Digital First

DIGITAL FIRST

THE EDITORIAL CONVERGENCE THAT MADE PRINT MEDIA SURVIVE IN INDIA

By SHAJAN C KUMAR

The halcyon days of the traditional media are now clearly over.

The media has now entered an exciting phase that is seeing rapid developments due to the integration of technology with the newsroom workflow. This convergence is creating an intriguing newsroom eco-system that is bound to take up journalism several notches up. The enmeshing of different platforms is a daunting task, one which may throw up unexpected challenges.

However, the road ahead can only be traversed when proper harmony between print and digital platforms take place. While digital is certainly the future of journalism, but it needs to standon the broad shoulders of the print masters. This media convergence has two-fold benefits – one is the sharing of news gathering resources and the other is to give a better experience to the readers. Editorial Convergence (EC) is clearly an ambitious effort that needs all the stakeholders to be onboard. As media houses grapple with the impact of the Corona virus pandemic, an integrated newsroom offers them an opportunity to have a leaner and more efficient news eco-system. This paper explores how convergence can be carried out and it also looks at the benefits and challenges of having an integrated newsroom. This paper focuses on the digital world and it postulates that the next big thing in media is going to be newsrooms without barriers and boundaries. This paper will also throw light on the significance of developing a better newsroom system that takes into consideration a relatively modern approach to help print media survive in India.

Keywords: Convergence, editorial, integrated newsroom, technology, digital, survival of print, social media, fact checking.

The rapid spread of the Corona virus has created a situation that has no precedent in our living memory. The economy is in shambles and journalism has been deeply and adversely impacted (Gupta 2020). The road ahead looks dark, bleak and dreary. Newspapers lost their advertisement revenue. The circulation also came down as many stopped buying newspapers in fear of ‘coronavirus’ spread. Even after World Health Organisation (WHO) clearing the doubt of ‘coronavirus’ spread through newspapers many did not resume buying the newspaper.

Yet, this dark cloud has also shown a silver lining, giving us an opportunity to think of ways to streamline the news operations so that it becomes quicker and more efficient. The user experience is a key factor that needs to be kept in mind while looking out for systems that can improvise upon the existing media bulwark. In the 15th century, when German inventor Johannes Gutenberg developed the printing press, it revolutionised the mass production of books – and the workflow remained practically unchanged for the last six centuries (Kipphan, 2001).

The system in place worked like this. The information would be scripted, printed and then the final product would be distributed. But all that began to change in the 21st century with the advent of internet that ushered in an era of digital ecosystem (Fling 2009). In the last 10 odd years, there has been a noticeable shift towards the digital world and journalism has been breathlessly trying to keep pace. In a way, technology quietly crept in and began to shake the conventional print media that had been practicing a similar workflow for the last 600 years.

It was abundantly clear that the only way out was to find a common ground on which a media house could maintain its print media functions and simultaneously run its digital media operations. That newsroom workflow was convergence – a pleasant synchronisation of two diverse worlds onto a single platform (Stavelin, 2014).

The integrated newsrooms were that common ground on which stood print as well as digital media. This was the future of newsroom workflow where journalists shared their effort and energy in two distinctly different eco-systems. The newsroom of the yore in which the journalists would file stories in the evening, and it would edit before the newspaper would go to bed late at night was over. The pace of news and news generation had changed, and it had considerably speeded up.

Now, the journalists would have to quickly file an initial report that would be used on the digital platform. As the story developed, the inputs would be weaved into updated stories.

The final story of the day would be for the print edition. This convergence threw up its own set of challenges that the media houses worked hard to smoothen.

The Covid-19 has only hastened the process of change that had already begun. It has telescoped developments that would have perhaps taken a few years to come. The emergence of convergence is arguably the best way forward for the media houses to not just survive, but also to thrive.

The challenges Change is always constant. And it takes time to cope with it. The journalists working at the print desks were asked to multi-task for the digital platform. Initially it was difficult for them to understand the technicalities of the digital world. But in due course of time they learned it.

Though the basics of journalism was same with 5Ws and 1H, the writing style needed some adjustments to suit the requirements of online platforms. The newspaper websites needed to move from the usual practice of copy pasting their content. They started rewriting the content to appeal more to the younger audiences of their website.

News stories had to be supported by more visuals. Some also demanded support of Infographics. Reporters started looking for exclusive audio and video clips to enhance their story impact. All these needed technical skill upgradation.

The Hindustan Times was the first newspaper in India to experiment with ‘Digital First’. Every content they produce will now go digital first. The reporters will have to start with an introduction of the story which will be flashed on their Mobile App and subsequently go on the news web portal. All stories will have live updating, as and when it requires.

