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Industry-Research

Distribution, operations, and reporting key in newsroom transformation

Traditional news channels are transforming into hybrid newsrooms, combining digital platforms into an integrated business model according to The 2019 State of Technology in Global Newsrooms Report. In fact, half of the newsrooms in six of eight global regions are now hybrid. This research was conducted by the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) in 149 countries, in 14 languages, and completed by more than 4,100 journalists and news managers.

Some of the ICFJ ‘s key findings include:

Newsrooms mix formats to distribute their content with social media as the dominant platform.

  • Content distribution increased with two-thirds of news organizations distributing content in at least four formats, compared to 40% that did in 2017.
  • In terms of social media tools, Facebook (90%) and Twitter (73%) lead the pack. They are followed by YouTube, which grew to 60% usage from 48% in 2017 and Instagram, now at 48%, which is up from 33% in 2017.
  • Instant messaging apps as content distribution channels have declined in seven out of eight regions over the last two years. Eurasia/former USSR, Europe and North America registered the largest declines, 20 percentage points, 16, and 10, respectively.

Security and new technologies are part of the day-to-day workflow.

  • More than two-thirds of journalists and newsrooms secure their communications while only half did in 2017. In fact, in North American newsrooms, the percentage of those that secure their communications doubled to 82%. The preferred method of security is encrypted messaging apps.
  • One-third of news organizations employ dedicated fact-checkers. In addition, 44% of newsrooms and 37% of journalists said they engage in more fact-checking activities than they did the previous year.
  • More than twice as many journalists use social media verification tools today compared to 2017.

Most news organizations aim to dismantle misinformation and work to build trust.

  • Seventy-five percent of managers worry about the impact of misinformation. However, less than half of journalists believe that it impacts their day-to-day work.
  • Almost half of newsrooms are better at separating news stories from opinion pieces.
  • More than three-quarters (37%) of news managers in North America report building trust as a major challenge, up from 29% two years ago.

Government and politics dominate news coverage.

  • Government and politics dominant news journalism with the exception of news radio. Radio is more likely to cover specialized beats. In fact, 42% of news radio covers education and 43% covers health compared to 27% of websites that cover these topics.
  • While nearly one-third of journalists do some investigative reporting, this group appears to be quite limited with only 12% identifying as investigative reporters.
  • Smaller newsrooms appear to offer a community focus news and are twice as likely to report on local news as larger outlets. Twenty percent of small newsrooms cover local and hyperlocal events, compared to 10% of larger newsrooms (26+ employees).

More women are leading in journalism.

  • Women hold half or more of newsroom management positions in four of the eight regions. On average, one-third of management jobs globally are held by women. However, female leadership varies greatly by region.
  • Leading with women in newsroom management are Eurasia/former USSR at 62%, North America at 56%, Europe at 51%, and Latin America/Caribbean at 49%.
  • Women comprise 56% of newsroom employees in North America and 51% in Europe.
  • On average, women are 40% of the journalists in newsrooms worldwide.
  • Interestingly, more women (25%) compared to men (15%) report not having digital experience at the time they were hired.

This ICFJ study offers insight into the transition of traditional news outlets to hybrid news outlets with digital platforms integrations. It identifies the newsroom journey to improve the quality of news reporting. Newsroom operations must now include the fight against disinformation, the promotion of trusted news brands, the addition of heightened security, and the usage of enhanced data analytics.

Innovation | Perspectives

Product management is not project management

In today’s digital economy, all businesses are software businesses – especially content-focused businesses like digital publishing. With a wide range of apps and platforms all competing for consumer loyalty,  companies that would have never called themselves tech companies are now engaging with developers and innovators to maintain customer engagement. Understanding what drives successful product development is critical to achieving growth. 

One of these key realities is that product management is not the same thing as project management. 

Whenever 3Pillar advertises for a product manager, the majority of the resumes we receive will inevitably be from project managers. However, these are vastly different jobs. And hiring for them as if they are the same is one of the biggest mistakes a company can make. 

In product development, the product manager should be responsible for the “what,” the “why” and the high-level “when.” However, the project manager should be responsible for the “who,” the “how,” and a more detailed “when.” 

Building a railroad

Let’s use the analogy of a railroad: The product manager is the person responsible for deciding that a railroad is the right solution for the problem of getting people from point A to point B. The product manager also charts the course to navigate the terrain. He or she determines where the train will go and what stops it should make and the route taken including questions like whether it should go over or through the mountains. 

A product manager also prioritizes the sequencing of railways between stations. Perhaps he or she determines that New York to Boston is the most critical route. Only after that’s finished and operational should the railroad build a track to San Francisco.

Project managers, on the other hand, are responsible for laying the tracks and making the trains run on time. In product development, a project manager plays this role. They are responsible for the internal operations of the train: how fast the train goes down the track, what fuel it uses and what parts need to be replaced. 

Finding the best 

In the big picture, product managers are responsible for maintaining the long-term product roadmap and defining the product vision, while the project manager is responsible for managing the team’s day-to-day activities. 

