Guest: Kim Bui, Director of Product & Audience Innovation, Arizona Republic

“The product side is a personal interest of mine in that it really is the ‘how’ – I love looking at how we can tell better stories, how we can integrate better with our audience’s lives, listen to them, become more useful, and really get away from the pedestal style journalism that has ended up with us not being trusted by a majority of people.” – Kim Bui, Arizona Republic

What comes first, the product or the user? How do we close the gap between the addressable market and market penetration? What are ways to use newsletters and text notifications to get personal with readers? How can we position ourselves now with younger readers and Gen Z readers as a useful news source? What are the “winners” in the news product space doing that we are not?

On this episode of News Take, News Media Alliance President & CEO David Chavern chatted with Kim Bui, Director of Product and Audience Innovation at the Arizona Republic/AZCentral.com, about how to leverage the latest trends in digital products to connect with your audience and be useful to them, while at the same time building trust and emphasizing community-centered journalism. The conversation flows into a discussion of the evolving workplace and how Kim’s columns, “Sincerely, Leaders of Color” and “The Middles” reflect the importance of improving diversity in news media and providing education to those emerging leaders who are navigating unfamiliar management and leadership roles.

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Speaker bio

Kim Bui is the director of product and audience innovation at the Arizona Republic. She’s focused her career on leading real-time news initiatives and creating new storytelling forms for digital, print and broadcast companies catering to local, national and global audiences. Prior, she was editor-at-large for NowThis News, focusing on original, social reporting and breaking news. She was also deputy managing editor for reported.ly, a digital media startup specializing in social journalism. She’s been a speaker, trainer and teacher on digital and social journalism at universities, conferences and gatherings worldwide. She writes a syndicated newsletter for emerging leaders and managers, The Middles.

Related reading

Sincerely, Leaders of Color

The Middles

The Key to Gen Z: Insights and Ideas to Build Lasting Relationships

Watch the next episode: Encouraging and Sustaining Diversity in News Media

Watch the previous episode: Tech Trends: What Publishers Need to Know

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Send your suggestions for future News Take guests to Alliance VP, Research & Insights Rebecca Frank at rebecca@newsmediaalliance.org.

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The post News Take Episode 103: Leveraging Products to Connect with Your Audience appeared first on News/Media Alliance.

We’re still working out some of the finer points of the book club, such as how frequently we’ll be reading and meeting, and what platform we want to use for discussions, but for now, you can join us by reading the first book and taking our interest survey to let us know what you’d like to see from our newest venture.

The first book we’ll be reading is Informing the News: The Need for Knowledge-Based Journalism by Thomas E. Patterson. You can buy the book online at Amazon, Barnes & Noble or at your favorite local bookstore, or you can borrow it from your neighborhood library. And you’re of course free to read in any format you choose.

Patterson is the Bradlee Professor of Government and the Press at Harvard’s Kennedy School, and he has written several books on the role of the media in American politics and society. As part of the book club, the Alliance will be chatting with Patterson about his book and sharing his insights on the work, as well as its continued relevance, with all of you.

If you’re interested in participating, please read our first book by February 19, and take our survey to let us know how you’d like to see our book club proceed. You can also reach out to let us know your thoughts by emailing jennifer@newsmediaalliance.org or tweeting @EditrixJen.

The post Alliance Introduces #MediaBookClub appeared first on News/Media Alliance.

2017 was a difficult year for the alternative media market. In a six-month period, The Village Voice stopped printing and became a digital-only publication, Washington City Paper was sold, The Nashville Scene laid off 25 percent of its staff, Baltimore City Paper ceased publication and LA Weekly was sold, leading to an advertiser boycott. POLITICO’s Jack Shafer, former editor of Washington City Paper, felt compelled to write a eulogy for alternative newspapers.

As classified ad revenue continues to decline, alt weeklies face challenges unique to their business model. However, challenges for independent publishers aren’t unique to alternative outlets. In the first half of 2017, the “digital duopoly” trend continued. Pivotal Research estimates Google and Facebook accounted for 73 percent of all digital advertising, an increase from 70 percent during the first half of 2016. The IAB points out that the bulk of this advertising is done by small- and medium-sized businesses, but further research will be necessary to understand whether these small businesses are shifting their spend from independent publishers to these platforms.

Even with these developments, there are bright spots in the market and successes that provide valuable lessons for all media organizations.

First, alternative and traditional outlets alike can create lasting offline relationships with readers by hosting community events. Even as SouthComm sought a buyer for the Washington City Paper, it expanded the paper’s Crafty Bastards Arts & Crafts fair to other markets. The fair, featuring local and regional artists, leverages the paper’s role as promoting art, benefiting local charities and generating non-advertiser revenue.

Next, these organizations can succeed through identifying opportunities for efficient production of local news and seeking out experienced teams who understand local market needs. In Baltimore, the day after the City Paper printed its final issue, alumni from the publication announced the Baltimore Beat. The paper will be published by Brown Naff Pitts Omnimedia, a local company that publishes the Washington Blade, a 50-year-old LGBT-focused alternative paper. Additionally, the Beat team will partner on content with the Baltimore-based Real News Network, with Beat reporters appearing in Real News Network videos and Real News staff writing stories for the Beat. By collaborating – and identifying experienced alternative media stewards to help produce the news – both organizations can benefit and find efficiencies.

