“the editor in the digital era” tony gallagher editor the daily telegraph
TRANSCRIPT
“The Editor in the Digital Era”
Tony GallagherEditor
The Daily Telegraph
Survival of newspapers is dependent on ability to evolve
Innovation: Condition for survival
Five fundamental changes to journalism
1 Multimedia as well as text
2 Real-time coverage
3 Relationship with readers
4 Data influencing decisions
5 Digital packaging and distribution
1 - Multimedia Era: New forms of journalism
20th-century article: Headline, text, picture
21st-century article: Headline, text, multiple pictures, video, graphics, readers’ contributions, live blog
Editor’s job is to select the media that best tells the story
Headline
Summary points
Multimedia
Tweets
Chronology
2 – Real-time coverage
20th-century: Single deadline
21st-century: Reporting live as events unfold
E-poll
Ratings
Sharing
Reader comments
3 – Reader interaction
20th-century: We wrote, they read
21st-century: Conversation with readers and between readers
Telegraph.co.uk is a social network with more than 20,000 daily comments
4 – Data increasingly drives decision-making
Daily data on stories: What’s hot today? Chartbeat, Google, Twitter
Monthly data on audience traffic: Are we meeting our targets for subscription, advertising?
Quarterly trends data: How are we faring on mobile, tablets, desktop? How are our journalists faring?
Data analysis team sits at the heart of our newsroom
5 – Packaging and distributing journalism for digital platforms
20th-century: Newspapers
21st-century: Newspapers, computer screens
Digital designers and developers are new rockstars
Mobile
Tablet
Desktop
Flipboard: Telegraph PM
The 21st-Century Editor
• Values multimedia as much as words
• Real-time: Heightened sense of urgency
• Sees readers as part of a story: contributors and distributors
• Draws insight from data
• Cares as much about journalism on screens as in newspaper
But fundamental role doesn’t change: great narrative
Daily Digital Journalism
• Articles: 600 a day, up from 50% from three years ago
• Video: 40 a day
• Picture galleries: 25 a day
• Blogs: 25 a day
• Breaking news blogs: 5 a day
75% of newsroom output is website only
The Big Story: Margaret Thatcher, April 8
• Big guns: Boris Johnson, Charles Moore, Allison Pearson, Anne Applebaum, Cecil Parkinson, David Owen, Michael Forsyth
• Big story: 10-part obituary, Charles Moore serialisation• Multimedia: 75 articles, 26 commentators, 19 videos, 8
picture galleries, 3 graphics, live blog• Books: On iPad and Kindle the same week• Special edition: Weekend magazine dedicated to
Thatcher
More than 3.5 million people visited our website and a further 1.2 million read the newspaper
The Future of our Newsroom
• Seven-day publishing across digital and print
• New editorial skills: Video, graphics, live blogging
• Data skills: Enhanced capability around audience data
• Design and software: A new creative hub