The best product managers inherently have these four key areas of responsibility: 

  • Product strategy: Setting the vision and determining how to get there.
  • Product roadmap: Managing and prioritizing the backlog of features, defining them and making associated trade-off decisions. 
  • Product releases: Setting what features will be delivered to the customer and coordinating all aspects and interdepartmental dependencies.
  • Product ideation: Running the ideation process, collecting feedback and data, analyzing that data, thinking creatively, curating new ideas and promoting the most relevant ones into the backlog as features.

Product managers do each of these things (and many more) because they understand that they can’t build a product, pass it off to a project manager, and call it a day. That’s because product management – like product development – is never done.  

To give a real-world example of the difference between the two, imagine we’re talking about the team behind a fitness app like Fitbit. The product manager would be responsible for deciding that users would benefit from a series of video tutorials based on the type of workout a user wanted (Fitbit users might recognize this as Fitbit Coach). Once a decision had been made to go in that direction, the project manager would be responsible for working with the team to design, implement, and test those changes in the expected timeframe.

Common goals

Of course, in mature organizations with a product mentality, you won’t find a project manager on most teams. Instead, engineering managers typically take on the project management tasks that are actually applicable to the environment.

Product management and project management, working in concert, are essential. 

This starts with adopting a company-wide foundational mindset that doesn’t focus on antiquated IT thinking, which separates teams by function. Instead, this modern mindset focuses on common goals and making sure all members of the company understand the “big picture.” 

In today’s increasingly digital world, this means engineers, designers, marketers and finance working alongside product managers to build software that directly addresses the customer’s wants, stays ahead of the changing market, and ultimately drives revenue and profit back to the company. At 3Pillar, we call this the Product Mindset, and it drives how we approach every digital product we work on.

Great project managers are an indispensable part of a successful company. But you have to start with great product management. This is how you will be able to innovate and ultimately disrupt digital publishing markets and grow market share. Content is important — but product is king.

About the author

David DeWolf is CEO of 3Pillar Global and co-author of “The Product Mindset: Succeed in the Digital Economy by Changing the Way Your Organization Thinks.”

Innovation

A look under the hood at USA TODAY NETWORK’s approach to augmented reality

Hot on the heels of reports that reveal AR and VR will become mainstream sooner than we expect, media companies are lining up to test the waters and push the boundaries. While they recognize that implementation of immersive technologies can bring audiences deeper into a story than text, 2D images, and video ever could, many have yet to grasp that they have to create stories that move people, not just “wow” them.

One company that is further along on learning curve is USA TODAY NETWORK, part of Gannett Co, Inc. and the largest local-to-national media organization in the U.S. It’s cleverly harnessed talent from a variety of disciplines, including video games development, to bring new life and excitement to environments (life on the USS Eisenhower), events (launching a Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center), and formats (an investigative podcast revealing the hidden power structures behind our cities really work).

Ray Soto, Director of Emerging Technology for USA TODAY NETWORK

Peggy Anne Salz—mobile analyst and Content Marketing Strategist at MobileGroove—catches up with Ray Soto, Director of Emerging Technology for USA TODAY NETWORK, to discuss recent AR projects and delve into how media companies can leverage growing interest in AR and VR to elevate storytelling and engage audiences.

PAS:  Please bring us up to date on the storytelling experiences you have created and what you have learned.

RS: We recognize that both virtual and augmented reality are fairly new within our industry. But that’s what really motivates and inspires us to take that extra step to experiment and try something new. An example is the 321 LAUNCH app, our first AR app. It gives users a close-up live view of real launches and landings, allowing them to build and launch their own Falcon 9 rocket within the app—an experience enhanced with access to live video and real-time updates.

The aim was to combine immersive storytelling with a live launch AR broadcast, paving the way for users to engage with content in new ways. Metrics show strong retention rates and long session times, even on non-launch days. Overall, we have seen engagement times of around 3.5 minutes, and we observed that user engagement for our live launch broadcast spiked up to around 8 minutes.  Right now, we hovering at around 3.5 minutes on non-launch days and about 5 minutes on launch days.

We learned a lot from the app about how to reach and engage audiences. We also learned a lot about the development cycle and the UX. The experience of creating the app—and seeing how users wanted to be in control of their experience—helped us to focus on building the foundation that would support all our augmented reality experiences moving forward. We saw that there was deep engagement with AR through interactivity, and what we didn’t want to do was leverage existing APIs that would limit us in the types of stories we could tell.

PAS: So, it sounds like you have “augmented” augmented reality platforms to suit your requirements and ensure you can support how audiences have shown they want to interact with your app…

RS: You’re right. So, we ended up leveraging the GUI game engine, and that is essentially the foundation of our AR platform. Unity provided us that foundation, where we can leverage AR kit and AR core. But we also built on top of that to incorporate the functionality we envisioned we would need for our storytelling experiences. So what we have created is a series of editorial templates, that include design templates and animations, allowing us to quickly support interactive storytelling through AR.

A good example is the augmented reality Hurricane Florence tracker. At first, it was a challenge that I presented to my team, which is made up of former video game developers with experience working with companies including Electronic Arts and NC Soft, to turn this AR experience around quickly. And we did this. By drawing from our game design experience and working closely with our product development, mobile dev team, and the editorial team, we leveraged our template to create the tracker—which we were able to ramp up, turn around and publish within 24 hours.

