Visions and Facts about the Future of Journalism at the GEN News Summit 2013
Some of the world's leading journalism thinkers and practitioners got together at the GEN News Summit in Paris last week to discuss the future of their industry. The three-day conference featured talks on topics as diverse as drones, real-time storytelling, and newsroom incubators. All of them outlined challenges that media organisations will face in the upcoming months.
More use of mobile and tablet, but...
Two of the presentations put some facts and figures around these challenges. One was by David Levy and Nic Newman of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism who presented the Digital News Report 2013. The researchers showed how news consumption on mobile and tablet devices has grown rapidly within the last year.
However, growth varies between different countries. In Denmark, for example, 43 percent of people now use their smartphone to consume news, while only 22 percent of readers do so in Germany.
Habits of news consumption vary between age groups as well. People between 18 and 44 say that the web is their main source of news. For those who are 45 or older, it is still TV.
The Digital News Report 2013 also provides some numbers on paying for news online. The researchers found that "[w]hilst 50% of our global sample (average) said they had bought a printed newspaper in the last week, only 5% said they had paid for digital news in the same time period." The reason may be that most news sites currently don't charge for their content.
The past won't buy the future
Another very noteworthy talk at the GEN News Summit was by John Payton, CEO of Digital First Media. He argued that journalism's past won't tell publishers how to be successful and profitable in the future:
"Our future isn't going to look anything like our past. If you rely upon the past for your future projections the only thing you are truly determining is the date and time of your demise."
Payton uncompromisingly focusses on business numbers when talking about the future of publishing. For his own company, he calculated that if it doesn't change its path, "$1 of operating profit will turn into $0.56 of loss in 5 years". Assuming that these numbers are likely to look similar for other media organisations, Payton urges them to take risks and to switch to a digital first strategy immediately.
On the right track
The GEN News Summit confirmed Sourcefabric's conviction that the platforms, channels and devices on which news live will increase in number and be subject to constant change. Content creation has to adapt to novel consumption settings and reading habits. Consequently, media organisations will have to adjust or even reinvent their business models. Our open source newsroom software aims to assist them in tackling these challenges.
- Find out more about Superdesk, our software for managing newsrooms and their content.