CONTENT ISSUES:

Features and services offered on the new news product

ISSUES INVENTORY

This listing of questions is the result of a brainstorming on the issues which must, and will, be raised as you start planning and running your new media newsroom. The highlighted questions link to a list of ideas, models, and alternatives to answering the question.

CONTENT ISSUES

PRODUCT:

Having a sense of what you are building, who you are building it for, and why you are building it will help in making decisions about the content, the look and the scope of the service.

• Why are we trying to build a new media product? What does using this technology do for us?
  
• What should the product be? How similar should it be to the core product?
  
• Should the new product supplement or replace the core product?
  
• How can we decide what content we should put on the service?
  
• Is this a local or national product?
  
• Is this the same product for everyone? If it isn't, how do you make it different?
  
• How do you do personal zoning?
  
• How is the product supported?
  
• What is the philosophy of the product?
  
• What is comprehensiveness of service - how encyclopedic do you want to be?
  
• What is the mission of the new news product?
  
• What is the "news to fun" ratio and should it differ from the old product?
  
• What is the point of view of the service? Who are we trying to reach, and why are we trying to reach them?
  
• What does the customer we are trying to reach value / need from our service?
  

READER RELATIONSHIPS:

The users of your service are no longer passive consumers. The medium allows them to be active participants. Cultivating and managing their contributions requires thinking about your relationship with them.

• What kind of relationship do you want with your readers?
  
• How do you cultivate a relationship with your readers?
  
• How do you manage these relationships without overwhelming your staff?
  
• What are the new responsibilities of staff in terms of reader relationships?
  
• How does the new relationship with readers alter the boundaries between staff and readers?
  
• How do you resolve the conflict between reader and staff expectations of this relationship?
  
• Should we monitor reader to reader relationships, and if so, how?
  
• How do you police reader contributions to the service?
  
• How do journalistic ethics change when reporters and editors interact more personally with readers?
  
• Are reporters allowed to have opinions in cyberspace, and if so, how are they handled?
  
• Does the new relationship require a different kind of coverage, if so, how?
  

ADVERTISING:

In the new electronic medium advertising can be multi-media, multi-layered and full of information. Advertising becomes content, something more than just holes around which you place news stories.

• How do we delineate between advertising and editorial?
  
• What are the different kinds of advertising we can create?
  
• How does advertising change? What is it advertisers will want to do with this medium?
  
• Is advertising content? If yes, how do we monitor the content?
  
• Should advertisers expectations be different when using this medium?
  
• Should the service act as a broker between buyer and seller? If yes, how is that role played out?
  
• How high is the wall between editorial and advertising?
  
• What do you do in a world where there is no such thing as a camera ready ad?
  
• What are the various revenue models?
  

• ALIEN CONTENT:
  The interactive aspects of the new medium, and the "limitless newshole" provide opportunities for contributions to the content by others than newsroom staff. Links to other sites take editorial control out of the newsroom's hands. Dealing with this alien content, potentially valuable contributions to the service, has some special issues.
  
• Can / should readers provide content to the service?
  
• Can readers write news? If yes, what types of news might they logically contribute?
  
• What is the extent to which we invite reader participation in the creation of the service?
  
• If contributions by readers are desirable, what is the best way to invite them in?
  
• How do we differentiate "real news" from "alien news"?
  
• How much alien content is too much?
  
• What is the relationship between newsroom (old) and alien (new) content?
  
• Which has priority (old or new), especially in terms of placement?
  
• Should we verify and authenticate alien content and, if so, how and at what cost?
  
• How do we find and encourage alien content?
  
• Should we give outside groups unfiltered access for providing content to the service?
  
• Do we encourage links to other news organizations or association websites?
  
• What is our responsibility when linking to other information sites (selection, deselection, maintenance)?
  
• How do we credit links, give attribution to links?
  
• How do we archive links?
  
• How do we run corrections, how do we get notified of corrections to alien content?
  
• How do we ensure the updating of alien content?
  
• What new types of freelance material is available and how do you deal with them?
  

• FUN / PERSONALITY:
  The look, feel and content of the new media needs to reflect the medium it is using. The audience is different, the interactivity is different. Creating a new, innovative and creative personality for your service requires a re-thinking of your style and approach to deciding what is news.
  
• How do we make the service fun?
  
• Is it OK to have fun with a news service?
  
• Why should we be offering fun, what does being fun do for us?
  
• What is lost if we are fun, or just perceived as being fun?
  
• Where can we go to find new fun content?
  
• How do we design new fun features that will attract young people who don't read?
  
• How do we handle taste conflicts when one person's idea of fun is different than someone else's?
  
• How do we create a personality for our service?
  
• What should the personality (ies) of our service be?
  
• How do we resolve hard news vs. fun news conflicts in the newsrooms?
  
• Are the definitions of personality and fun in the new product different from the old product?
  
• Do we censor services to the readers?
  
• What if the audience requests something fun which we consider to be marginally tasteful?
  

