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Articles by: "Michelle Manafy, Editorial Director – DCN"

Industry-Research

Research shows that American voters support press freedom but miss signs it’s under threat

One of the fundamental tenants of the United States of America is that a robust free press is vital to an informed public. The good news is that an unequivocal majority of registered voters believe in the importance of a free press. However, many do not perceive that this crucial freedom is at risk. A new report, Press Freedom For the People, by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press set out to understand the public’s perceptions of press freedom at a moment in time when trust in the press remains low, and when the president of the United States regularly deems members of the press “enemy of the people” and refers to entire news organizations as “fake news.”

Through a series of focus groups and a 2,000-voter survey, the research found that there is a lack of urgency around the idea that press freedom is at risk here in the U.S. According to the report, 52% of voters do not see press freedom as under threat. The lack of perceived risk that was even higher when viewed through a partisan lens: 66% of Republicans and 56 %of Independents said they perceived little or no threat to the press, while just 38% of Democrats gave the same response.

As other studies have shown, trust in the national news media is low. Only 28% of registered voters report to have a great deal of trust in national broadcast news and only 23% say they have a great deal of trust in national newspapers.

Despite this lack of trust, nearly all voters (95%) agree on the importance of having a free press. Across party affiliation, the research found that an overwhelming majority believe it is important that the press be free in the United States, and most voters (76%) know that freedom of the press is a First Amendment right.

The research makes 6 suggestions that will help regain American’s trust:

1. Embrace the press’s role to inform.

Voters want a news media that informs them of the facts. They see this as the press’s highest value and a reason to defend the press. Underscoring the news media’s responsibility to inform the public is a far more convincing reason to defend press freedom than other frames, such as highlighting the role of the press in a democracy or even making comparisons to press treatment in other countries.

2.  Address the perception of bias.

Voters want to hear the news that presents the full story from all sides. Bias is one of people’s top doubts about the news media. They also do not want a news outlet that just gives them news that reflects their own point of view. Significantly, some respondents expressed concern that the need to profit from the news could cause biases while others worry that powerful owners and sponsors may affect the news.

3. Keep President Trump out of the press freedom conversation.

To effectively advocate across the political spectrum for protection of a free press, President Trump must be left out of the discussion. His mention polarizes focus groups participants immediately; both sides see him very differently. For right-leaning participants, he is holding the media to task and they are being unfair.

4. Build connections with conservative audiences.

While an overall plurality of voters believes calling for boos and other actions against journalists is never justified, 52% believe that politicians engaging in this behavior are just reflecting public frustrations. To reach voters who have lost trust, it is important to show that treatment of the press isn’t a Trump issue, but rather a serious deterioration of the ability of the press to inform. The survey data points to three key target Republican groups that may be most fertile to this message and suggests that influencing this segment can shift overall public perception.

5. Use the facts.

The lack of urgency around the threat against the press is a major finding from the research — and indicates an uphill battle in terms of mobilizing the public to support the media. However, there is some hope. Researchers found that introducing facts about the threat journalists currently face shifts voters’ view and impacts the urgency with which voters see the situation.

6. Promote accountability.

The resource found that most important thing the media can do to show they are a credible source is to acknowledge when they make mistakes and issue corrections. There is a sense that people are looking for real humility from the press, both in terms of how they deliver the news and inform, and in how they acknowledge any shortcomings or mistakes.

As Jenn Topper, Communications Director, Reporters Committee For Freedom Of The Press wrote in the report, the larger concern is that a combination of current factors will be chips at the First Amendment and its protections for a free and independent press. If the public is conditioned to accept these gradual limitations on press freedom as normal — and in some cases even echo the attacks themselves, rather than vigorously defend against them — we are in a precarious position. Media organizations need to proactively address issues of trusts and focus on their role to inform the public – including informing them about threats to freedom of the press.

