World Editors Forum's report released
The World Editors Forum unveiled its ninth report on the state of the news industry that shows the five key trends in the newsroom, including mobile, innovative storytelling, paid digital content, social media, and data and metric.
The rapidly growth of mobile device, tablets and smart phones, means the huge demand for good content that takes advantage of mobile attributes is rising. The news publishing therefore cannot ignore mobile said Erik Bjerager, the president of the World Editors Forum and editor-in-chief and managing Director of Denmark’s Kristeligt Dagblad at the World Newspaper Congress in Bangkok.
As tablet and smart phones sales have exploded during the past year, more people than ever are spending more time accessing news on their mobile devices. The demand for good mobile content is rising and is expected to keep rising in the near future.
Innovative storytelling is the second trend in newsroom. Currently, more news publishers start thinking in terms of multimedia elements from the beginning of the process rather than afterthoughts tacked on at the end.
Projects such as The New York Times’ recent Pulitzer Prizewinning story Snow Fall increasingly will become the norm as more news publishers start thinking in terms of multimedia elements from the beginning of the process rather than as afterthoughts tacked on at the end of it.
While, paid digital content seems likely to become the standard in many
parts of the world and can provide significant income. Although it no longer promises to be the “silver bullet” revenue solution that news organisations have been hoping for to replace declining print advertising revenue, paid digital content can provide a significant stream of income, and seems likely to become standard in many parts of the world.
And, social media is now widely used by journalists for finding stories and for distributing news, and as the first place to cover fast-moving stories.
Most organisations are now using social media both for finding stories and for distributing news. For breaking news during a crisis, social media is becoming the first place where many, particularly young people, go for updates. It is also becoming more common that a journalist’s first instinct when covering fast moving news is to tweet about it.
Last but not least, the data and metrics that is needed to be used by both journalists and data specialists not only for reporting but to understand traffic and reader habits. Analytic are increasingly becoming a tool used by journalists as well as by data specialists to understand traffic and reader habits. Using analytic isn’t strictly a way of interacting with your audience but it is a way to understand how your audience interacts with your content.
“While editors around the world continue to struggle with ongoing challenges relating to tight budgets and smaller newsroom staffs, we also see a number of trends that make our profession promising, interesting valuable,” said Bjerager.
The report is jointly published by WEF and the Shaping the Future of News Publishing Project of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA).
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