Second day of Journalism in Crisis

Day two of the Journalism in Crisis conference organised by the University of Westminster gas started, with a session on citizen journalism opening in the Old Cinema, and a counterpoint to yesterday’s “Glasses Half Full” workshop.

These will be followed by sessions on the relation between journalism, politics and the financial crisis.

The day will be capped off with a session by Nick Pollard, former head of Sky News, and a final inaugural lecture by BBC Director General Mark Thompson.

You have many ways to follow the action. A multi-media coverage has been set up where:

• students from the University will be blogging live on Westminster News Online
• a livestream broadcast has been arranged so that anything said or shown in the Old Cinema will be available online
• photographs will be taken throughout the day and published on the University’s Flickr account
• and since new technologies are at the centre of many discussions, there will also be “tweets” posted on Westminster’s Twitter account.

Investigative Journalism Workshop

Mr. Paul Lashmar spoke on the decline of investigative journalism across all media, but with some hope for the future.

Presenting some thourough research, Mr. Lashmar said that only 75 to 125 investigative journalists are employed at any one time, “scattered across the media.”

While television-based investigative journalism is in decline after a boom of investigative-based programs in the 90s, radio is “actually holding up in the midst of all this. Newspapers are seriously in trouble… It is Radio Four that does most of the investigative journalism.”

He said that The Sunday Times have laid off almost all their investigative journalists, while the Observer and the Independent have stopped doing it on a regular basis.

The BBC, he said ‘will be the umbrella under which Investigative journalism will survive’. However, this raises questions as to whether the BBC is the best location for this 4th estate journalism to survive.

Better Locations

Showing better models, he mentioned ProPublica, a foundation-based investigative journalism organisation, and Spot.US, a Californian organisation.

These organisations supply a huge net of contacts through which they can sell their stories to bigger media institutions.

However, the legal environment in the UK puts both of these models at risk: technically, the donors are the publishers of the investigations, and they are the ones exposed to lawsuits.

A Brighter Future?

Mr. Lashmar did end on a good note however, mentioning Global Radio News, a London based agency which “dots journalists around the world”, making them available to institutions who want to conduct investigations, as well as creating a global community of knowledge.

Hayian Wang followed Mr. Lashmar’s speech with research on five Chinese newspapers reporting on corruption in the Chinese government, and comparing the relatonship between the media and the government as “clientelism”.

She concluded that the more independent the newspapers, the higher the number of articles on investigations concerning the governments. But why do these papers wait to publish the investigations?

Questions and Answers:

To conclude, a Q&A session brought up an interesting point on the Spot.US model of investigative journalism. A question from the floor mentioned that any single donor can only contribute 10% to an investigation.

Mr. Lashmar said that the Spot.US model is tricky, but then, it seems to be among the most succesful.

A ‘glorious’ future for ‘good’ magazines

Despite the growth of online news sites, “good” printed magazines will continue to flourish, according to a panel of media professionals.

At the New Media Knowledge (NMK) event, Mike Soutar, the founder and Managing Director of Shortlist, a free men’s lifestyle magazine said: “Magazines do a number of things other media can’t do. The experience can’t be replicated.”

Simon Wear, chief operating officer of Future UK, a company that publishes over 150 specialist titles agrees. “I think the future is glorious,” he said. “Good magazines will always have a place.”

He thinks the current downturn will even have a positive effect on the magazine industry.

“Consumers have been given too much choice and the quality has dropped,” he said.

When the PlayStation II was launched, 13 PlayStation magazines appeared on the market.

But with the credit crunch Simon believes only the ‘quality’ magazines that know their audience will survive.

“It’s all about remembering who you are. Stop being a software company and start being a content company.”

Publishing online

The problem with publishing magazines online is that they do not make money. Ashley Norris, Director of Shiny Media, says that consumers do not want to pay to view articles online.

John Menzies Digital sells online versions of the top 100 magazines, but only manage to sell 80-100 of each magazine per week.

Ashley Norris also points out that advertisers are often disinclined to pay large sums for adverts that are not really looked at.

He realises this is an issue but remains positive. “People are ad blind to a degree but it’s about working with the brands to create ads that are interesting to look at and grab the imagination of the reader”, he says.

Internet role?

Andrew Davies, co-founder and Managing Director of Idiomag, thinks online advertisements can play a huge part in helping magazines to get to know their audience. Software can track which adverts users click on and how long they look at them, thus helping to determine what the audience is interested in.

“You have to meet the user where they are. You might be publishing to the mass but you have to involve the individual. You have to know your audience,” he said.

So while publishing magazines online might not be overly profitable, it is extremely useful.

Story by Alexandra Murphy