Live Coverage
CNW Breakfast with the Media: The Multimedia News Evolution
Chris Hogg, Anjali Kapoor, and Sarah Millar talk about why multimedia is essential for delivering news today. Panel discussion moderated by CNW Group President and CEO Carolyn McGill.
- Good morning! Welcome to the CNW Breakfast with the Media. Lauren here (bright and early). The discussion kicks off in about half an hour, after we all grab some grub and coffee.
Here are the bios for today's speakers, as supplied by CNW:
Chris Hogg is the CEO of Digital Journal, a global digital media news network. Chris is widely recognized as both a pioneer and leader in new media, having built one of the largest and most active user-generated content networks with tens of thousands of contributors in 200 countries around the world. Chris is also co-founder of the Future of Media speaker series, a widely followed speaker series dedicated to following the evolution of journalism, news and media. You can follow him @chrishogg.
Anjali Kapoor is the Managing Editor, Digital at The Globe and Mail where she oversees the editorial digital strategy for Globe and Mail sites.
Previously, Anjali held the position of Director, Product & Editorial at Yahoo! Canada where she was responsible for overseeing the product strategy and business goals of the Media Group. With a background in journalism, Anjali’s main focus for the past ten years has been within the digital industry in Canada. Her main areas of expertise are user/audience experience, content development and product strategy. She has worked for Microsoft Canada, Transcontinental Media, Sun Media (Canoe) and Rogers.
Sarah Millar is a web editor at the Toronto Star. Even in her downtime, Sarah can be found online — usually navigating the Twitter-verse, exploring Tumblr and doing some part-time blogging. In the past, Sarah has worked for Sun Media, the National Post and the Hamilton Spectator, among others. Follow her @sarah_millar.
Moderator bio: Carolyn McGill is President and Chief Executive Offer of CNW Group. Carolyn joined CNW in 1999 as Director of Marketing and New Product Development. She held progressively senior positions in a variety of business units which included human resources and sales. Carolyn joined the CNW Group Board of Directors in 2003 and was appointed President and Chief Executive Officer in 2008.
Carolyn leads the Senior Management Team in establishing the strategic direction for CNW Group and in ensuring that CNW maintains its leadership position in news distribution and management in the Canadian marketplace. - And we're off!
- Intro: "Today multimedia is not only a nice-to-have, but a must"
- Mod Q1 from McGill: From a reporting and news gathering perspective what has changed?
- Hogg: What hasn't changed? The digital media landscape has changed everything
- Hogg says one of the of the biggest challenges is "being everywhere at the same time."
- Millar: For breaking news it's digital first ... but it's not about first to the finish line, it's about accuracy.
- Millar: "Deadlines no longer exist." It's now about being as possible.
- Q2: What can a PR executive do to adapt to digital first?
- Kapoor: It is 24-7 ... having a 9-5 deadline is not going to work for most journalists.
- Hogg: "To understand headspace of a media professional ... there are new challenges digital first presents."
Now, Hogg has us pulling out our phones, asking for us to call office and ask about him. Then points out, most of the time he won't be out of his desk. Then asks us to email him (with a smartphone, of course) and ask what his favourite gadget is, then points out he probably won't have time to answer. But Twitter? The answer was already up there. Exercise shows how the way journalists communicate is changing. - Millar: No longer days when journalist had luxury of doing one story a day. We're not sitting by the phone waiting for you to call. We're not.
- Q3: Harder to get coverage? How do you do it?
- Kapoor says at the end of the day it's still about a really good story.
- Hogg: "It's about conversation" not so much the PR pitch any more
- Hogg: One of the things I still get [on email] is "hey you" or "hey there" ... Check out this revolutionary product that's going to change the industry. Delete ...Understand what we have to do, what we have to write ... then helping us communicate this.
- Millar: I get 500-600 emails a day. She says this makes a face-to-face meeting, or building a relationship, more important than ever
- Q4: How does multimedia fit into newsgathering today?
- Hogg: It's everything ... from the business sense: having a photo on a separate page is another page view. It's another way to monetize.
- Kapoor says one of the challenges for reporters is they have to adapt to a lot of different skills. If you're a journalist you know what makes a good story, but how do you report it is the question: iPhone, web, Twitter, etc.
- Millar: The fact that it's so easy now to make a video ... I think that's the key here: If ordinary Joe can do it, we need to be doing it too.