• PRESENTATION / NAVIGATION:
  The look of the service, movement through the service and aids for using the service need to keep the audience in mind. Taking advantage of the technology to improve the look and use of information is a major goal.
  
• How can we make the service more than just the newspaper on the screen?
  
• How similar should the online and the print product be?
  
• How does the new media require changes in how we present information and tell stories?
  
• How do we take advantage of non-linear storytelling?
  
• How do we write and edit in a three dimensional medium?
  
• How do we differentiate between different content types and sources?
  
• What are the different models for on screen navigation?
  
• Is the "daily me" the product or a subset of the product?
  
• How do we design our products to fit within constraints of existing bandwidth and technology?
  

• TIMELINESS:
  You are no longer working on a cycle of one edition every 24 hours. Rather, you are on a 24 hour a day updating service and the clicks go to the service with the most current information. Managing for continuous updating requires making decisions about how the work is done, how the news report gets to you, and who decides it is ready to go.
  
• How often do we update the product?
  
• How much should we differ from the news cycle of the print?
  
• Do we run news stories before they appear in print?
  
• How is the updating done, who does it?
  
• What resources are needed to provide continuous updating?
  
• What are the quality issues with continuous updating?
  
• What is lost with continuous updating --what is gained?
  
• How often do we update non-news items?
  
• How do we keep the service fresh, keep offering new items?
  
• How are online readers' expectations different (regarding timeliness) from the print on paper readers'?
  
• How do we let the readers know how timely the information is? How do we timestamp items?
  
• What production links between the core product and the new media operation are critical to updating stories?
  

• RECYCLING:
  The content created by your newsroom is the organizations major commodity. This commodity must be stored in a way that allows easy use, and re-use in any of your news products.
  
• Should the online service generate its own content or just shovel content from the newspaper?
  
• Should online service staffing be set high enough to support editing before it is sent to the online product?
  
• How do we indicate changes in the print version from what appeared online?
  
• What version of news stories should be archived?
  
• How can the pieces of the online story (text, video, audio, graphics) be linked in an archive?
  
• How important is it to indicate all the uses, and reuses, that were made of a particular item?
  
• Is it important to track how long an item appeared, and when it was removed, from the online product?
  
• How do we indicate which links to sites or to alien content (messages, etc.) were used on a story?
  
• How do we post corrections to items which may have appeared only briefly on a service?
  

• NEWS:
  You used to be the only game in town (in most towns) and your circulation area was the adjoining three counties. Now you are a world wide publisher and competition for your audience is coming from upstart computer companies and telcos. What do these changes mean for your main line of business?
  
• Who are our new competitors?
  
• How do we compete in an environment where bigger may no longer be better?
  
• Who are our new allies and how do we cooperate?
  
• What are the New Century Networks and Microsofts up to?
  
• Do we try to beat or do we try to join the NCNs and Microsofts?
  
• What can we contribute, and get from, an alliance relationship?
  
• What do we do when we no longer control the source of distribution?
  
• Just how strange can bedfellows get?
  
• How does news judgment change when we are looking at worldwide distribution of news?
  
• When is advertising news?
  

• LEGAL ISSUES:
  The legal issues involved in new media are still being listed, much less being decided. There are key areas of concern for new media producers. A sensitivity to these areas will help avoid stepping into dangerous waters.
  
• What about copyright?
  
• Can we protect our copyright?
  
• How can we be sensitive to copyright issues?
  
• Is copyright obsolete?
  
• Are there new standards for libel?
  
• Are we libel for what readers say?
  
• Do readers / posters own their words?
  
• How should our freelance contract cover electronic rights?
  
• Do readers have privacy?
  
• How can we share information about users of the service with advertisers and still be sensitive to privacy concerns?
  
• Do we compromise credibility when we compromise privacy?
  
• How do we manage these privacy relationships?
  
• What legal implications are there for multimedia applications?
  
• How do we manage shared information?
  
• How do we attribute the source of information when it comes from links in a layered news story?
  

• NEW NEWSROOM CONTENT:
  The news story itself changes form when you go from print on paper to hyperlinked, multi-media electronic text. The content possibilities go beyond a news story to a dynamic packaging of material. The end of newshole limitations require new ways to make story allocation decisions.
  
• What do we not cover now that we should in the new media product?
  
• How will stories be assigned for the different mediums, who will write them?
  
• How do we shift coverage to an expanded view of our circulation area now that we are world-wide publishers?
  
• How should our coverage and story selection be influenced by the users of the service?
  

• QUALITY / STANDARDS:
  This new medium changes many things, but not the need for quality control and the establishment of standards for operation.
  
• How does new media lower / raise / change standards?
  
• What is valued in the new medium that had a lower priority in the old?
  
• What is valued in the old that has a lower priority in the new?
  
• What are our responsibilities for censoring / verifying alien content?
  
• What level of editorial control should be exerted over alien content?
  
• Is there a change in news standards when you are creating a constantly updated product?
  
• How might current policies in the newsroom, ie: verify news by two sources, not using anonymous sources, change with the pressures of continuous updating?