PAS:  In the case of the hurricane tracker, you harnessed AR to bring breaking news to life. But to go mainstream AR will need to enhance content and experiences that are a little more downtempo. Do you have an example where AR adds a layer of storytelling, not just effect?

RS: A great example is our AR experience for The City, an investigative storytelling podcast where we developed the augmented reality trailer. The podcast is already a powerful story paired with an immersive audio experience—but it was missing an equally powerful visual. We recognized that, through our AR platform, we could create an experience that would allow you to explore the community that is the focus of the podcast and “tease” users to engage with the powerful story that was being told within the podcast.

In this scenario, AR gives the audience a sense of place. Clearly, it was a different type of story to tell and a different goal from launching a Falcon 9 rocket. However, we found we could just leverage what we’d learned from earlier projects and that was a plus. It was exciting to think no one had ever done this before—and we did. And through this, we recognized there is a real opportunity to fill in some of the gaps in content, such as audio, with AR and adapt what we create based on the story we’re trying to tell.

PAS: It’s exciting to push the envelope, but you also need to know where to draw the line. How do you decide if AR is a match with the storytelling in the first place?

It can be a tough one to call. So, we start by drawing from our experience and our understanding of the unique opportunities that emerging tech can provide and support when it comes to creating a very strong interactive story. The story comes first. Before we commit resources or time to develop an augmented reality experience, we work very closely with the editorial team to define what the story should be and how augmented reality can drive value to the story we’re trying to tell.  It’s very much a collaborative process. There have been times when we’ve gone down a path of exploration and determined that the particular story might actually be best suited to being told with the support of an interactive graphic on the web or a video experience.

We’re at the point now where we’re able to produce an offline prototype quickly to really understand how we can tell the story in a new way that the audience can engage with again and again. The goal for an AR project can never be to create a one-time gimmick that folks will see and walk away from saying, “oh hey, that was neat.” The goal—and this is our goal—has to be to give audiences the feeling they have gained something from the experience or learned something. You don’t want the technology to overshadow the story because it comes down to the story first. We understand this because our team has had years of experience, not just with game design but in VR and more recently AR.

PAS: Your team is made up of talent from video games companies, which you’ve pointed out is a plus. What talent mix should publishers assemble and orchestrate if they are serious about creating AR experiences?

RS: We’re fortunate to have a team that is made up of former game developers, but I don’t think it’s a team that has to made up of game developers exclusively. Yes, it definitely makes it much easier to create AR experiences and ramp up a team to support AR and VR. But it’s not the only way. Publishers also need to bring together people who have a passion for the work and a desire to explore what’s possible.  It’s through passion that companies can build a team able to go outside of their comfort zone. Passion guides you and helps you find ways to tell a story that hasn’t been done before. So, game development is helpful, but it’s not required for interactive storytelling.

PAS:  So, what is required? What is the checklist publishers should have top of mind?

RS: Start by thinking through how you can create a narrative arc. As I said before, it’s not about gimmick. It’s about trying to do things differently and avoid getting too comfortable with how you have told stories in the past. Even if you have a template to build a story, you don’t want it to be the same every time. The aim is to encourage people to engage and come back. We want audiences to recognize that USA Today is telling interactive stories in a new way with AR, and that means pushing the boundaries through seeing the opportunities and exploring approaches.

It’s also important to identify the gaps within the story. This is where AR platforms can enhance that story. Again, a great example is the City podcast where we could improve an immersive audio experience with AR. It still just boggles my mind that we even considered it in the first place and I’m proud of the results. We recognized that it was a strong story that we could do differently.  That’s the mindset you have to have for every project: try to do something that’s different but do it by creating a narrative arc that engages your audience and helps them coming back.

Everyone has a unique opportunity to define their path, but don’t only focus on the visual experience. You have to think about scalability and accessibility.  You don’t want to exclude users who are impaired in any way –and this is why we have incorporated subtitles within our USA Today app. We want everyone to be engaged with the experience and able to make it what they want.

PAS: Brands are also focused on engaging users with brand storytelling and experiential content. Is there a place for brands in your future plans?

RS: We’re looking for opportunities to work on branded content. That conversation started because we observed such high engagement and retention rates. These metrics tell us there’s an opportunity—through AR—to create a personal connection. We’re poised to tell our stories in new ways, and we see ways brands can build on the growing excitement around augmented reality to engage with their existing audiences and acquire new ones.

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 | Video

Executive editor Jay Yarow breaks down CNBC’s formula for digital growth

When your employer is first and foremost in the television business, and your job is to manage the company’s entire digital presence, you’ve got your work cut out for you. That’s precisely what Jay Yarow, CNBC’s SVP and Executive Editor, Digital faces on a daily basis. He is responsible for everything that appears online outside of what is being broadcast. That means CNBC.com, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn – everything.

Yarow says that the objective of the brand is tracking everything related to business, finance, and investing. “We are aiming to be the most trusted brand when it comes to everything money.”

