Video 101: Platypus instructor Rolf Behrens, standing, assists Dan Trevan of the San Diego Union Tribune, Gail Fisher of the Los Angeles Times and Ken Kobre, photojournalism professor at San Francisco State University, in editing their video during the second Platypus Workshop at the University of Oklahoma. (Photo by Mike Harmon.)

"Right now, a computer user with an Internet connection can have delivered to his computer, through a portal site, a customized newspaper of sorts that reflects his interests. With the tracking provided by cookies, the ads that appear on the portal are also customized to reflect the tastes of that particular person. So in a sense, everyone, through software, has become a newspaper publisher. The sooner newspapers recognize this fact, and the quicker adjust and adapt to it, the better off they will be."

-- George Powell

Print, web & video -- papers in a multimedia revolution

Are U.S. newspapers on the cusp of a fundamental change? Are we about to become the purveyors of news in multiple media -- motion video and audio as well as ink-on-paper?

In an effort to clear the air, we convened a "virtual roundtable" of Cole Groupies -- writers and consultants -- to discuss the topic. Though some people actually talked to one another, for the most part the participants used e-mail to exchange ideas.

Those participating included Steven E. Brier, John Bryan, Mike Middlesworth, George Powell, Garrett Queen, Jay Small and Pete Wetmore. The editor and publisher of this journal served as moderator.

Cole: Some newspapers -- Chicago, Orlando, Sarasota, Tampa -- are building "multimedia" newsrooms, where TV (be it broadcast or cable,) print and on-line editors sit side-by-side and make coordinated assignments for all three media. In the near future, will all newspapers need editorial staff with the versatility to be able to file stories in all three media? Will the newspaper operation become more like a wire service?

Wetmore: All newspapers may need such a versatile staff, but only papers with the critical mass to get into video will put such a staff to work. Papers the size of The News Gazette [a 44,000-circulation evening paper in Champaign-Urbana, Ill., where Wetmore resides] aren't going to have the imperative to do this because the business model isn't going to support it on such a small scale. And papers of the 50,000 or less size aren't going to have the advertising base to support a streaming media web site. Moreover, in markets this size, the audience is truly local. While a broadcaster here can cover four urban areas of about 100,000 each, for a total of 400,000 pairs of eyeballs or more, those same urban areas are each served by a hometown newspaper.

Middlesworth: The approach currently being taken is wrong. It shouldn't be that the newspaper is doing things for the other media, it's that another group -- a local reporting agency -- should be overlaid on the existing operations. Nearly all reporting would be done be the agency and the product automatically routed to whichever of the outlets is going to use it. Shooters would produce both still and full motion video, reporters would do both written reports and stand-ups and each outlet would edit according to the needs of its customers. While each medium might have specialists -- columnists for the newspaper as an example -- even their work would be shared.

Small: At a minimum, it will become more like an old-time newspaper, with multiple edition cycles through the day. You can promise "continuous" or "24-hour" updating of an on-line service, but the real power for a newspaper comes from a fixed-edition distribution mechanism. That's e-mail in today's Internet world, probably something richer and more ubiquitous in the future.

Bryan: The connection with the wire service is apt -- first came words on paper, then the same reporters started taping "actualities" for the broadcast circuits. Now they're probably toting those small digital camcorders.

But I think Middlesworth has the emphasis wrong -- this whole thing is about leveraging an investment in newsgathering -- that means you don't overlay anything but some pancake makeup on the fevered brow of your best reporter just before you turn on the klieg lights.

Powell: Multimedia newsrooms, like all other newsrooms, will be built differently by different organizations, since the audience is indeed local, and the location means differences based on that location and the news organization's understanding of those locational differences. That said, organizations will rely on repurposing software to aid in tailoring stories for different media.

Queen: The larger question is are they going to run all their staff as a unit, or are they just going to pretend? Brier: I like the idea, but the products are just different enough that I don't see how it can work. I know people at all those papers, and they are very smart, but I just don't see it.

Cole: Will a paper be able to exist in the future without participating in the multimedia revolution? Does a "typical" daily -- a 20,000-circulation paper, which would have no more than two dozen editorial employees -- have the resources to competently develop and deploy good TV, good on-line and good print all at the same time? Is there a business model that allows those papers to expand their editorial staff to allow it to participate at this level?

Small: A paper of any size is capable of forming partnerships or networks for multimedia content. In most markets where newspapers have content-sharing arrangements with local broadcast media, the broadcasters seem more than willing to share their strengths (audio and video clips) in exchange for the newspaper's strengths (text and still images.)