Perspectives

DCN’s must reads: week of September 13, 2018

Here are some of the best media stories our team has read so far this week:

Perspectives

DCN’s must reads: week of August 9, 2018

Here are some of the best media stories our team has read so far this week:

Industry-Research

6 key takeaways from the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2018

This year’s Reuters Institute Digital News Report contains some signs of hope for the news industry. According to the report, “Change is in the air with many media companies shifting models towards higher quality content and more emphasis on reader payment.” However, as the report points out, these emerging trends are fragile, unevenly distributed, and are emerging in the wake of many years of digital disruption, which has undermined both consumer and publisher confidence.

Based on a YouGov survey conducted with 74,000 people in 37 countries, this is the seventh in an annual series of reports that track the transition of the news industry towards an increasingly digital and multi-platform future. Among the many challenges highlighted in the report is a low level of trust in the media in most countries and concerns about fake news. The business side continues to struggle despite a rise in reader revenue, as it has failed to offset continued declines in print and digital advertising revenue.

Here are 6 key takeaways from Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2018:
  1. The use of social media for news has started to fall in a number of key markets after years of continuous growth. Usage is down 6% in the United States and is also down in the UK and France.
  2. Globally, the use of messaging apps for news is on the rise. WhatsApp is now used for news by around half of the sampled users in Malaysia (54%) and Brazil (48%) and by around third in Spain (36%) and Turkey (30%).
  3. Across all countries, the average level of trust in the news in general remains relatively stable at 44%, with just over half (51%) agreeing that they trust the news media they themselves use most of the time.
  4. By contrast, 34% of respondents say they trust news they find via search and fewer than a quarter (23%) say they trust the news they find in social media.
  5. Last year’s significant increase in subscription in the United States (the “Trump Bump”) has been maintained. The average number of people paying for online news has edged up in many countries, with significant increases coming from Norway (+4 percentage points), Sweden (+6), and Finland (+4).
  6. Privacy concerns have reignited the growth in ad-blocking software. More than a quarter of consumers now block on any device (27%). More than four in ten (42%) now use blockers in Greece (+6) with significant increases in Germany (+5) and the United States (+4).

The report concludes that the many changes this year serve as a reminder that things that once seemed certain (such as the importance of Facebook and the online advertising model) can quickly shift. The entire space continues to rapidly evolve, with technologies like voice-activated interfaces and artificial intelligence are on the rise, which will bring new opportunities as well as challenges. While the future of news remains uncertain, the report does provide hope that quality content will be increasingly rewarded in the future.

Industry-Research

Online pay-TV customers will more than double in a year

New research from Parks Associates shows that 6% of U.S. broadband households are highly likely to subscribe to an online pay-TV service within the next 12 months, which would more than double the number subscribing today.

While traditional television subscriptions held quite steady from 2010 to 2015, they have declined year-over-year since 2015. Significantly, the percentage of households “cutting the cord” has increased between 2015 and 2017. Parks Associates also reports a larger number of “cord-never” households, though a much greater percentage of consumers are either testing new options or still in decision mode.

Why Consumers Cut the Cord

Price, cost, and low price/value perceptions dominate as reasons for pay-TV cancellation and cord shaving. More than 50% of households that have switched, shaved, or cut the cord in the 12 months prior to Parks Associates’ survey said that the reason is that their pay-TV service was not worth the cost. Parks Associates also found that about a third of cord cutters would have stayed with their service provider if offered a Netflix-style service bundled with broadcast TV channels.

Providers must replace revenues lost in the wake of fewer subscribers. However, only one-quarter to one-third of consumers are willing to pay more for their pay-TV services, even given the addition of highly appealing features.

Maintaining Customers & Sustaining Revenue

Thus, providers must prioritize consumer retention. Given that Parks Associates found that many pay-TV subscribers are unaware of the video on-demand (VoD) features available to them, pay-TV providers must do a better job in communicating VoD offerings, or they will lose consumer VoD viewing to online options. Providers should also consider adding the features that Parks Associates found are most appealing to digital video consumers (pause, restart, and rewind) for no extra cost in order to incentivize maintaining their pay-TV subscription.

