Moore is CEO of SMLXL, described as a "Engagement Marketing specialist firm", and co-author with Tomi Ahonen of "Communities Dominate Brands". He's got some pretty strong views on the challenges media operations face in the what he calls "Generation C ", the connected society, and he'll share some of those as part of the panel for the 5th Journalism Leaders Forum on Feb 6th entitled, "Media Mashups! How Traditional Media Brands Survive and Thrive in a Widely Wired World."

Alan’s belief is that within the near future community-based engagement initiatives and the enabling of peer-to-peer flows of communication within organisations, and those that engage with them, will replace the traditional orthodoxies of government, management, business, media distribution and marketing as the primary media by which these organisations will successfully engage with their audiences. His message is has lots of people listening.

Alan’s notable projects include the brand strategy development and integrated communications program for a Pan-Nordic 3G mobile service; Saab’s global brand communication strategy; H&M’s store opening strategies in the US; and a number of existing brand and NPD projects for The Coca Cola Company.

Alan will join Heather Hopkins, VP for research for Hitwise, and Jane Singer, the new Johnston Press Chair of Digital Journalism at the University of Central Lancashire, in a discussion chaired by Mark Tungate, author of "Media Monoliths: How Great Media Brands Thrive and Survive".

The event, which forms part of the Winter residential week programme for participants in the Department of Journalism's Journalism Leaders Programme, is open to all - practitioners, academics, would-be journalists and others who are interested in the challenges of leading journalism in a digital age. To attend this free programme at 6pm on Tuesday, February 6th, in Greenbank Lecture Theatre in Preston - as well as the network reception from 5:30pm - please RSVP to leaders@ukjournalism.org.

If you can't be there in person, there are other ways to join the discussion.

You can post your questions and comments on this site, or you can view the live Webcast by logging in as a guest at: http://breeze01.uclan.ac.uk/journalismleadersforum/. Online participants will be able to post questions to panellists in a chat room.

NOTE: Applications are currently being accepted for the Winter seminar Feb 5-8th, which will include sessions by Hopkins, Singer and Tungate, as well as other accomplished practitioners and academics:. Please see the Programme website or email the director François Nel for more information.

Media Mashups! How Traditional Media Brands Survive and Thrive in a Widely Wired World

The rocky (and very, very costly) tie-up of stodgy Time Warner with sprightly AOL in 1998 seemed to illustrate Raymond Hall’s warning: “All marriages are happy. It's the living together afterward that causes all the trouble.”

But this summer's surprise announcement that Old Media News Corporation was shacking up with New Social Network Media MySpace, indicates that even in the most conservative of circles, the apparent taboo of old and new media nuptials is over.

Since then, the 'oldies' have been scrambling to woo young digital operators, in general, and social network companies, in particular. CBS has embraced YouTube (who is, by the way, a partner of Verizon who has, in turn, already hooked up with MTV, ESPN, and ABC News) and the 160-year-old Reuters has tied the knot with 12-year-old Yahoo, who is also linked to baby-faced Flickr.

Of course, not every date has led to the altar: today NTL and ITV formally announced their much-discussed union was not to be.

So, where is this going? Are there any tips to help these relationships flourish? What does it all mean for journalism?

Those are some key issues under the spotlight at the 5th Journalism Leaders Forum coming up at the University of Central Lancashire in February 2007. Paris-based advertising and brand specialist Mark Tungate (left) will chair the discussion of cases and issues entitled: "Media Mashups! How Traditional Media Brands Survive and Thrive in a Widely Wired World". Media convergence expert Jane Singer, the newly-appointed Johnston Press Chair in Digital Journalism at UCLan, and Heather Hopkins, Hitwise vice president for research, will be amongst the panellists.

The event, which forms part of the Winter residential week programme for participants in the Department of Journalism's Journalism Leaders Programme, is open to all - practitioners, academics, would-be journalists and others who are interested in the challenges of leading journalism in a digital age.

To attend this free programme at 6pm on Tuesday, February 6th, in Greenbank Lecture Theatre in Preston - as well as the network reception from 5:30pm - please RSVP to leaders@ukjournalism.org.

• NOTE: Applications are currently being accepted for the Winter seminars, which will include sessions by Hopkins, Singer and Tungate, as well as other accomplished practitioners and academics: Journalism and the Market: Understanding Users, Delivering Value and Principles of Journalism Leadership: Strategy for the Digital Age. Please see the Programme website or email the director François Nel for more information.

Innovation leaders on how they do it: inspiring, empowering

It wasn't much of a risk, really. With a panel comprising Tim Bowdler, Tim Porter, Simon Waldman and Geert-Jan Bogaert and with Keith Sutton as ring-master, the discussion was always going to be provocative. That was indeed the case in the packed auditorium in Preston last night and also in the chat room online (see the excerpt below).

If you missed the discussion on "Leading Innovation: What to Do, How to Do It" - or want to run through it again - check out the recording.

Mark your calendar, too. The 5th Journalism Leaders Forum on February 6th, 2007, will be chaired by Mark Tungate, a Journalism Leaders Programme discussion leader and author of the first comprehensive look at the world's top media brands, Media Monolith. Watch for updates on the event here or mail us at leaders[at]ukjournalism[dot]org for an invitation.

Simon Waldman: At the moment, the most significant revenues onilne are actually derived from advertising...I think the real challenge over the next two to three years is to ensure that everyone is geared up to secure as much ad revenue as possible...
Mark: One of the reasons journalists are negitave to the changes is that they have seldom if ever consulted on how and why the changes should occur
Tim Porter: Correct. That's why more collaboration and cultural change is
needed.
Mark: directives from the top alienate the journalists who often see the changes as principally cost saving methods

Simon Waldman: Mark..you're right..
Simon Waldman: Let's not forget the Telegraph basically laid off a load of
journalists..
Tim Porter: Or ... newspapers tend to pile up priorities until there is a laundry list of goals, most unsupported by training.