And his approach seems to be working: In September 2017, CNBC Digital reached the number three position in the Business/Finance News category for the first time ever and delivered a record 49.2 million unique visitors in September, which was up 74% year-over year. CNBC Digital also saw impressive growth in mobile with a record high of 30 million mobile unique visitors in September, up 105% year-over-year.  And so far this year, traffic from social platforms to CNBC.com has grown 83%.

Keeping it simple

When he came on board in February 2016, Yarow’s goal was to keep a good thing going and expand upon and improve what he could. “They had a great digital brand in place [when I got here]. It was growing before I got here. I helped to accelerate that growth. They have been doing digital for years. I tried to come in and add some extra,” he explained.

Sometimes, the seemingly small things make a big difference. For example, when you read a CNBC story and you see the bulleted data points summarizing the story at the top of the page, that’s something that Yarow added. “From my perspective, it’s super valuable. Investors or business leaders tend to be busy and don’t have time to absorb a lot of information,” he said. This way, readers can quickly get the gist of a news story on the way to a meeting when they might not have time to read the whole thing.

He also recognizes the importance of social media in reaching his busy audience. “I’m fortunate in that I really enjoy doing these things. It’s not like it’s a chore to check Instagram and check Twitter or Facebook or CNBC.com. These are all things I would do either way and I get to influence that.”

Keeping it real

Yarow says his primary focus is putting together a strong news team that breaks a lot of stories. As he joked, “We are first and foremost a media company. We never have to pivot to video.”

Above all, his focus is on producing high quality journalism. Then, he asks if “the journalism we are producing being rewarded with an appropriately large audience.” As he points out, it is important to be able to support the production of this journalism so reaching a significant audience and monetizing them is essential. “When you are building something, you have to make sure there is a business there,” he said. To that end, Yarow stays in sync with the business side to ensure that whatever he is doing has their support.

Media people

And, with so many media properties struggling and announcing layoffs, CNBC has been a marked positive contrast. It’s been growing and adding reporters like Chrissy Farr and Alex Sherman as well as a slew of new reporters to its tech coverage team in the last year. When it comes to different social channels like Instagram and YouTube, Yarow says he tries to hire good people and empower them to do good work. “We have great leaders we trust and empower them to run the different channels. My goal is to have nothing to do.”

“We have really focused on news and making sure we are breaking news. We built out our tech section and made it a strong team. And we are always systematically assessing business news and where we can get stronger,” Yarow explained.

One of the great advantages of being part of CNBC is that we have a lot of great platforms. I see a lot of different tech pieces being built and see what produces the best results.” He added, “We focus primarily on journalism and building a technology platform and tech stack.” And while the company is growing fast, he emphasizes that they are doing so it in a responsible way. “We are not saying, ‘Here is a $100M. Set it on fire and see what happens to our traffic’.”

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.

Advertising | Innovation | Perspectives | Revenue

Three key takeaways from the media leaders at Folio’s C-Summit

As part of its annual show October 31-November 2, Folio hosted a one day C-Summit. The invitation-only event focused on top strategic imperatives for magazine media organizations. Led by Hanley Wood CEO Peter Goldstone, the day provided an intimate conversation between panelists and attendees.

Here are three key takeaways from the discussion:

1. People matter (a lot): Many of the day’s speakers expressed that competitive recruiting and managing millennials to their fullest potential are significant challenges. Across the board, it was apparent that these leaders feel that having the right people to drive the organization from both strategic and tactical levels is a top priority.

“We need to teach all employees to think about the end game and how they can contribute Give them a voice, an opportunity to express ideas and concerns… We need to give them pride of ownership in solutions.”

—Bonnie Kintzer, CEO TMBI

“It used to be that the people in charge knew everything…Well, we’re in a learn-together mode now, particularly as we try to build new lines of business. Of the 46 people we have hired at AIM since January, 32 have job descriptions that didn’t exist before they were hired.”

—Andrew W. Clurman, President & CEO, Active Interest Media (AIM)

“The scariest thing is to have an opportunity but not have the capacity to deliver. For example, we find that companies want to connect with customers by feeding them, but staffing the event side has been a challenge… Creating the right culture is absolutely critical.”

—Catherine Neville, Publisher & Founder, Feast Magazine

“Running a media related company over the past 10 years has been a tough job. There are a lot of dead men walking. Employees are key to transforming business. You need to attract, retain, and develop people who will change your business or you will be one of those dead men walking.”

—Tom Kemp, Chairman CEO of Northstar Travel Group

2. Advertising is data and context driven: Digital advertising is increasingly driven by data—particularly in the B2B space, which is focused on lead-generation. However, context matters as does bigger-picture understanding of what the advertiser’s objectives are and how to creatively accomplish those goals.

“Advertisers are asking: What is the value you are going to give us, how are you going to bundle stuff? That said, they don’t always really know what they are asking. They want, and need you to know more about their biz than they do.”

—Jim Elliot, President James C. Elliot Co. Inc.

“We have to be sure we are producing products our customers want to buy, not just what we want to sell, so that we continue to have the relationship with them that supports the business. And yes, we need to be able to provide as much audience data as possible. We’re thinking less about selling advertising than selling all the assets we have.”