They constituted a Central Desk which comprised of selected staff members of all their publications. That included Mint, the financial newspaper and Dainik Hindustan, the Hindi newspaper. The Digital First model proved to be a right solution for the survival of print media in India. Almost all newspaper publishers adopted it without wasting any time. They set up separate Convergence News Desks for this purpose. Journalists were re-skilled to take up their new job responsibilities. When the world was witnessing closing of many print publications in the West, India has clearly bucked that trend and is still going strong with it.

The benefits The digital first approach is getting its due attention. Many publishers have already begun to restructure their news desk spaces. Once it is done, they will move to the hardware and software upgradation.

As all Indian newspaper groups has good quality manpower base, it will be easy for them to achieve their goals.

The ultimate benefit of editorial convergence went to the working journalists who otherwise would have lost their jobs.

It was just a matter of up-skilling and adopting to a new normal.

The cost implications of developing quality content came down as the same content was used on multiple delivery platforms.

Maximum utilisation of manpower and machine power made the productivity standards up. Good quality became a habit for everybody.

Along with the digital first plans, the convergence news desks have started doing fact checks of their stories before publishing (Robinson 2011). This practice has reduced the floating of fake news from mainstream media. The huge network of reporters made the newspaper groups easy to work on fact checking.

The other benefit which made a difference is the connect to the social media. The digital first content was made available on all social media platforms. A new section of people started reading content from these platforms. And they are the people with strong opinions! Many newspaper websites went on ‘paid subscription’ model during Covid-19 lockdown to sustain their revenues. People in India now started paying for content online and they were doing it happily to support their favourite newspaper to survive in this bad time.

The editorial convergence model will surely bring in more opportunities of revenue to the newspaper publishing industry.

One such is through conducting ‘webinars’ in different reader interest areas. These webinars can be sponsored by stake holders with similar interest to the subject matter. It will be a win-win situation for both the participating parties and the newspapers.

The technology Every other day technology is changing.

From the hot metal typesetting the technology has moved to computers for printing. Lot of time has been saved from the production of a newspaper. And that time is now being used to update the news to the latest. And now with the digital first approach the same pre-production technology can be partially used for developing content for multiple delivery systems (Mauthe 2004). With simple tweaking of technology, content can be developed for multiple platforms.

Indians have always loved printed newspapers. Their lifestyle has always been like that. In the early morning hours along with a cup of tea or coffee they read their newspapers. In some cases, multiple people read the same newspaper, dividing the pages according to their likings. Like the youngsters read the sports page and the elderly, the political news!

Most of our publishing houses have invested huge money on technology. The modern printing facilities allows them to print quality newspaper in huge numbers within hours. This made circulation of the newspapers easy.

Delivery on Time (DoT) is an important and crucial aspect of newspaper publishing. In India, it is being addressed very carefully. The success of distribution network depends on it.

Latest by 4:30 am all the printing should be complete. Then the copies need to be packed in bundles with labels put on it. They are then loaded to the delivery vans. Most of these works are done mechanically and there is no need for human contact.

During the spread of Covid-19 there were doubts on spreading virus through newspapers. This allegation was shot down by World Health Organisation. Public health experts have repeatedly stressed about the safety of newspapers. The same design packages are used to work for print and digital media.

Digitalization of Photo Archives is a must when moving to the digital first scenario. There are thousands and thousands of exclusive news photographs. Refining them to better quality, meta tag with proper captions to make it easy for search performances is a good investment by itself. Some pictures need restoration, practically from scratch.

The editorial convergence has innovated content planning processes at many news desks (Meier 2007). The stake holders started working in more coordinated manner. Every story idea is now conceived with proper understanding of the reader’s needs.

The content development is happening in multiple options. It is not limited to text and photographs alone, but reporters are hunting for exclusive audio and video clips.

Apart from investigative journalism, data journalism is also gaining interest. Data is available everywhere, but analysing it to the public consumption is a difficult task. The young breed of journalists is doing it with full conviction. Lot of hard work is put into this new area of interest!

Case study The Hindustan Times group was the first newspaper group in India which worked on the Convergence of Editorial functions, focusing on Digital First. The first task was to integrate the editorial workflow to multi-channel output resources. Content must be served to different channels as and when it is required.

It is a 24/7 process.

“We must look at print, web, television, Apps, mobile and much more with a focus on digital first! Though we will be focusing on digital media, we still believe that print is going to survive in India for many more years. The revenue generation scope from print is still high. Digital media must find its ways to greater revenue models.

Yes, we know that the young generation loves digital media and we want to cater to that segment too. Probably in a very strong way”, said Mr. Anoop Gupta, who was heading the Convergence Project of Hindustan Media Group.