The good news, according to Brett Sappington, Parks Associates’ Senior Director of Research, is that streaming is well-established, and consumers are familiar with its function, even without a deep understanding of the technology. And, while percentage of potential shavers and cancellers has risen, Sappington points out that many consumers are comfortable with what they have and not in a rush to change. This lapse provides providers and entrepreneurs openings for creative solutions to bring consumers ever closer to their ideal vision of price/value and feature excellence.

Innovation

USA TODAY’S Maribel Perez Wadsworth talks growth, innovation and taking on the industry’s biggest threat

USA TODAY recently named Maribel Perez Wadsworth as its publisher, the second woman to hold the title. Wadsworth, a Cuban-American, is the first person of color to serve as publisher. She adds this title to her current role as President of USA TODAY NETWORK, which she has held since November 2017. Maribel oversees the company’s consumer business. She formerly served as the company’s Chief Transformation Officer (2016) and Chief Strategy Officer (2015).

Here she discusses her new role, her strategy for growth and innovation at USA TODAY, and the biggest threat to the success of our industry.

How will your new role allow you to better lead the media brands at Gannett?

MPW: I’m excited to lead USA TODAY as publisher, cementing the important relationship that exists between our flagship national brand and our 109 local news brands. As president of the USA TODAY Network, I’m responsible for content, strategy and operations for all our media brands. This allows us to truly take a holistic approach to how we best serve our audiences and our communities. It also enables us to identify and scale new ideas and best practices. In addition, as we continue to expand our portfolio of niche brands, such as our recent majority investment in Grateful Ventures, we are well-positioned to comprehensively serve the news and information needs of our audiences with high quality content and experiences.

You’ve made a recent round of hires. Tell me about the type of talent you’ve added and what you are looking for to succeed in the news business today: 

MPW: I’m proud of the team we are building at USA TODAY. First, because we have such a strong base of talent to start. My first move was to name Nicole Carroll as editor in chief. Nicole is an ideal partner — an exceptionally talented, award-winning journalist and a highly competitive individual with great ambition for our journalism. We’ve also just added Jeff Taylor, formerly VP of News at the Indianapolis Star, as Executive Editor. And we’re realigning and adding resources around two key areas — investigative and enterprise coverage and digital storytelling. So, you’ll be seeing those teams expand and our hiring focus will be there. But in a nutshell, what I’m looking for in talent is people of diverse backgrounds with an inherent passion for doing good and winning at it. Skills can be taught or bought. The culture we’re building, that’s what’s special.

Tell me about your philosophy on creating the best news experiences for readers: 

MPW: We have to be focused on relevance, distinction and quality. That means we have to deeply understand who we serve — what do they need, what are they interested in, what do they most deeply care about. It means we have to be keenly attuned to who we are — what are our strengths, what do we do better than anybody else. And it means we have to make choices. If we are to consistently deliver on the excellence our customers deserve, we must choose where to focus and prioritize so we can truly do fewer things better.

What are the most important investments that news media organizations need to make to continue to meet the needs of today’s readers?

MPW: Our most important investment is in our people. We must ensure we are hiring great journalists and supporting their development. It is also critically important to build a culture of experimentation to continue to push the boundaries of digital storytelling.

At the USA TODAY NETWORK, that experimentation has focused on a few key areas — virtual reality and 360-degree video, including from an expanding drone journalism program; voice and audio more broadly as we more and more develop content for listeners; and augmented reality. Take a look at our augmented reality app 321 Launch, built in partnership between USA TODAY and Florida Today ‘s expert space coverage. The app allows you to track a live rocket launch in AR from any flat surface as a hologram shows you what the rocket is doing in real-time. There is also a launch simulation you can do any time and learn from our space experts as they guide you through rocket assembly, blast off and re-entry. It’s very cool and I hope you’ll check it out.