—Tom Kemp, Chairman CEO of Northstar Travel Group

“Programmatic is inevitable because it is a far more efficient for sellers and buyers. At Hanley Wood, we love programmatic because we have the data. What we’re seeing is a bifurcation in the value proposition between what publishers brought to the table—the value of our insight around the data and the audience—versus the value of the content and placing ads in context.”

—Peter Goldstone, CEO, Hanley Wood

“Thinking about some of the new players…yes, they are taking dollars away and disrupting things because they play by their own rules. But we must continue to behave in a way that is extremely responsible because of our brands’ reputations. We’ve been successful with our ad-sales guarantee. We’ve partnered with Nelsen to measure return on ad spend. We spend a lot of time on measurement and in our strategic partnerships. It is an area of emphasis and focus to demonstrate efficacy.”

—Mark Rothschild, SVP, Meredith Digital.

3. You’ve got to put your money where your progress is. Despite a seemingly endless desire to innovate, the reality is that resources are finite and making smart decisions about what to fuel and what to fold is critical.

“We have to focus on how to grow the business despite managing a mature print portfolio. There’s always a lot to do, but what do you choose not to do is just as important. As you think about your portfolio, resource allocation decisions are imperative.”

 —Peter Goldstone, CEO, Hanley Wood

“We looked at a lot of areas with underperforming assets, many outside the US, which we are in the process of selling. We are focused on being a strong US and Canadian content producer. The hardest parts are the print versus the digital pieces of the game.”

—Bonnie Kintzer, CEO TMBI

“There are lots of new shiny ideas that pop up in this industry. Yes, some are good…but others aren’t, and you have to be able to tell the difference, or figure it out fast.”

 —Jim Elliot, President James C. Elliot Co. Inc.

“As an industry, there’s a drag of products that need to close, that have served their purpose, but closing them creates an opportunity to start something new. And there’s always a new opportunity.”

—David Carey, President, Hearst Magazines

Perspectives

Slacking with Erin Bakst, Head of People Operations at Vox Media

Vox Media’s Erin Bakst, Head of People Operations, explains what her job title actually means, questions if office spaces need nap nooks and indoor slides, and reminds job hunters to never underestimate the cover letter.

What does the Head of People Operations do?

Erin Bakst: Basically here at Vox Media that’s the head of talent position — so all of what you’d traditionally call Human Resources and Recruiting rolls into me. Although we’ve never had a Recruiting team at Vox Media so I’m in the process of building a Talent Acquisition function.

My team consists of Business Partners, a Programs & Diversity Manager, Total Rewards (AKA Comp & Benefits) and soon Talent Acquisition.

Since we’re pretty lean, I also serve as the Business Partner for our Corporate team which means I support Accounting & Finance, MarComms, Legal and People & Culture from a strategic talent consulting perspective.

I should note that this is all new to us. I started back in November of 2015 and have been building a lot of the framework of HR. As a company, we grew really quickly and in a few instances without some of the processes and programs that you’d normally have for a company of our size. So we’ve recently scaled People Ops to better support the business.

As you work across all of these different, quickly growing teams, is there a common thread you see across them? Something that would help you tell a stranger on the street what Vox Media’s company culture looks like?

Bakst: There are a couple of things that I’d say about Vox Media culture. One is that we’re always changing. That’s not necessarily unique to us because we’re a media company and because we’re a high-growth company. But the other is that we have an amazing commitment to diversity and inclusion that I really haven’t seen anywhere else that I’ve worked. That sounds cliche and I’m not saying we’re perfect at it because we have a long way to go. But the commitment to it is embedded in our culture at all levels, including (and especially) with Jim Bankoff. It’s one of the things I love about running People Ops.

I’d add, too, that the constant change brings about a ton of innovation, which makes this a really exciting place to work. I was just working with our VP of Growth and Analytics on a workshop for the NABJ/NAHJ convention on Monday and we’re focusing it on storytelling across multiple platforms. It just blows me away how our talent can tell stories in ways that really resonate with our audience on things like Snapchat, Facebook Live, and YouTube.

I agree. It’s fun to sit amid teams creating such different and interesting things. I just walked by Racked as they filmed a piece on beauty products and am now eyeing a bouquet of rose-shaped-bacon that was shipped to Eater.

Bakst: OMG I love going to New York and sitting on the 10th floor with Eater! They get the best food! Also, Racked has an entire case of nail polish that I want to raid. This place has some great perks.

And snacks.

Bakst: Truth! It’s fun to get to participate in the creative process here even if you’re not on a content creation team. A couple of months ago I was in New York and Kat Odell was doing a taste-testing for her Drinks column. I got to participate which was really fun. And it was so informal but awesome.

I’d really like to hear more about that — not bacon roses — but keeping employees happy in their physical space. I’ve seen wildly inventive work spaces — nap nooks and fire pits and slides. What is really needed to keep employees happy and productive in the office?