Mark: too much money goes in to the technical infrastructur
which is constructed for and by technical staff. The point of departure must be
firsty "how can we tell our stories better"
Tim Porter:
There is a tremendous need for product development -- in a traditional sense --
in the newspaper industry.
Editor: The cultural battle is being won - the key to capitalising on the undoubted revenues out there is to keep traffic high thanks to the quality of journalism
Mark: product is produced by journalists. There is a tremendous need for *journalistic* development
Mark: Swedish statistics show that sanitary workers have more money for mid-career training than journalists

Tim Porter: “Merely riding the current of change, complaining all the while, is a path that leads only to cynicism and failure. It's seductively self-indulgent, but it's just plain wrong. The alternative is choosing to act.
That's leadership. And it's what these times demand.”-- David Zeeck, executive
editor, Tacoma News-Tribune, President, American Society of Newspaper
Editors,2006-07
Julia Ogden: In my opinion the desire to change and adapt to the future is in many of our newsrooms, but I would argue the investment is not - as yet. Is JP planning to roll out new media newsrooms like the one at LEP to other divisions and if so, when?
Mark: so where do the ethical standerds of journalism c0me into play?
Mark: xcuse the spelling :-)
Tim Porter: They remain. The challenge is to change the forms and practicies of journalism without undermining the principles.

Guardian digital director joins international line-up for 4th forum

Simon Waldman, director of digital publishing at Guardian Newspapers, has just been added to the programme of the 4th Journalism Leaders Forum to be held on October 17th.

Waldman, who has played a key role in GuardianOnline, will join an international line-up to discuss "Leading Innovation: What to Do, How to Do It.”

In a recent article for the Press Gazette , Waldman said:

It is clear that the ultimate challenge is not simply to build a good web operation, but to build the news organisation of the future. And having your online operation as a remote satellite simply isn’t going to do it. Having said that, the one thing you realise after looking around is that there is no clear model for making it work that everyone can feel comfortable with.

I do predict, however, that in the next five to 10 years will bring a wave of change in newspaper offices around the world as they grapple with this.

Other panellists are:

• Tim Bowdler, chief executive of Johnston Press and the person recently described as “the most powerful figure in Britain’s £3 billion regional newspaper industry”
• Geert-Jan Bogaerts, digital editor of DeVolkskrant, the first fully-integrated multi-media newsroom in The Netherlands
• Tim Porter, associate director of Tomorrow’s Workforce, a Knight Foundation sponsored devoted to professional development in America’s newsrooms, and author of the blog First Draft.

Keith Sutton, past president of the Society of Editors and an Industrial Fellow of the Journalism Leaders Programme, will chair the discussion.

To attend this free programme at 6pm on Tuesday, October 17th, in Greenbank Lecture Theatre in Preston - as well as the reception from 5:30pm - please RSVP to leaders[at]ukjournalism[do]ac[dot]uk. If you can't be there in person, there are other ways to join the discussion.

You can post your questions and comments on this site, or you can view the live Webcast by logging in as a guest at: http://breeze01.uclan.ac.uk/journalismleadersforum/. Online participants will be able to post questions to panellists in a chat room.

Want to avoid getting drunk on digital?

The Telegraph’s move from Canary Wharf to their new multimedia newsroom in Victoria will make it the UK's first fully integrated multimedia newsroom. Not surprisingly, it has been closely watched and widely – and passionately- discussed.

“I have seen the Telegraph's future, and it works,” gushed GuardianOnline blogger Roy Greenslade recently after a tour of the new facilities. On the other hand, John Carey, NUJ father of the chapel, has railed, “They are tearing the heart out of this paper and each day that goes by they are doing it more and more.”

Under the headline, "The dizzying decline of a great paper," Phillip Delves Broughton, a former Paris correspondent for the Daily Telegraph, today summed up the spectacle this way:

Watching the Telegraph leap into the digital age is like watching a late arrival to a party drinking too much to catch up and then falling over on the dance floor.

The transition from print publishing to multimedia change was never going to be easy. But did it need to be quite this bruising? More than a decade into the 'digital party', are there some things that the Telegraph executives - and other latecomers - could learn from earlier arrivals, such as De Volkskrant in The Netherlands?

Geert-Jan Bogaerts, De Volkskrant's online editor, will speak to the challenges of moving from print to multimedia during the 4th Journalism Leaders Forum in Preston on October 17th.

The panel discussion, 'Leading Innovation: What To Do, How To Do It', will be chaired by Keith Sutton, an award-winning editor and an Industrial Fellow of the Journalism Leaders Programme. Other participants include the person recently described as "the most powerful figure in Britain's £3bn regional newspaper industry," Johnston Press chief executive Tim Bowdler . Tim Porter, an associate director of Tomorrow’s Workforce, a Knight Foundation-sponsored project devoted to professional development in America’s newsrooms, will contribute a pespective from the other side of the Atlantic.

The forum, which forms part of the residential week activities for participants in the Autumn block of the University of Central Lancashire's Journalism Leaders Programme, is also open to the public. To attend this free event at 6pm on Tuesday, October 17th, in Greenbank Lecture Theatre in Preston - as well as the reception from 5:30pm - please RSVP to leaders[at]ukjournalism.ac.uk .

If you can't be there in person, there are other ways to join the discussion.

You can post your questions and comments on this site, or you can view the live Webcast by logging in as a guest at: http://breeze01.uclan.ac.uk/journalismleadersforum/. Better still, do both. And let's get the discussion going.