What is the biggest threat or challenge for the news business today and what advice do you have for publishers seeking to address it? 

MPW: The biggest challenge our industry faces today comes from the rapid rise of unregulated megaplatforms such as Facebook and Google. And not just from the obvious place of taking digital, especially mobile, advertising spend. These platforms are also in no small way responsible for an assault on truth and trust. Their algorithms naturally optimize their business results but do little to help consumers discern between quality, premium journalism, and fake content from questionable sources. In our business, we must focus on being customer-led not platform-driven. Our business cannot be dependent on the whims of a third-party platform’s strategy. As many have seen, chasing the algorithm can lead to dramatically inconsistent and potentially perilous results. Instead, our focus must be on building a strong, direct relationship with our audiences and that starts with quality and trust.

Innovation | Revenue

The strategy behind Slate’s engaging new design

Today, Slate unveiled a sweeping redesign that includes its logo, website, mobile, and events branding. But this redesign runs much deeper than a new aesthetic approach. Slate’s new look reflects the organizations’ emphasis on audience engagement over scale.

“Our last major redesign, in 2013, was at the height of the Facebook boom. Social was the driver.” That design was very successful, according to Slate’s editor in chief Julia Turner. However, like most websites, it prioritized social sharing over increasing user interaction and time on site.

The landscape has changed a lot since 2013. In fact, the only constant has been change—with traffic, audiences, and distribution largely reliant on the algorithmic whims of search and social platforms. This is evident in Facebooks recent decision to de-emphasize news articles and anything published by brands in user’s News Feeds. While many publishers are concerned over how the latest change will affect traffic, few are surprised.

Engagement versus Scale

However, the pursuit of likes and shares was just one symptom of a larger trend that dominated the thinking of digital publishers: the quest for scale. As Dan Check, the president and vice chairman of The Slate Group, describes it “social isn’t about increasing time spent on site; it is about touching more people. Scale is fundamentally the pursuit of uniques.”

According to Turner, “We began to see fairly early on—in late 2104, early 2015—that the pursuit of scale for scale’s sake, didn’t make sense for a brand like Slate.” In fact, last September the company moved to engaged time as its primary measure of success, which enabled teams across the organization to put loyalty at the forefront of their initiatives. “The Landscape has become inhospitable to cheap scale. But even more, it doesn’t suit our audience and values.”

The new design builds upon Slate’s commitment to understanding and serving its audience, which Turner describes as “a highly-informed omnivorous media consumer.” Given that they are looking for “sophisticated next-level analysis,” she said it was important that this new design help guide them to information that will offer a deeper contextual understanding of topics in Slate’s five verticals: News & Politics, Culture, Business, Technology, and Human Interests.

With the new design, regardless of whether the visitor is a regular or lands on a page via search or social, Check said “We wanted to give people stronger signposts and a better understanding of what they can expect from us.” The redesigned Slate (which doesn’t use a third-party recirculation partner) will “show people more relevant content and tell the story about who we are. For years, our message was ‘like us on FB, follow us on Twitter.’ Now, it is more about contextualizing what you’re seeing.”

Listening to Opportunity’s Knock

This, in turn, is intended to deepen visitors’ time-spent on the site and affinity for the brand, both of which translate into revenue opportunities. While Slate CRO Charlie Kammerer says that the company has been able to “baseline monetize purely with our programmatic dollars,” the new design will offer more premium membership prompts for SlatePlus as well as newsletter sign ups.

It will also better surface and integrate Slate’s popular roster of podcasts on the homepage and throughout the site. Check points out that for many years, podcasting was a medium awaiting a business model. However, in the decade between the company’s first podcast (in July of 2005) and the explosion of podcasting a revenue driver, Slate remained committed to the format—in large part because its audience was. “Podcasting was something that garnered a lot of audience interest for about a decade. There’s rabid listenership. So, though it wasn’t a business for a number of years, it always made sense from an audience perspective.”