Bakst: Honestly, now that I’ve worked in three different start-ups, I think it depends on the employees. But what I think is true for Vox Media is that they need space to be creative. It doesn’t have to be a slide (and I seriously hope that’s never suggested because I’ll have agita about workers comp claims), it just has to be the right place. For a few of our employees, that’s the communal dining table where they eat their cereal at 8 AM and chat about the articles they’re working on. For some, it’s the comfy couch nook we just put in upstairs. Others like to be standing up jamming to music and in the zone. And many opt to WFH because it fits their lifestyle and they can do their work well from there.

Sometimes I see the crazy office stuff other start-ups do and I think it’s a waste, but ultimately if that’s what makes their employees happy and productive, that’s what they need to do. I just don’t think ours need that. They need to be comfortable and inspired. And of course they need the right resources. We’ve been investing even more in podcasting and video studios lately which is super cool. And our content reflects that.

Right, the flexibility to work in the way that best suits you is really a luxury. And, for me, that will never be mid-slide.

Now, I can’t let you go without discussing hiring.

Bakst: Yes! Hiring is one of my favorite topics these days!

We’re hiring across so many departments, with some openings for completely new roles (an American Ninja Warrior expert just joined us) and some for people who are new to the work force. How can someone with little real-world experience — maybe they’ve just graduated or are in school — demonstrate that they can take on a new role?

Bakst: That’s a somewhat difficult question to answer because every hiring manager has different preferences. I do, however, have some advice that I think can be generally applied.

First, we’re great at telling stories and creating beautiful content, so candidates should do that in their applications. I don’t want to see a resume that looks like a job description — I want to see what they have accomplished that can translate into the role. If a candidate has only one year of work experience, I want to see that they made the most of that year and grew a ton. Send links to your work. Send examples of stuff you’ve done. That’s going to tell the story of YOU so we get a better idea of how you’d be working here at Vox Media.

Second, I think people really underestimate the power of a cover letter. It is absolutely true that some people don’t read them. But when an application asks for it, do it and make it good. That’s where you get to show how excited you are about Vox Media. Do you read SB Nation religiously? Tell me about it! Do you plan your vacations around Eater’s 38 (like I do)? Tell me. We want to see not just that you want the job, but that you’re excited about this company. We have a ton of passionate people here and it’s made us pretty freaking awesome, so we want MORE passionate people.

That can actually really set someone apart and help them demonstrate that they’re a great fit. We like passion and enthusiasm.

That’s really great advice. It’s always clear when an application isn’t specifically meant for one company or one position.

Let’s wrap with just three quick questions:

What is the tool or product that makes your work life better?

Bakst: Evernote! I take so many notes and that allows me to document and search everything. I LOVE it and try to convert everyone to using it. Notebooks don’t work for me.

What have you recently read or watched or listened to that you immediately shared with a friend or just thought: wow.

Bakst: The Ezra Klein Show — it’s Ezra’s podcast and I’m addicted. I listen to it every day on my walk to work and have turned a few friends on to it.

Lastly, we’re Slacking. Can you let us peek into your world by sharing your frequently used emojis?

Voxemoji

Erin Bakst (@EWilsonHR) is Vox Media’s Head of People Operations. She has worked across Talent functions for a decade in the areas of Program Management, International HR, Executive Education, Recruiting, and Talent Engagement. She is based in DC.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion | Perspectives

Diversity is the engine of growth

With the election in full swing, I expect that, like me, you’ve watched your Twitter feed become a steady stream of: “He said what?” Shock and awe reactions to absurd, blanket statements and misguided opinions causing social media to light up. While it can be an adrenaline rush to watch a tweet-storm effort to beat back stupidity—the so-called “self-cleaning oven” of social—it can also be very dangerous and result in half-baked perspectives that confirm one’s own biases.

When I see this phenomenon happening in a way that impacts digital media, in my role as the leader of the only association exclusively focused on the creators of digital content, I feel compelled to speak out. It’s now been two weeks since a top advertising executive sent a terrible message to the media industry on gender diversity declaring, “the [expletive] debate is all over.” He went on to suggest the lack of women in leadership roles was not a problem, pointing to other industries as much worse.

While I might like to believe it’s true, I can’t emphasize enough how fundamentally flawed this perspective is. I was pleased to see that his bosses appear to have come to the same conclusion as they quickly and decisively showed him the door. Simply waiting to see how the industry reacts would be a testament to an organization that doesn’t practice what it preaches.

Where does this leave us? As an industry, we must accept the reality that this debate will never be over; gender equality, like all issues of diversity, must be a constant consideration as we ask ourselves: Are we doing enough? What are we missing? Who is being overlooked? There will be no bombastic finish line celebration. To declare victory, as this chief executive did, is not only naïve but a major setback. Rather, let’s celebrate each small victory and continue to set the bar ever-higher

As the media industry, this realization is paramount. Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, famously stated at Davos earlier this year that “diversity is the engine of invention. It generates creativity that enriches the world.” I completely agree with this statement. Understanding and respecting your audiences in a fast changing world happens only by being inclusive and inspiring all viewpoints. Diversity isn’t simply a matter of what boxes you check.