Powell: Unless you are going to train journalists as intensively as the Navy does its SEALs, you can't have the level of multimedia sophistication on a small 20,000-circulation daily as you will have on a 200,000-circulation daily. Any business model that allows some level of sophisticated participation in a multimedia revolution will be based on that economic model that led to the virtual closing of the old back shop.

Brier: I don't think they can afford to participate in the revolution, at least by themselves. And I don't see anyone they can partner with. Do the towns with papers that size have TV stations? I don't think so. If they are near a big city, say one of the smaller papers in the New Orleans suburbs, they are going to have to fight like mad to keep their classified and display advertising and be the paper of record for school lunch menus, police reports and the like. Any pretense as journalism is out the window.

Queen: Small niche papers will survive as long as they are serving that community, but I believe the advertising base will erode. What about the legals going away, the lunch menus to the Web. Nothing -- like a classified -- that I a single item sale is worth it in the daily paper. After you make the sale, it's not worth it. Why did you waste the paper? Why did you waste the ink? Mass media advertising is of limited value. All these tools are coming forward that allow our advertisers to clearly target their audience. Mass advertisers are not going to need us.

Wetmore: A paper will be able to exist in the future without participating in the multimedia revolution, but it may not be a daily. Or it may be a daily serving a niche audience, which could be an entire community. The multimedia component is important if the audience can be quantified and sold, which is not easy now.

Middlesworth: Yes, there are business models that will allow participation. Kingsport, Tenn. And Lewiston, Idaho, come to mind. They've found ways to participate on the Web. That does not mean newspapers would be competitive economically, however, without a sea change in the way markets are viewed and advertising is sold. Newspapers have always approached advertising sales as "selling space." It's time for media companies to recognize that they're selling "eyeballs" and figure out ways to get more of them to sell at a reasonable cost.

Cole: Assuming the above two questions are the case, how should we organize our workflow and staff? Are we going to compel some people to be multimedia gurus, or will we have pockets of expertise? For example, will the executive editor of a paper need to be versed in TV, print and on-line? Or can this person be a generalist -- albeit a generalist with a specialty in news coverage? If the leadership of the newsroom is generalists, will we then have pockets of specialists in the three media? How are we going to train existing staff? What qualities will we desire in new recruits?

Wetmore: Ideally, the reporter of the 21st century will continue to have a nose for news, good writing skills and the ability to dispassionately present what he or she observes. But like the copy editors who had to learn to use computers, first to edit text and then to lay out pages, reporters will have to become familiar with multimedia news presentation if they want to work in the big leagues or the farm teams serving the big-league papers.

What will sustain good journalism may lie in the origin of the evolving media. Television news is not newspapering, and vice versa.

Middlesworth: The chief or his or her news supplier should have at least a passing knowledge of all three media and should have staff, rather than line, managers for support in each area. Whoever runs the newspaper should be a newspaper person, just as the television operation would require a TV person.

Small: I lean toward the idea that senior news managers are journalistic generalists (or just plain generals,) who oversee the database of content developed by the newsroom. But you'll need pockets of expertise for each input to and output from that database.

Bryan: The brass at the top will have to establish a culture of that production of news products, a tone that says Web, newspaper, pagers, Palm Pilots and TV are all co-equals. Then the specialists who can produce in those media will take their places, and their talent will determine the quality of the whole enterprise. It's all journalism, folks. If the culture's right, the best people will be knocking on the door to get a venue to strut their stuff.

Powell: I agree with Small in that leaders of the new newsroom need to be generalists, with a passing familiarity with TV, print and on-line.

Brier: We don't do a good job organizing our staffs now. Why kid ourselves that we will do better later? I already packed my bags and went looking for a new career.

Cole: What does multimedia mean to the advertising side of the operation? Will photographers go out and shoot motion video of used-car salesmen? Will a classified customer be able to upload a QuickTime clip of his 1977 VW Super Beetle Convertible? Are there -- ahem -- synergies between the editorial use of multimedia and the advertising use of multimedia?

Middlesworth: Yes to all of the above. And we'll begin operating sales departments much more akin to advertising agencies. Our sales people will finally begin working for their customers in helping them choose the right mix of advertising for their business, which means that most newspaper ad salespeople will be looking for other lines of work.

Small: On the training side of the equation, yes. Someone learning to shoot and stitch panoramic Ifix images needs to learn the same things whether doing so for editorial or advertising purposes. But the deployment of multimedia components will look and feel as different as a news story versus a classified ad.

Bryan: Advertising is going to drive the multimedia -- the newsroom's going to be begging the advertising department to free up one of Small's Ipix photogs for a web assignment. Advertising, of course, will cross-charge the newsroom, which will complain, without effect, to the publisher. Isn't this where I came in?