Today, Slate claims 2% of the podcast market share. Kammerer said “We’re glad we stuck with it because when the model matured, we were already in a good position in terms of expertise and audience.” And, with this redesign, Slate will also be investing more in audio, further increasing its roster from a current 24 podcasts and putting out more original shows like its hit Slow Burn, about the untold stories of Watergate, which hit #1 on iTunes on its first day out.

However, Slate’s emphasis on audio and the written word is not an indication that it has “abandoned video” said Turner. “Our video focus is what we can do well.” And, as Kammerer pointed out, the “the case for the pivot to video was a case for scale. The CPMs were higher so a lot of outlets chased those CPMs forgetting that video is expensive to produce well, and that the margins aren’t that great.” In his experience, the CPMs for audio are as good or better than video. “It’s about focus for us and we continue to focus on maintaining a super-premium audience. The written word and podcasting delivers that audience in a very meaningful way.”

News Judgement

And, while engaging its existing audience is a critical piece of Slate’s strategy, they plan to continue to build a quality audience without embarking on an unbridled quest for scale. As Turner put it, “It isn’t that social isn’t a good way to drive traffic. But what you want is a real relationship with your audience that isn’t dependent on social media.” She reports substantial growth in Slate’s Google and Apple News-driven traffic.

Referring to Facebook’s decision to downgrade publishers’ content in News Feed, Kammerer said “If they really want to drive more meaningful interaction, I like our chances. But who knows what changes they’ll announce two months from now?”

As Check put it, “You saw big publishers reach huge audiences through Facebook; a lot of people discovered content they wouldn’t have otherwise. Unfortunately, it has also given rise to a lot of things that aren’t great like fake news and low-quality content.” He sees a genuine market opportunity for existing or emerging aggregation partners who “want to be more responsible.”

Ultimately, Turner sees a real upside for Slate in Facebook’s move to back away from media distribution. “My instinct is that being an arbiter around the news space requires a whole set of real responsibilities and rigor that they’ve been fairly freaked out about. Now maybe we’ll see the return of news judgement to the institutions that have been cultivating that judgment for years.”

Perspectives

IBM Watson CMO Jordan Bitterman predicts a “pivot to flexibility” in 2018

As chief marketing officer for IBM Watson Content & IoT Platform, Jordan Bitterman oversees messaging to both internal and external audiences. He is responsible for all marketing functions across the IBM Watson Content & IoT Platform division – connecting b2b marketing, ad sales marketing, consumer marketing, as well as corporate communications. Based in New York, he is part of the IBM Watson Content & IoT Platform executive leadership team and reports to GM, Cameron Clayton. Here, Bitterman offers his thoughts on some issues he thinks will be top of mind for marketers in 2018:

What’s the biggest challenges that marketers face in 2018?

JB: The benefits of the big players in the digital space – scale, relative brand safety and deep targeting capabilities – have always had an equally challenging downside: data flexibility. At the same time these players have been addressing their current marketing needs, they have also been growing a massive stockpile of data on their customers. They have been collecting it, cleaning it and preparing it for use across all aspects of their business: marketing, sales, CRM, logistics, and yield management. The big challenge today: putting it to use.

As an industry, how should we best address this issue?

JB: The big, walled gardens in the industry act like a roach motel: data comes in, but it doesn’t come out. For the most sophisticated brands, 2018 is the year when they will address these issues and start demanding that their media partners become flexible with data. These brands will require that their own data can be mixed with publisher data to be applied on and off the publishers’ own platforms. This “pivot to flexibility” will begin this year and will ultimately up–end the new norms created over the last decade.

What do you think the biggest opportunity for marketers will be in 2018?

JB: As the Internet has become a tangled web of nontransparent, unknown and unsafe environments comprised of millions of publishers, Facebook and Google have been the prime receptacle for brand dollars. They have largely done it in the interest of brand safety – a known is better than an unknown. And, as we have seen, the duopoly accounts for about 85% of all digital ad spend. But that trend will begin to back off a bit in 2018. The opportunity that will come into clearer focus for marketers will be their ability to port data into and out of platforms.

