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Refresh Baltimore talks redesigning news, but what about the business model? [VIDEO]

While the news industry makes news articles more visually appealing, paying for journalism is still an unresolved question.

The panel at Refresh Baltimore, with Andrew Hazlett of gb.tc, on the far left, serving as moderator.

An unfortunate bicycle accident put Michael Cervieri of the Future Journalism Project out of commission for June’s Refresh Baltimore event on redesigning the news.
So local reinforcements were called in: journalists and editors representing USA Today, the Baltimore Sun, and The Futurist magazine, as well as Ben Kutil, who’s responsible for the design of the Baltimore Brew’s website.
And any assessment of the conversation that ensued last Wednesday evening should begin with the two rhetorical questions posed by Mary Nahorniak, social media editor of the USA Today, at the event’s start: “How can we get in front of readers? How can we make sure they’re paying attention to news?”
The Refresh Baltimore panel:

  • Mary Nahorniak, social media editor at USA Today
  • Olivia Hubert-Allen, deputy director of audience engagement at the Baltimore Sun
  • Adam Marton, senior editor of interactive design at the Baltimore Sun
  • Patrick Tucker, deputy editor at The Futurist magazine
  • Ben Kutil, graphic designer, MICA instructor, and builder of the Baltimore Brew website

Refresh Baltimore is the local version of a network of events that bring together the design community, led here by VIM Interactive community manager Sarah Jones.
Indeed, Nahorniak’s questions are two of the more pressing ones facing newsrooms today. Now that people are reading more news on tablets and smartphones, a publication — print or online — needs to do what it can to ensure their stories aren’t being lost in the deluge of Internet content that punches readers in the face every day.
That’s where compelling design usually intersects with reporting, as Adam Marton said.
“Create immersive experiences for people across different devices, and use design to drive content,” said Marton, the senior editor of interactive design at the Baltimore Sun.
The Sun has done some of this: even a cursory glance at the online version of a recent article on former Sparrows Point steel workers will leave an impression.
Watch the video from Redesigning the News:
[vimeo 69192270 w=400 h=300]
And while most of the talk at Refresh was about innovative, interactive new design online — with the requisite mentions of “Snow Fall,” the New York Times story heralded as the answer to every “26 Drunk Cats Line Dancing” post on BuzzFeed — the question of how news organizations, mainly newspapers, continue making money was inescapable.
Because of an increasing number of standards in online publishing, redesigning news delivery is a softer conversation than re-orienting the news industry. The panel said that readers are increasingly seeking:

  • Longform stories on uncluttered, minimalist web pages, accompanied by graphics, photos and some video.
  • Information that can be easily mapped, like the locations of area farmers markets, should be.
  • Photos alongside news articles, throughout the story, just above or just below the corresponding paragraphs.

In short, don’t make the online version of a print newspaper look like the print edition of a print newspaper.
But even a redesign of online news format won’t compel most visitors to read more than a few paragraphs of even the most pleasantly-designed stories, as Slate’s Farhad Manjoo pointed out in early June using analytics data from website traffic analysts at Chartbeat.
And implementing a platform-agnostic mobile site won’t necessarily keep afloat the New York Times: the Grey Lady’s advertising revenues fell 11 percent in Q1 of 2013.
In other words, let’s stop talking about redesigning of news. The next step is to talk about remaking the news industry’s business model.
As Columbia Journalism School’s 2011 report on the business of digital journalism observed, print publications (with online components) still rely on advertising revenue, and while newspapers’ “online revenue grew by more than 30 percent in both 2005 and 2006,” online revenue growth “came to a halt during the recession and still hasn’t fully returned to what it was in 2007.”
With the decimation of advertising revenues, where does that leave the news industry? As the evening continued, the Refresh Baltimore panel took on the business model of journalism head on.
“The future of journalism is a high-premium, paid, subscriber service, at a higher price,” said Patrick Tucker, deputy editor at The Futurist.
Despite Tucker’s credentials, we remain skeptical of micro-financing our way to investigative reporting (you know, the meaty stuff). Although he might be on to — something. The aforementioned Times has a relatively successful paywall, with 676,000 digital subscribers. Its circulation revenues rose seven percent in Q1 — not enough to overtake its drop in advertising dollars — but there’s time yet to have circulation dollars tick up before advertising takes a precipitous tumble.
Of course, that’s the NY Times. Smaller publications don’t have the audience to make up for the drop in ad revenues. (See: the New Orleans Times-Picayune.)
The challenge, then: remake the business model industry-wide and save journalism. Easy enough.

Companies: BuzzFeed
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