journalism at 100 mbps ian vaile head of content abc new media and digital services
TRANSCRIPT
Journalism at 100 MbpsJournalism at 100 Mbps
Ian VaileHead of Content
ABC New Media and Digital Services
OverviewOverview
• Fundamentals of journalism – story, accuracy, relevance, timeliness, honesty – remain
• Platform–specific journalism is over• Production and distribution are converging digitally• Platforms are proliferating • Media consumption habits are changing• Digital production is challenging on many levels• Everything, everywhere, all the time
Digital CharacteristicsDigital Characteristics
• All media produced and stored in standardised digital formats» Text» Image» Audio» Video» Animation» Indexing
• Common storage and distribution systems (DAM)• Easily adapted to proliferating distribution channels• Backchannels and interactivity • Challenge to single-platform media organisations
BroadbandBroadband
• Over 100 million bb lines globally by Jan 2004
Source: Point Topic, September 2003
Changing audience expectationsChanging audience expectations
• Audiences are no longer passive linear consumers• Choice and interactivity have redefined expectations• In UK, digital activity is adding to media mix and displacing non-media
activity • Young users are more likely to be drawn to media services which
acknowledge and directly support selective modes of media use than to the relatively passive media services. This will “grow through” the population as this cohort ages
• “Web news viewers are more affluent, more adventurous, better-educated and younger than newspaper readers.” (John Berthelsen, Asia Times Online).
• Use of New Media changes use of “old” media: newspapers, radio, TV• Loyalty to existing platforms may degrade• Brand loyalties shift
Digital JournalismDigital Journalism
• Previously, elements of story tightly bound in distribution
• Constrained publication/broadcast footprint
• Digital distribution loosens the linkage of the elements
• Digital platforms can overcome geographical constraints
• Digital production and distribution undermines TV, radio and print production cycles
Multiple outputsMultiple outputs
• Text: XML streams, industry agreed formats• Audio & Video:
» multiple compression and encoding regimes» Multiple cuts
• Metadata ubiquitous (requirement for subject categorisation)
Distribution implicationsDistribution implications
• Suitable for all digital platforms present and future• Commercially syndicated elements and targeted components• Incorporation of third-party data flows into product
• Licensing hierarchy – full content or elements
• Replication and branding issues» Whose brand?» Is news a commodity?» What rights to alter does client have?
Intellectual propertyIntellectual property
• Does the publisher/broadcaster have rights to all iterations of a journalist’s work?
• Territoriality is difficult in some platforms – internet, email
• Plagiarism and piracy are facilitated
• Rights breaches by publisher are proliferated to wider audience
• Media gatherers or interview subjects may pose challenges
» Subjects requesting changes
» Olympics 2000 – organisation took regressive approach to online rights and extremely restrictive rights regime implemented
Additional legal issuesAdditional legal issues
• Defamation and jurisdiction• Gutnick Vs Dow Jones
– Liable in jurisdiction of place of publishing – ie all world
• Court reporting» Jurisdictions again !» Archiving and caching
• Content easily and comprehensively searchable» Exposure to legal action, lobby groups
Organisational issuesOrganisational issues
• Online and digital media activities are a virus for organisational change
• Powerful diagnostic of internal state of an organisation
» Are the arms integrated?
» Is there a coherent strategic vision?
» How does it adapt to changes?
» What industrial environment does it work in?
» How risk-averse is it?
CostsCosts
• Training – how do journalists do this stuff?
» Cross-media journalists?
• Advertising budgets fragment – flight to “events”
• Digital infrastructure costs – DAM, CMS, switching, servers, lines
• Proliferation of TV-like content
• New types of studios and work practices
• Organisational restructuring
• Audience interactivity – expectations, privacy, peril
• Economic models developmental
• Global reach = enhanced competition
Journalism @ 100MbpsJournalism @ 100Mbps
What happens to media use when domestic connectivity exceeds 100Mbps?
What happens to media use when high bandwidth wireless is common?
Source: MPHPT Communications News May 2003
Source: MPHPT Communications News May 2003
The daily life of the average person is taken up with three things - sleep, work
and consuming media-Malcolm Long
The World is the interface-Neil Gerschenfeld, MIT
