The Rise of JournTech Journalism Startups

Let’s not repeat the same mistakes (and other startup ideas for budding JournTech Entrepreneurs interested in Google News Labs initiative).

TL;DR: Tech should build communication tools instead of technologies that cheapen Journalists. Journalism is one of the few industries we shouldn’t aim to automate and PRO TIP: we need to make these technologies accessible for all Journalists.

Answer this question yourself first: what future of journalism would you not like to see?

Journalism is the only profession immune to marketing but suffocating with advertising. This profession where every good Journalist is designed to be skeletal by nature and stand up in the face of misrepresentation and blurry facts. This World is changing at an alarming rate, with Tech companies making improvements on one of the oldest industries in the World.

YouTube: Native Advertising with John Oliver (must watch) — the lines of ‘Church and State’ (I didn’t know what that phrase meant either) are blurring with Native Advertising pioneering — a practice of writing advertisements that read and feel like a news article — being used by some of the major Newspapers in the World — this is an early warning sign that writing about News is becoming less cost effective.

For me, I like to keep my Newspaper and by BuzzFeed separate and with threats of SnapChat bringing this practice to the masses we need to tread carefully on combining News and Advertising.

JournTech Entrepreneurs, ask yourself — why is that?

So it couldn’t come at a better time for Google News Labs and HacksHackers to bring awareness of a Tech/News Startup gap and push their initiative to open up the door for JournTech Startups (happy to Sponsor and encourage events of this kind in Dublin).

I want to mention some of my own startup findings I’ve discovered based on my Customer Development talks I’ve done with Journalists and News Editors in the last 7 months of my life.

But before we rush in to develop more Apps and SaaS, let’s pause and reflect on what mistakes we should all think about and what happened in other industries. I’m thinking of industries I directly know, like in Web Development, whereby technologies made things ‘so simple’ that the profession of being a Web Developer and skill set to make a website was reduced and the mindset of ‘something my little nephew is doing’ was common place — we don’t want this to happen to Journalism.

Some Customer Development Learnings

• Time is of the essence with Journalists, it goes without saying. Build something that saves Journalists time, and you’re onto a winner.
• Journalists are employees like everyone else, don’t overestimate the power they have inside their own News Organisation, just because in words they have superpowers and a single article they write can cause global ripples. Behind walls, Journalists are treated like ‘ordinary’ employees and have to justify everything they do (this is a BIG IDEA).
• News Organisations are old organisations with old processes. Similar to Banks but with a lot less money. Processes and Job roles in News Organisations have stood the test of time — and aren’t going anywhere no matter what your Startup has to say. Understand these individual roles will shed light for Entrepreneurs for focused solutions.

Journalists and News Organisations are the most resourceful on the planet (for better or for worse). Think along the lines of how they use bad practices to get the job done. Police Scanners pre-Twitter days and the News of the World Phone Taps. For JournTech Entrepreneurs your take from this should be that Journalists are resourceful, they will use whatever it takes to get the job done and they will use tools that aren’t 100% suitable but that solves the immediate problem. Think: “how can I create a PhotoShop type tool for Journalists”

This resourcefulness is probably why Journalists have survived without a strong Tech influence for the last decade.

Which leads me nicely to the pioneers that are influencing the News industry! Some of the best Startups in the industry that are doing a magical job

Storyful — awesome one. In case you don’t know what they do, they validate videos in as near real time as possible and are at the height of pioneering with video validation. Read some of the stuff they’re doing with YouTube

NewsWhip — one of the quintessential tools for the modern Newsroom (I have heard first hand of a Journalist turning down a job as they didn’t have Spike). NewsWhip are pushing the boundaries of discovering trending content on Social Media.

(Plug Alert)
Breaking News Photos / Newslinn — this is what I’m involved in. In a simple a way as possible (simple isn’t easy), anyone in the World can now Share their Newsworthy Photos with 1,000's of Journalists Worldwide for free.

(I’ll write a Post on how we built our User and Photo Validation systems, using Python, Artificial Intelligence (PyKE) and Machine Learning (Sci-Kit Learn) another day).

Quick shout out too Journalist’s Toolbox — lists all the tools there is and a great resource for Entreprenuers to use to check for existing solutions.