- Hogg: With multimedia, you want to look at what interests you. Two guys patting each other on the back, holding a plaque: nobody is interested in that ... You have to understand how we tell stories
- Q5: What if I don't have videos, are editors still interested in my news?
- Kapoor: I will reiterate: I think it's about the story
- Millar: If there's no story at the heart of something, no matter how pretty you present it, it's not going to work
- Q6: What are your thoughts around RSS feeds?
- Millar: "I think they're key. Not every journalist uses them, or knows what they are, but many do." And, she says, they are useful. "Just makes it easier so it's a one-stop shop for me in the morning."
- Hogg: How PR relates to RSS? No way ... it's far more effective in my mind to curate through a Twitter stream.
- "With the iPad , text has become a beautiful form of consumption" #cnw breakfastby star_chronicles via twitter 4/15/2011 12:36:16 PM
- Kapoor: It's not that journalists don't want to interact, you just have to use the medium they're using
- Audience question time!
- Q: Clearly, this is an area that's changing very, very quickly. What is the next great trend?
- Millar: I think the media deals with the same problem, especially newspapers ... If you want to do something new go Tumblr ... That's how you find this things, play with them, look at what other people are doing ... It's not about being cool, or being hip ... If your audience isn't there there's no point in you being there. Because you'll just be one voice in an echo chamber
- Kapoor: I find Facebook very relevant to certain audiences. You have to think: Who are you talking to?
- Hogg: When you approach social media you need to understand how it works.
- Q: I'm curious how you deal with Twitter. How do you decide who you're going to follow, and what is it you're looking for in the Tweets?
- Millar: I live and breathe Twitter ... it's on my phone, it's everywhere I go. You need to follow what works for you. It's about the conversation that's had, because it is a conversation.
- Hogg: On Twitter person A has to follow person B to send a direct message. Someone on Twitter is easier to get in touch with ... "Pick the journalist you want to engage with," follow them, even if they don't follow you back, he says, for that one day they need to DM you.
- Kapoor: "Curation is very important to us." If you just let the stream happen, sometimes it's not relevant to everybody.
- Q: Curious about mood: getting news online, but not willing to pay for it
- Hogg: The buzz word right now is gamefication: make news like a game, keep them coming back
- Hogg says media is never going to go away because there's so much of it. We've never seen as much content as we have now. Now it's about curating it, finding what's relevant, etc.
- Kapoor: At the Globe and MAil we really want to know what our audience is, and what they're reading ... and we want to be relevant. When we're developing real time journalism, we're thinking about that all the time: How are you going to get that quickly? ... We really do think in real time ... You're going to need to get your information somewhere.
- Globe thinks about how to curate social media rather than making people just scroll through a Twitter widget. - @akappy #CNWby davefleet via twitter 4/15/2011 12:54:39 PM
- Hogg: From a citizen journalism viewpoint, the power of the individual should never be underestimated ... understanding that everyone is a news media organization now. You have to make sure you're in the places where the conversations are happening, because [otherwise] you might not even know those conversations are happening.
- Q: Are news releases still relevant?
- Kapoor says, yes, but the expectation is you should still be on Twitter and other social media
- McGill says: A news release is content, but also package of information. It used to travel on something called a wire, and that still exists, but increasingly it goes on Twitter, and YouTube and all types of things. Journalists are using hundred and thousands of ways of getting to information, she says, and PR executives need to know this, because at the end of the day it's very much based on personal preference.
- Hogg: You never know what piece of the PR pie, journalists are going to eat
- Q: Is it OK just to tweet and not send out traditional media advisory re: events?
- Millar: If I'm not following you and you just send out a tweet, there's no guarantee I'm going to see it. You have to make sure it's being RT enough, or that you mention them in a tweet. Going twitter alone I think would be a very hard way, it's a great companion
- Hogg: You have to communicate in as many places as possible, because that's what we have to do
- And we're done. A video of the event will be available from CNW sometime next week. Stay tuned!
J-Source and ProjetJ are projects of The Canadian Journalism Foundation in collaboration with leading schools and organizations across Canada. Editor-in-chief, J-Source: | |||
Recent Posts
2012-05-16 12:30
2012-05-16 10:53
On Rob Ford, Daniel Dale and Fencegate: Journalists, stand together for access to information
Deux nouveaux médias québécois: Les News et Le République
Call for submissions for the 2012 Dave Greber Freelance Writers Awards