Major brands have cut – or considered cutting – their spend in the programmatic space and have moved those dollars to the duopoly. It is important that we get the message out that programmatic isn’t the problem. Programmatic is just a way of buying media. The sheer volume of the site list – and efficacy of those sites – is the most important issue for buyers to consider as they shift dollars back into programmatic environments. The top 100 global website traffic list, which includes brand–safe properties such as the New York Times, ESPN, c|net and The Weather Channel – is populated with media brands that manage brand safe environments and can deliver audiences both at scale and with extreme competence.

Industry-Research

Customers want personalization but trust is a critical component for success

Given the abundance of options for today’s digitally-savvy consumers, it has never been more important to understand their preferences and expectations in order to best serve their needs and retain their business. The intersection of privacy and personalization is a particularly tricky spot to navigate. Today’s consumers are more worried about data privacy than they are about losing their income. At the same time, they expect increasingly personalized digital experiences. There is only one way to bridge that divide, according to the 2017 Accenture Strategy Global Consumer Pulse Research: Build Trust.

Accenture’s research, which surveyed 24,877 consumers in 33 countries, found that 48% of consumers expect specialized treatment for being a good customer. And Accenture believes that this entails “next generation personalization” which they call “hyper-relevance.” Many current personalization tactics are static and relate to certain consumer behaviors. However, Hyper-relevance—like today’s digital consumers—is “always on.” It is much more dynamic, constantly changing and always available.

rather than focusing solely on customers’ purchase behaviors and preferences or relatively fixed attributes, such as their address or number of children, Accenture says it is essential to understand on customers’ needs in a given circumstance and the evolving context in which they make decisions.

As such, data gathered from website visits, social media posts, or previous purchase histories will not suffice. Rather, what’s needed is information that is much more personal in nature—such as health data transmitted via wearable biometric technologies. Needless to say, that’s getting highly personal. And when things get that personal, the potential rewards go up immensely. However, risk also rises.

It is heartening to note that two-thirds of those surveyed said that they are willing to share personal information with companies. But there’s a catch. They will only do so in exchange for some perceived value. And if that value exchange—or the trust upon which it is based—is broken, customers will quickly move on.

Accenture emphasizes that securing and maintaining consumer trust is a prerequisite to achieving the promise of intelligent personalization. They point out that it takes time to build trust, but that it can be shattered with one wrong move. Thus, companies must counter that risk by constantly presenting themselves as trustworthy, keeping their promises, and upholding their end of the value exchange agreement.

As companies seek to deliver hyper-relevance, Accenture makes three recommendations:

1. Look beyond the traditional customer journey

Companies that distinguish themselves with hyper-relevant experiences look beyond the traditional customer journey. They identify and prioritize those areas where hyper-relevance can deliver added value and quickly address the unexpected. Ask questions like: What can we offer once we realize our customer has missed her flight? Received a job promotion? Been forced to flee a hurricane? In these situations, customers need different things and relevance becomes supremely important.

2. Rethink data

Hyper-relevant companies don’t rely solely on descriptive analytics or traditional sources of information. They invest in predictive analytics, collaborate with an ecosystem of stakeholders to capture real-time snapshots of every consumer, and mine data in new ways to understand the customer journey that extends beyond core products and services and across channels. In addition, hyper-relevant companies redouble their data security efforts. They ensure customers have full control of their data across touch points. They eliminate duplicate requests for customer information and permissions. And they make sure all customer data is secure and visible to employees on a need-to-know basis.

3. Earn trust continuously

Trust must be a key consideration when designing hyper-relevant experiences, creating new customer value propositions, and serving as a critical resource when customers need them most. A company’s commitment to delivering the experiences that were promised and meeting customers’ expectations is paramount. Hyper-relevant companies understand their baseline level of trust, and eliminate issues or irrelevant offers that detract from the trust quotient. They make trust sustainable by establishing a rigorous process and a robust, cross-functional governance structure to continuously measure trust and hyper-relevant effectiveness—and act on their findings. Most importantly, they manage trust as the critical growth enabler it is.