As a trade association, we focus our energy on advancing the future of trusted content. We believe that this only happens through promoting diversity in leadership and the types of companies we represent. To that end, just two years ago, we put in a motion a renewed effort that has truly been an engine of growth. We recently noted at an industry event that 15 of our last 30 new board members have been female. I’m incredibly thrilled by this as DCN doesn’t get to choose these member representatives. This means that our member companies are putting their top female executives in positions of leadership and influence.

Additionally, since I came aboard two years ago as a certifiably white male, we’ve added four strong female media leaders to our Executive Committee including our Co-Chair Christy Tanner at CBS. Indeed, leadership starts at the top. That being said, we’re merely a trade association; a representative proxy for our membership. And, to be honest we see significant challenges, which will never completely go away.

What can we do? Well, in many ways, we act as a thought leadership center for our members, a process that relies on open and candid discussion. Our team programs member day events with a keen eye on diversity. I’m thrilled to see our (mostly-female) leadership always take this into consideration, while recognizing we must do more. We regularly include topics on our member day agendas that focus on delivering on this challenge, particularly in areas where there is too often underrepresentation. We also work hard to promote diversity in our participation in industry events such as our Advertising Week panel “Who’s winning at sports content,” which featured some of the brightest people in the business. Oh yes, all women and diverse in business and perspective.

As a nation, we’re celebrating the first nomination of a woman for the office of President by a major political party. We can certainly be pleased with this milestone, while simultaneously being embarrassed that it took this long. And we need to take an honest look at decisions made even as we celebrate this momentous occurrence such as the choice made by several major newspapers to mark the momentous occasion with front page photos of her husband, not the person who might be our first female president.

My ask of the industry is truth and candor. Challenge us wherever this an opportunity to do more. I know that despite the modest progress we’ve seen at DCN on gender diversity, there is significant work to be done on ethnic and racial diversity. Awareness and self-awareness are key to continued progress. Let’s have a bit of humility to not try to be the executive celebrating alone at a fictional finish line. And by all means, we need to clearly see both the challenges and opportunities in the road ahead.

Perspectives

Focusing on the Future of Women in Tech

Tech, some would have you believe, has a “woman problem.” However, the problem is much larger: While U.S. Universities are on track to graduate about 400,000 computer science majors by the year 2020, the U.S. Department of Labor predicts that we’ll need about 1 million more than that by then. So whether or not we want to focus on issues of gender, tech has an undeniable people problem.

The discussion around women in tech roles is not unfounded, however. Despite promising reports of universities such as the University of Toronto setting a slew of female STEM records and Carnegie Mellon, UC Berkeley and Harvey Mudd trumpeting record-setting female enrolment in computer science courses, the statistics around women in tech are not pretty. The number of women computer science graduates has steadily declined since 1996 and while women earn 57% of all bachelor degrees, they only represent about 12% of computer science degrees. And for those who do join the field, 56% leave by midcareer—an attrition rate that is almost double that of men.

With that in mind, I sat down with Katharine Zaleski, co-founder and president, Power to Fly, at our recent members-only Tech Day to discuss why it is important to have more women involved in tech roles in media companies as well as how to better attract and retain them.

After spending more than a decade at the Huffington Post, Washington Post and NowThisNews “building a career that required spending about 10 hours a day in an office,” Zaleski found herself a new mother questioning the viability of balancing her hard-won career and a new-found affinity for home life. She quickly realized that there were many women in a similar position, or that might not want (or be able) to move to New York or Silicon Valley to pursue their ambitions. This led Zaleski to team up with Milena Berry to found PowertoFly, which connects women seeking tech jobs (remote and in-office) with organizations looking for (female) tech talent.

Zaleski pointed out that she’s far from alone; women leave the workforce in their thirties because they can’t work strict office hours and participate in as much of the after-hours camaraderie that is one of the cornerstones of tech team-building. She also says it is unfortunate that so many companies think they are improving employee retention by “extending the male college experience and creating a ‘campus’ where you can get your hair and laundry done.” Many women, Zaleski believes, will be put off by a company that “considers personal life a distraction.”

Instead, Zaleski encourages organizations seeking female tech talent (and, arguably, any tech talent as the market becomes increasingly competitive) to embrace remote working in order to broaden the pool of available skilled workers. And this may require developing new management skills and embracing many of the collaborative and real-time tools younger workers will already be very comfortable using. It also mandates a much needed shift, according to Zaleski, on “output and results…In fact, if we ran our in-office culture more like remote culture, we might all be better off.”

It is also essential that companies give their want ads a reboot so that they are more appealing to women. She cited an organization with which she worked that was baffled why it wasn’t attracting more female applications: their job ad began “seeking a superman.” It can also be useful to demonstrate a willingness to provide remote working, family leave benefits, and other benefits that show that the company is one that values work-life balance.

To keep women from leaving tech careers, it is certainly important to create an environment in which employees are treated equally and fairly. It is also essential to be clear about job expectations (that don’t revolve around how much time is spent in a given cubicle) and the path to upward mobility. It is also beneficial to invest in on-going skills-based training.