Powell: Dangers lie there. Truth in labeling will certainly be important, so just as advertorials are supposed to be labeled in a magazine, infomercials, or whatever they may be called in the multimedia world will need to be properly tagged to maintain the news organization's credibility.

Brier: If we don't give customers a way to upload that video of the VW, we're hosed. Better yet, we'll have advertising cameramen and producers who will help with it. Of course, I don't have a clue how we'll pay for them, because we're dragging this huge paper-based beast behind us. Thomson and Ziff-Davis understand it best. Sell your print products to somebody else and concentrate on the new media.

Wetmore: It's hard to envision synergies between the editorial and advertising use of multimedia beyond the current practice at some smaller papers to have staff photographers take photos for either news or ads.

Cole: In Europe, the raging question is over what we call "front-end pagination" versus "back-end-pagination" (they call it "write-to-fit.") During the '80s and '90s, the desire was to have page geometry available down to the copy editor or reporter level. But in a multimedia newsroom, isn't the issue more of more of one where we should be concerned with the creation of the story so that it can be passed out to multiple media, rather than how it hyphenates and justifies. What are the qualities of traditional editorial front-end systems that currently exist that should be carried forward into the systems of the next decade, and what things should fall by the wayside?

Powell: The creation of a story should be the primary focus. I have always thought that writing to fit should be imposed only under the severest deadline pressure, when there is no time to design a layout around a story. Of course in the cyber world, length can be endless, but deadlines still remain. To be able to write a concise story in inverted pyramid style on deadline is still the benchmark of a good journalist, no matter where the story ends up.

Brier: In the new world order, the only quality you get from a traditional front-end supplier, is the ability to manage the process. But the process is now completely different, and like us, traditional suppliers are dragging that huge beast behind them. Most of the dog-and-pony shows I've seen at Nexpo and Seybold take little account of the new world, or pay it little more than lip service. We still need them, but they need to be integrators (what a concept) and build their products around off-the-shelf software and a honker of a database. What I see is the same guys who sold me PDP 11/70s and VAXs and J-11s trading in their cheesy suits for golf shirts and selling me the same old ball of wax. Did I mention we're hosed?

Bryan: I spent decades railing against Word and railing for the proprietary editor in systems like System Integrators -- and you can see the industry has carefully considered and ignored my objections. So it's Word, for better or worse.

Wetmore: U.S. journalists are not likely to turn from gathering news as extensively as possible to limiting the process based on how much space is available -- that flies in the face of the thoroughness that is or should be the hallmark of a quality newspaper. Leaving things out is far preferable to having to fill at the last minute.

Middlesworth: The editing engines certainly should be carried forward, if possible. Word is still not a good editor. Those that will succeed are those with object-oriented file management and sophisticated directory and routing engines.

Small: Cole is exactly right. It's like clarifying butter. We should be able to amass a superset of news and information, then skim off the layers we need for each output -- trim to fit for print; select only a few stories for a quick Palm interface; upload the entire batch for the Web site; send off our links in e-mail.

Cole: If newspapers become more like wire services, what is the future for the wires? The Associated Press set up a new group called "AP Digital" last month, which will attempt to build digital content for members' use -- but will this be too little, too late?

Middlesworth: If you don't have the wires, where are you going to get national, international and sports news? My guess is that "AP Digital" is just a new name for the project from a few years back when the AP talked of putting everything down a single pipe with pieces for various media all carrying the same identifier so they could be managed by topic rather than source or file type.

Small: The AP should long ago have headed down the path of offering packaged "streams" of its data for Web sites to fold in as they choose, rather than offering newspapers a private-label gateway to a site (The Wire) over which they have no editorial control.

Wetmore: The fact is that no one paper will be able to provide the aggregated news content that the Associated Press does for general news, Bloomberg News and Reuters do for business news and the supplemental services do for a select group of news niches.

Powell: The wires will be necessary, but the members of the coop might want to rethink how content, particularly content provided by the members is being reused on Web sites. If anything, wire services are proliferating, providing content for the ever-expanding number of content-hungry web sites.

Brier: The AP already sells newspaper content to [non-newspaper] web sites. I imagine AP will fill some of that digital stream with stuff from other AP members and make it available to non-news web sites, further hurting us. It's too little, too late for the newspaper industry, but fine for AP.

Bryan: I'd add, however, that AP's "streaming" concept isn't too late -- remember, you're buying newsgathering expertise; we're dickering about the delivery vehicle here. For domestic stuff, you can't touch AP's immediacy, which should only improve as the guys figure out the replumbing. For foreign, Reuters gets to places others can't and gets to a lot of the other stuff first. I think AP is moving late, but in time.

-- dmc

See also Dramatis personae

From THE COLE PAPERS, April 2000, Copyright © 2000, All Rights Reserved.