The virtuous circle

Companies that are attentive to their customers’ concerns and reinforce their trust quotient are more likely to persuade customers to share personal information. That, in turn, helps to inform the design the kinds of hyper-relevant experiences that today’s consumers expect. So, while companies are finding valuable ways to leverage data to super-serve their best customers, they have also begun to realize that the digital trust consumers place in companies is as critical as the data itself.

Perspectives Image
Perspectives

DCN’s must reads: week of December 14, 2017

Here are some of the best media stories our team has read so far this week:

Innovation | Perspectives

Why tackling ad fraud is a priority at Purch

As Chief Technology Officer at Purch, John Potter brings a wealth of experience having spent more than a decade with CBS Interactive/CNET, where he held many roles. Most recently he served as Vice President, Software Engineering, managing a staff of 100+ developers in support of brands like CNET, CBS News, ZDNet and Download.com. John holds multiple patents for his system designs that improve Internet connectivity and document classification. At Purch, his role entails managing all aspects of technology, engineering and operations, and he has successfully participated in, and integrated 10 acquisitions. 

Could you describe / define ad fraud?

John: Ad fraud is a persistent problem that, according to the IAB, costs the industry $8.2 billion a year in the U.S. While ad fraud is found in various forms, from a publisher’s vantage there are two main problems: One is fraudulent copies of sites that are created, and whose advertising inventory is then presented on programmatic platforms as coming from the original publisher sites. To add insult to injury, most of the traffic on these fraudulent sites is from bots. The other is non-human traffic on legitimate publisher sites from bots scraping the sites, attempting to insert comment links, or coming through content recommendation systems in an attempt to defraud them.

Each of these problems causes different issues and needs to be responded to differently.

How have issues such as bot traffic and audience verification impacted the digital advertising marketplace?

John: The prevalence of non-human traffic and fraudulent or non-viewable advertising inventory has led to an undermining of marketer trust in internet advertising. This directly harms all publishers. Just as importantly, it has led to the need for marketers to add software to their creatives to confirm viewability and detect non-human traffic. This increases the size of ad creative degrades the user experience on publisher sites. Then there are multiple, competing measurement systems in use. All this complicates the ability of publishers to deliver on marketing campaigns.

Are these issues particularly problematic given the rise of programmatic?

John: Yes, all of these issues have been compounded by the rise of programmatic. Marketer’s campaigns are running across a larger number of sites, most of which they have no direct contact with. This makes fraud a lot harder to detect than when you are signing a direct deal.

Why is it important to understand/have an accurate picture of the audience being reached?

John: In the end, all marketing is targeted at particular audiences. As publishers, it’s our ability to provide those audiences that makes us valuable to marketers. At a minimum, marketers should be able to expect that any ads they purchase will be viewed by real humans on a legitimate site that is brand-safe. Publishers and programmatic platforms need to do everything they can to make sure we meet that minimum expectation, and initiatives like TrustX can help with that.

How should the industry be addressing ad fraud?

John: First, publishers and the programmatic platforms need to cooperate to wipe out fraudulent advertising inventory. Ads.txt is a great start towards this, but it’s just a first step. I’m really enthused about the potential of blockchain solutions that will track advertising at every step of the process, and leave an auditable trail. Ideally, we get to the point where every advertising impression sold and served is auditable by all parties to the transaction.

Publishers also need to work hard to block fraudulent traffic on their sites. At Purch, we already do a lot to block bots from our sites, and to prevent advertising being served to any that get around our blocking attempts. We’ve now moved on to integrating real-time bot detection and ad blocking into our server-to-server header bidding platform. I know other publishers and programmatic platforms are taking this issue seriously as well, but it will need to be a continuing concern for a long time to come.

