COMM 271 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Coworking, Columbia University Graduate School Of Journalism, User Experience
1/10/18 How People Get the News
Multimedia Moment-
● News travels at different speeds across different platforms, we call this news
velocity
● EX: the firing of Joe Paterno (aftershock)
○ A man has to announce the firing of Joe Pa, and thinks if he announces it
at 9:30 pm people will hear about it at the 11pm news
○ At this time, there is a maximum number of students out on the street
(coming and going from bars) so police were notified, but since they
thought that they had until 11pm to get there, at 9:30 there were no police
to monitor the situation
■ The example that we watched had multimedia by switching from
video to image to text
● The videos are turning or transitional points in the story
○ This happened because police didn’t understand news velocity
■ People got information at different speeds and times
Convergence: all the tools converging so that every news organization has the same
toolkit for telling stories
There is a generational change in newspaper readers
● About the time people reach voting age, they choose their method of receiving
news (Phillip Myer)
○ Choosing a platform
As new platforms emerged, people found other ways to get the news-
Types of platforms: radio, newsreels, television, broadband internet, mobile
Phillip Myers 3 Key Points
● Niche audience are a fact (since the 1950s)
○ Began to grow after WWII when people had leisure time
● The media is getting better at reaching those niche audiences
● Reader trust pays off
○ When someone hears about a story and they want to read more, news
platforms want readers to learn more about the story from them
■ If you see something on TV, you might look it up on your phone to
read more
■ If news platforms are consistent, readers will be too
○ Being 1st doesnt count if you are WRONG
Meyer: Looking ahead
● In 2008 he took these points and predicted newspapers would move away from
daily print publication
● The challenges for publishers: reaching multiple audiences across multiple
platforms
News vs. Information
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What’s the difference?
What happened in Santa Barbara (info)
● There were mudslides in California
What happened in Santa Barbara? (news)
● What happened where when and why, what are the results
It’s important for journalists to know the difference so your audience knows why
they should trust you
Audience engagement: the process of journalists letting audiences know they’re
covering the news and showing why their coverage is the best
Multimedia Moment:
New York Times “I Want an iPhone”
Page View: someone opens the page
Bounce: when someone closes the page right away, they bounce off it
Stickiness: When someone stays on the page and even clicks on an ad
Unique User: a unique IP address (logging on from different devices using different IPs)
Take the number of real users and divide by ten, that’s how many users are on
your site a day
Ad Impression: ads off to the side of the page
Branded Content/Native Advertising:
When viewers click on a video they must wait for the pre-roll ad
Videos generate 10x more revenue per ad because people are more captive
Cross Platform Journalism
Common Challenges-
Serve two kinds of readers
Time-starved readers
Information-starved readers
Types of news stories
Event coverage (reactive) These stories take less time, and are published
more often
Breaking news
Scheduled events
Enterprise (driving the conversation) gives readers information that they
didn’t even know they wanted to know. These build reputation.
News hook
Contextual
Which type of coverage should have the longest tail? Enterprise
Tail: how long interest is kept in an article
A longer tail means people are interested for longer
o Enterprise needs a longer tail because you invest more time in creating it
Comparing print/online/mobile
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• The digital and print editions of the New York Times (print editions)
Advantages of Print
• The power of page design
o Serendipitous read: reading about things that you didn’t know you were
interested in (enterprise articles on the front page)
Advantages of online/mobile
• A bigger toolkit
o Online has text, hyperlink, still photos, audio, video, interactive graphics, data
basing
o Unlimited space and audience (physical space vs. time)
Bandwidth to support all of the things you want readers to see
Making sure the information gets to them before you lose their attention
• Online goals
o Stickiness/loyalty
o Providing multiple entry points
o Creating a serendipitous reading experience online
MOH middle of homepage
1/17/17
Multimedia Moment-
● A Fine Line: SImone Biles, Gymnast
○ Responsive (changes depending on device) designed first for a smartphone
Today’s Challenge: Innovate or Die: Is there such thing as a good mistake?
Yahoo! News wants to grow its audience
Solution one: Change the way we report the news
● Take a proven reporter who is willing to take both professional and personal risks
and try to do something new (Kevin Sites)
● The goal: show people how to present content in a different way than television
● Successes: Yahoo pulled ahead of MSNBC by 5 million unique users
○ How do you cover conflict that fast? Superficially
○ How was it received? It won no awards
Yahoo! News and Sites came up with a new idea: People of the Web
● Rolling in the Cash: The Tumbleweed Tycoon
● Lessons Learned
○ Stories without substance don’t sustain audience for a news site
○ The content is more important than the reporter
New Strategy
● Aggregate information within verticals
● Real investigative reporting to attract and impress an audience
● Hire effective high profile reporter like David Pogue who bring an audience with
them
○ Technology Fail: The QueCat lost 18 million dollars
○ Turned into: Technology, The QR code is successful in reaching certain
audiences. Works best as a call to action.
find more resources at oneclass.com
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Document Summary
News travels at different speeds across different platforms, we call this news velocity. Ex: the firing of joe paterno (aftershock) A man has to announce the firing of joe pa, and thinks if he announces it at 9:30 pm people will hear about it at the 11pm news. The example that we watched had multimedia by switching from video to image to text. The videos are turning or transitional points in the story. This happened because police didn"t understand news velocity. People got information at different speeds and times. Convergence: all the tools converging so that every news organization has the same toolkit for telling stories. There is a generational change in newspaper readers. About the time people reach voting age, they choose their method of receiving news (phillip myer) As new platforms emerged, people found other ways to get the news- Types of platforms: radio, newsreels, television, broadband internet, mobile. Niche audience are a fact (since the 1950s)