And to those who cite the “pipeline problem” as the primary reason women aren’t better represented in technology? Zaleski responds: “I get annoyed that the conversation is so focused on college and high school girls when there are so many qualified women out there looking for jobs. Let’s get these women jobs they can live with.” And that, she pointed out can help build a generation of role models that will inspire more young women to devote their skills to the future of tech.

Innovation | Perspectives

Inside DCN’s Next Conversation: Talent Talk

As busy media executives we often find ourselves heads down, getting the work done and facing each new challenge as it arises. But to really get somewhere, we need to save some time to think about what’s next and to find places and people that encourage that future focus. On March 26th, DCN hosted The Next Conversation dinner – an event inside the Digiday Publishers Summit in Vail, CO.

Co-hosted by Digiday Editor-in-Chief Brian Morrissey and DCN CEO Jason Kint, the intimate dinner discussion included a mix of some of the most forward-thinking minds in the digital media industry – each of whom was hand-picked to attend this first-time DCN event. The talk ranged from finding and cultivating talent to how we create a sustainable future for this business that we love, even as we realize that it will look very different than it does today.

Our first segment in this three-part series covers culture and talent with dinner guests advising to look for smart people you like, who fit your brand and who have diverse experience.

Some highlights:

“We don’t necessarily need the absolute superstar rock star with the upside. We need people we like and people that give a shit and people that are competent. If you can get those three things…I’ll take those over the potential superstar 10 times out of 10.”

—Neil Vogel, CEO, About.com

“We prefer someone that understands and appreciates the curiosity of our editors even if we’re hiring them for the business side. It’s important that they feel the Atlantic. If they don’t, it’s not going to work. The Atlantic is a quirky publication…we can’t afford to have someone on board who doesn’t really get it.”

—David Minkin, Executive Director,
Revenue Operations, The Atlantic

“We need to have a diverse team…in my team alone we have a bunch of architects, a bunch of lawyers, a bunch of engineers, a bunch of marketers and a bunch of biologists, including myself. And that kind of spun off that kind of creativity and that innovation…and makes it even a better team.”

—Steve Suthiana, Global Head, Digital Media
& Operations, Mansueto Ventures

“We hire, basically, interns. We bring in 10 or 15 every semester. We hire the people who mesh with the organization…and who produce. Who produce a lot.”

—Brian Danza, CTO, Daily Caller

“In any of us, I think our job is always to hire and train and to build the best teams possible. And that usually means they’ll go off and get other great jobs.”

—Lauri Baker, VP, Brand Strategy, Huffington Post

“[Marketers] want to know how you fit in to their marketing plan and that you know the landscape very, very well. I think once you have someone who is very deeply knowledgeable in one thing they become a vendor and not a partner.”

—Brendan Spain, US Commercial Director, FT.com

Perspectives

The Evolution of Marketing Departments

It took several generations for the telegraph operator to morph into the IT manager. Similar role, different skill set (Morse code just isn’t as in demand these days).

But in the last few years the pace of innovation has accelerated, completely changing how we use–and therefore how we staff–communications media. New media channels have proliferated so thick and fast that it’s happened without the corresponding phasing out of the old. We live in a continually expanding universe of digital and print, terrestrial radio and live stream, texting and email, TV and YouTube.

It’s not one or the other. Our consumption of all media keeps going up, as measured in a USC Marshall School of Business report. In 2008, Americans talked, viewed and listened to media, excluding the workplace, an average of 11 hours per person per day. By 2012, consumption had grown another 5% to 13.6 hours per person per day. By 2015, it is projected Americans will consume media for an average 15.5 hours per person per day, again not counting workplace time!

“One can actually have more than 24 hours in a media day,” explains the report, referring to the growth of simultaneous media streaming and multi-tasking. The non-stop nature of our media spigot is all around us – how many pedestrians did you see so far today staring at their iPhones while crossing the street?

The result has upended the hierarchy of communications channels. Emails (unread about 80% of the time) have become the new junk mail, while Direct Mail is now less cluttered and more effective. People are getting more of their news from Facebook, while also tuning into the local TV news. We’re watching and reading more regardless of media.

All those extra hours of media we’re consuming have spurred an enormous appetite for “content.” In large companies, the role of marketing has been shifting from pushing out ephemeral messages to generating content in more lasting formats to fill space on the internet – blogs, videos, native advertising features, online polls, etc.

The effects have drastically shifted how marketing departments are staffed. Every day there are thousands more “content management” positions to fill. Not too long ago, nobody went to school to get a degree in “creating content” (although I do recall something about poetry, painting, journalism and film-making). Now a Google search for “college degree in content creation” gets 5.1 million results.

Organizations of all sorts are jumping in to the business of content creation. The vast majority of B2B marketers – 92% – are engaged in some kind of content marketing, and the output keeps rising, with 70% producing more content this year than last. But most are unclear what it adds up to, as only 21% are successful at measuring ROI from their efforts.  We’re only half-way there.

This points to a common skills gap in marketing departments. Jason DeMers in Forbes Magazine has predicted it won’t be long before the top job in marketing will be Director of Content. Exactly how long that takes will depend on how intelligently organizations measure the impact of their content marketing efforts today.

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