The illustration used in this article, Picco Robots, is reproduced, with modifications, under a creative common license.
Industry-Research

Media teams strive to adapt, but struggle to keep pace with digital

A study conducted by International Center for Journalists survey set out to answer a critical question: Are journalists keeping pace with the digital revolution? Despite making strides in leveraging new technologies, the study concluded that the answer is no.

The State of Technology in Global Newsrooms takes a deep look at the adoption of digital technologies at a wide range of news media organizations worldwide. Working with Georgetown University, the International Center for Journalists conducted the study in 12 languages, and received more than 2,700 responses from journalists and newsroom managers in 130 countries.

Key takeaways include:
  • Newsrooms still face a deep technology gap.
  • Digital journalism has made some substantial gains.
  • In an era when fake news and hacking have proliferated, too few journalists are taking the proper precautions.
  • While most newsrooms find it challenging to gain trust with their audiences, there are two major exceptions.
  • New revenue models are emerging, but not fast enough.
  • Newsrooms have yet to fully embrace analytics data to make decisions.
  • Journalism is a young person’s profession.
  • The digital training journalists want is not what their newsrooms think they need.
Today’s media organizations

The report examines technological investment, use, and staffing across different types of newsrooms in the digital age. ICFJ identified three newsroom types based on their primary distribution platforms:

  1. Traditional news organizations, which disseminate information primarily in the legacy formats of newspaper, television, print magazines, and radio. Though these organizations may have a website or some digital presence, their primary platform is a traditional format.
  2. Digital-only news organizations that exclusively publish in an online format.
  3. Hybrid news organizations, which use a combination of traditional and digital formats. Many hybrid organizations have transitioned from being traditional news outlets.

The report finds that digital-only and hybrid newsrooms are outpacing traditional media in most of the world. In fact, according to the ICFJ, news organizations that disseminate content primarily in traditional print, television, and radio formats are disappearing from the global media landscape. Overall, the majority of journalists surveyed work for news organizations that are either fully digital (33%) or a hybrid of traditional and online (40%). About one-quarter are employed by traditional news organizations.

Distribution strategies

Today’s newsrooms have access to a multitude of new platforms and formats — from social media to mobile apps to virtual reality, which they use to distribute their stories and reach wider audiences. Though the range of tools has expanded, the news industry relies heavily on the two social media giants: Facebook and Twitter.

Though digital-only and hybrid newsrooms are more likely to use Facebook, traditional organizations (which use digital but not as a primary distribution format) are not very far behind. Three-quarters of traditional newsrooms reported using the social media site to push out content, compared to 93% of digital-only and 91% of hybrid.

Staffing up

Hybrid organizations are the most likely to cut their newsroom staffs, with 41% reporting that their staff size has decreased in the past year. Traditional newsrooms are a close second, at 38%. Digital-only newsrooms are at the opposite end of the spectrum, with only 17% reporting that their staff size has decreased, compared to the 50% that reported adding more staff members.

Digital-only newsrooms are also more likely to have older personnel – in the 51-55 age group – than both their traditional and hybrid counterparts. Traditional newsrooms also have a higher percentage of staff in the 25-29 age group than hybrid ones, following digital-only newsrooms in this category.

Hybrid and digital-only newsrooms are more likely than traditional newsrooms to have digital content producers/editors and tech professionals on staff, though the number of these positions remains small compared to established roles.

The study shows that many journalists are hired into their positions without experience working in digital media or significant digital skills. While on-the-job-training remains an essential tactic for staff-strapped media newsrooms. However, news professionals almost universally agree that training is important to help them meet the demands of their job.

As the report points out, the digital era is forcing newsrooms to adapt to a constantly evolving space. They face an array of major challenges, including shifting revenue models, attracting loyal advertisers, engaging audiences, and developing new storytelling formats. While journalists (and the media organizations they work for) continue to experiment with a range of digital tools, the report makes it clear that continued investment, innovation, and development of the digital skillset is required.

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