We would be remiss if we didn’t mention that an important way for organizations to share what they’ve learned is by joining forces with others. For alternative media outlets, our counterparts at the Association of Alternative Newsmedia (AAN) exist to help media organizations and support journalism.

At the News Media Alliance, we are strong supporters of the power of local news and journalism. There will never be a replacement for well-informed organizations with the best interests of their communities at heart, and alternative news organizations play an important role in connecting local communities with the news they want to read.

The post Inside the World of Alt Weeklies appeared first on News/Media Alliance.

In January, we’ll be covering some of the storytelling techniques that garnered a lot of interest in at the Digital Media North America conference and the DTC Forum on Television & Print last fall. Among the first articles will be best practices for creating branded or sponsored content; breaking news and telling stories via social media; and what it takes to add virtual reality storytelling to your repertoire, no matter the size or scope of your publication.

We’ll continue the series in February with explainers on different specialized stories you might want to tell, continuing what we started with our MMA feature in December. We’ll  rely on help from experts in various topics, as well as journalists, editors and business-side executives to give readers the best and most up-to-date information possible. We’ll also be looking for new topics to add to our series, so if there are subjects you want to learn more about or topics you’d like to dig further into, please let us know. You can email jennifer@newsmediaalliance.org with any suggestions. And if you consider yourself an expert on any of our planned topics, or a topic you think our members should know more about, please reach out.

The post Alliance Introduces "How To" Series for News Producers appeared first on News/Media Alliance.

“Augmented reality is a natural platform for journalism,” says Jeremy Gilbert, director of strategic initiatives at The Washington Post. “Even though new devices capable of ever richer AR experiences are being developed, mobile phones already allow compelling AR storytelling so The Post can be simultaneously exploring the future and successfully distributing its stories in the present.”

One of The Post’s first big augmented reality projects gives viewers an inside look at some of the world’s most iconic billion dollar buildings, such as the Elbphilharmonie concert hall in Hamburg, Germany, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC.

“In AR, users can more tangibly interact with storytelling artifacts — scaling things with their own hands or bringing foreign objects into familiar spaces,” Gilbert says. “So far, we have seen the power of introducing virtual objects into physical spaces, the value of showing locations at different zoom levels, historical recreations and even AR stencils for jack-o-lantern carving.”

It’s not just news outlets like The New York Times, The Guardian and The Wall Street Journal experimenting with VR and AR. Advertisers, too, are exploring what’s possible with these new methods of sharing stories and images.

This ability to merge the real and virtual worlds has led home décor retailers IKEA and Pottery Barn to create smartphone apps that let users place virtual furniture in their real rooms to see how the pieces will fit in their existing setups.

“Most people postpone a purchase of a new sofa because they’re not comfortable making the decision if they aren’t sure the color is going to match [the rest of the room] or fits the style,” Michael Valdsgaard, the leader of digital transformation at Inter IKEA, IKEA’s parent company, told Digiday. “Now, we can give them [those answers] in their hands, while letting them have fun with home furnishing for free and with no effort.”

People are also getting into VR and AR on a much, much smaller scale. Phinatics.com, a fan site for the Miami Dolphins, recently launched a Phinatics360 channel on YouTube, where they take Dolphins fans into press conferences, tailgating events and even the locker room using 360-degree video. While the videos are targeted at a smaller audience than the immersive products from IKEA or The New York Times, the fact that there is an audience is proof that immersive storytelling is becoming mainstream.

As the costs of AR and VR technology go down and interest in immersive storytelling rises, more outlets and organizations are likely to want to dip their toes into the virtual reality pool. And the bar for entry is much lower than most publishers think. At Digital Media North America, Marcelle Hopkins, the co-director of VR for The New York Times, discussed how easy it can be to get started, even for smaller publishers or organizations. Not only are journalists more adaptable than they’re given credit for, Hopkins said, but getting started in VR is fairly low-risk; the basic tools can be purchased for less than $1,000, she told the audience.

But you don’t have to aim for the skies on your first attempt. As The Washington Post’s Gilbert noted, AR and VR can be used for anything from small, fun stories on pumpkin-carving, to explorations of architecture to stories filmed on the frontlines of war. “The key is making sure that whatever you do truly advances the story,” Gilbert says. “It [also] needs to benefit the reader.”

Part of making sure any immersive techniques used enhance the story rather than overshadow it is having the journalists and tech teams collaborate so that both sides of the AR production are on the same page. Allowing the journalists to take the lead lets them guide the project so that the AR component isn’t something separate from the story it’s supposed to enhance.

“I think about immersive storytelling as a pyramid where at the top of the pyramid you have the smallest audience but the most immersive experience, and at the bottom of the pyramid would be probably our print- and web-based storytelling, where you have the lowest level of immersion but the highest audience,” Gilbert explains. “I think the key when you talk about these technologies is how can you move people from the lowest level of immersion to the highest. But I don’t see us looking at something and saying, ‘OK, we’re going to offer a really immersive experience, but it’s not going to include text.’

here are always going to be people who want to read our stories, and I don’t think I’ve yet seen a way for AR [alone] to tell the whole story.”

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