There was scope for re-design of print products to fit to the specificc platform needs to be done in a focused manner. From the print to the website, television and multimedia channels that will synchronise the content flow to the satisfaction of the end user. Need lots of feedback gathered before working on a prototype. Then it must go for verification.

The Hindustan Times group’s Digital First project with a focus on editorial convergence really worked well. The team pooled from all the publications sat together and worked in tandem to achieve the desired impact. Branding is the major initiative that must be taken sensitively while re-launching any product.

And E-Branding is the in-thing in communication industry. It starts with ATL and BTL advertisement campaigns, Online polls to e-debates and online contests. All possible Social Media Marketing tools available can be used for this purpose.

What’s happening in western media In western media many of the print publications have shut down. Unlike in India, their distribution models were different. They were not focusing on the subscription model which is very popular in India. Stand sales are difficult in the time of pandemic and lockdown.

The real decline of newspaper reading interest among the youngsters has been a concern, as the industry has faced slump in advertisement sales, the loss of much classified advertising and precipitous drop in circulation. In recent years, newspapers’ weekday circulation fell 27% and Sunday circulation fell 34%, both showing their greatest declines since 2014.

Overall, the industry continues to shrink, with Editor & Publisher’s Data Book listing 1,156 fewer daily newspapers in 2020 than in 2014. To survive, newspapers are considering combining the supplements to the main editions and other options, although the outcome of such decisions has been criticised.

Recommendations The recent trend of digital first with a focus on editorial convergence will help print media survive in India. Both the print and digital media can go hand in hand if the content evelopment is planned properly. Indian print publishing industry is moving in that direction only. For some time, they are even suspending their print editions. But the websites are updated regularly. The e-publications are coming out without fail. Print publishing house can set up digital content freelancing units to support their additional content requirements (Klinenberg 2005).

Grassroots journalism can be promoted in collaboration with specific government projects. Rural journalism has many takers.

These are those content that can be used by the readers. User Generated Content (UGC) can be a source of raw content.

But it should only be used under strict verifications. They also need to be remunerated for better performance. There can be native advertisements across the platform. These should be informed to the readers in a specific design and style. Newspaper in Education scheme can now go digital. At the time of pandemic, it is very important to support the government with quality content for school education. Newspapers can do it easily.

References Fling, Brian. Mobile design and development: Practical concepts and techniques for creating mobile sites and Web apps. " O'Reilly Media, Inc.", 2009.

Gupta, Mrinal, et al. "COVID�19 and economy." Dermatologic therapy (2020).

Klinenberg, Eric. "Convergence: News production in a digital age." The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 597.1 (2005): 48-64.

Kipphan, Helmut, ed.

Handbook of print media: technologies and production methods. Springer Science & Business Media, 2001.

Mauthe, Dr Andreas. Professional Content Management Systems Handling Digital Media Assets. John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2004.

Meier, Klaus. "Innovations in Central European newsrooms: Overview and case study." Journalism Practice 1.1 (2007): 4-19.

Robinson, Sue. "Convergence crises: News work and news space in the digitally transforming newsroom." Journal of Communication 61.6 (2011): 1122-1141.

Stavelin, Eirik. "Computational Journalism. When journalism meets programming." (2014).

Shajan C Kumar is a Media Educator experimenting on Interactive Digital Communication Techniques connecting to the world of Social Media.

He is an experienced Design Editor based in New Delhi. Has worked with The India Today Group, The Indian Express Group, The New Indian Express Group and HT Media Group. He actively participated in the launch of 'Mint', the business daily from the HT Media group in an exclusive partnership with The Wall Street Journal. During this time, he had the chance to work closely with the world renowned Visual Journalist Dr. Mario Garcia (Sr.) and his team.An expert in design software packages like QuarkXpress, InDesign, iRite pagination system, Methode Pagination system, Illustrator, Freehand, Photoshop and CorelDraw.

Shajan has experimented with new techniques on Information Graphics.

He has won the first Ejourno & Syntel Fellowship to work on 'Impact of Internet on visual Journalism'.Shajan is an empanelled Designer with NID, Ahmedabad. and Member of the Society of News Design and Young Readers Network. He has taken classes on News Design at Madras Christian College; Chennai, Asian College of Journalism; Chennai, MASCOM; Kottayam, Indian Institute of Mass Communication, New Delhi and NID, Ahmedabad. He has also conducted an IFRA workshop on News Design.

Interactive Journalism and Newspaper in Education are the two favorite subjects of Shajan and he is researching on them. Developing new tools for better and ethical journalism is the dream project. He has also presented a paper in a web seminar conducted by The Pennsylvania State University on Best Practices in Journalism Education series (Protocols for a design team).