THE PUBLISHER A joint publication of the Canadian Community Newspapers Association & the Canadian Newspaper Association June

e 2009, VOL. XC, No 5 

Page 5

Europe and North America: Vive la diffrence

Theo Blanco and Bertrand Pecquerie supply insights from across the Atlantic

Pecqueries research suggests North American editors are more pessimistic about journalism than their European counterparts. Photo by Amy Egan

Trends in the global newsroom

By janELLE jORdan
Theo Blanco says newspapers have more readership today on all of their platforms than ever before. Photo by Amy Egan It used to be that there was little to distinguish European and North American newspaper production. But today, with massive change sweeping through the industry, the two markets have begun to evolve apart. The layout of front-page news and the design of the newsroom, for example, have emerged in recent years as key differences in North American and European news production. We know this thanks to Betrand Pecquerie, director of the World Editors Forum, who polled over 700 editors-in-chief and newspaper executives in North America and Europe to get a sense of what the continental markets have in common and how they differ. Pecquerie conducted his study online at editorsweblog.com, asking respondents about newsroom integration, multi-skilled journalists, newsroom design and outsourcing at their respective newspapers. He presented his report, a fascinating and unique look at editorial strategies in continental newsrooms, at Ink & Beyond on Wednesday, May 20. The report revealed many similarities between North America and Europe. Newspapers in both markets are seeking to boost audience engagement through interactivity, citizen journalism and new-media devices such as reader voting and polls, maps, videos and slideshows. There is also a common attitude between North America and Europe that integrated newsrooms will be the norm, Pecquerie revealed. There is no difference between Europe and North America outsourcing editorial content outside the newsroom.

If its Thursday, this must be Sweden

By jEnnIfER fREItaS
If there is one thing to take away from Ink & Beyonds Thursday, May 21, morning session, An International Perspective: If Its Thursday This Must Be Sweden, its this: Its all about the eyeballs. With the cost of running a media organization growing even as circulation shrinks, speaker Theo Blanco, senior sales and marketing director for Swedens award-winning Upsala Nya Tiding media group, encouraged publishers to peer into the windows to the soul for answers. This spiral of circulation numbers going downwards is such a farce because we have more eyeballs today, more readership today on all of our platforms than we ever didand thats outstandingly salable, said Blanco, who has been with UNT since 2008 and says he intends to take back 20 per cent of the companys lost market shares this year. In the last year and a half, UNT has gone multidimensional, launching five niche products including a lifestyle magazine, a motor magazine, a real estate magazine, and in May, a free sheet that knocked off Metro in the subways. Next on the agenda is the launch of a local CNN, as Blanco terms it. We have to make money now; we cant [afford] to wait two years, said Blanco. We focus too much on our brands and ourselves, he added. Focus needs to go deep into the client so that you can really tailor-make your products. Blanco reminded publishers that online readers are just as valuable as newspaper readers both have eyeballs, after all - and suggested that pricing be adjusted to reflect the equal importance of online and offline news. To demonstrate this point, Blanco said that if you deliver 150,000 eyeballs in your daily and 50,000 eyeballs online, then you should devote 75 per cent of advertising revenues to the daily side and 25 per cent goes to online production. Your client needs to get what they pay for, said Blanco. To wrap up his speech, Blanco gave tips on how publishers can get their media houses booming the way UNT is at the moment. He mentioned the importance of breaking new ground in communications, ensuring all media streams (print, online, mobile, etc.) work in concert, offering consumers a dialogue, treating advertising as content and, most importantly, following those peepers.

Differences were clear, however, in the design of European and North American newsrooms. Pecquerie gave two examples of revolutionary newsroom designs that have emerged in Europe in the last few years. The first was the hub and spoke design pioneered by the London Daily Telegraph, which Pecquerie said might resemble an 18th-century prison but, to the contrary, improves flexibility and flow during production. The second was the hub without spokes design launched by the Nottingham Evening Post, which underwent a massive newsroom integration project in 2006. Today an undisputed world leader in web-based journalism, the Evening Post remade its newsroom to reflect the horizontal power structure and breakneck pace associated with online journalism. Journalism is creativity, not productivity. Dont transform the newsroom into a control room, Pecquerie advised. Its impossible to become a 24-hour news provider without a re-organization of the newsroom. Content is also transforming dramatically, as newspapers become viewspapers, in the words of Simon Kelner, former editor of Londons The Independent. Newspapers are no longer mass media, but niche media, Pecquerie said. Its the reason why a lot of European newspapers now try to get a strong point of view from a colour page with just one image. Its a real European trend at the moment I have not found in North American dailies. According to Pecqueries study, North Americans are also more pessimistic about the future of journalism.

When you are less optimistic, you dont work the same way, he elaborated. When you feel that you are not optimistic about your newspaper, there is a different way you work with journalists. Pecquerie enumerated 10 key themes that he said were fundamental to the future success of newsrooms in both North America and Europe, dividing them into good-to-know elements (participation, convergence, storytelling, personalization and news to use) and the difficult-todo elements (news sharing, partnerships, training, fragmentation and ethics). Newspapers are no longer in control of sharing news, which is the main issue to solve as an editor, Pecquerie said. The main issue we have to solve is the same problem both in North America and in Europe. Also common to European and North American newsrooms is the need to somehow aggregate and organize news items made for different media. Before it was always top-down journalism, and newspaper-centric, said Pecquerie. We have to aggregate news sources, because news is a conversation and needs to be multiplatform. The demands of the multinewspaper newsroom is also becoming more apparent. Pecquerie looked at the European trend of regional newspapers merging with national newspapers to become more compact, as in the case of Germanys Die Welt and Berliner Morgenpost. Dont focus on digital only; the goal is to reach segmented audiences, he explained. Work as a press agency in order to produce five to seven print products to create synergy.