Journalism 101: What every media startup should know about journalism
Essential insights into the journalism industry from leading professionals
The journalism industry is in an ongoing state of disruption as both print and digital publications look for new ways to monetize digital content.
The revelation was just one of the major takeaways participants learned at an exclusive “Journalism 101” workshop attended by entrepreneurs from the DMZ’s Digital News Innovation Challenge (DNIC). The event was hosted by Doug Cudmore, senior editor at the Toronto Star, and other prominent journalists.
“The print newspaper is not a growing thing, but it is still a place where you get most of your revenue from” said Cudmore, while discussing the important role the publication’s print edition plays despite its dwindling circulation numbers.
Moving towards a more digitally focused revenue model (and away from its traditional print news roots) is a priority at the Toronto Star right now, but “it takes a long time for one to get to the other,” he added.
Other media experts participating in the journalism 101 event, held to impart the core principles and practices of journalism to participating DNIC companies, were Andree Lau, editor-in-chief at Huffington Post Canada and Allison Smith, founder of Queen’s Park Today, a daily news service dedicated to provincial political coverage in Ontario.
Unlike the Toronto Star, Huffington Post Canada and Queen’s Park Today have always been digital-first publications, giving them a bit of an edge over traditional print publications. Although, that doesn’t mean the two news sources aren’t encountering obstacles in the digital news landscape.
“Time of engagement is always a better way of tracking [audience behaviour] than just click through,” said Lau when asked what metrics HuffPost Canada collects on its content. “The most annoying thing to me has always been pageviews, it’s such a useless statistic.
“It would be far more valuable to understand a HuffPost user across various platforms and find out how engaged they are on each.”
Mario Vasilescu, creator of content analytics platform Readefined, said the panelists provided a window into the state of today’s journalism industry. It’s an important piece of information that he’ll be able to use when he approaches publications with his product.
When speaking to news publications, said Vasilescu, you’re going to have to have two simultaneous conversations: how to maintain the culture and practices of traditional journalism while also addressing the need for new types of thinking and training.
“For me the takeaway was to really be mindful of the fact there’s this period of limbo,” said Vasilescu.
Article written by Michael D’Alimonte
