Convergence’s Fundamental Question

Convergence’s Fundamental Question

1. Dichotomy at media convergence

   • business view
     • Produce more news for the same money
     • Significant organization change
     • increased productivity and marketing
     • Decisions based on economics
   • Journalist view
     • Potenial to do better journalism
     • Journalistic principles
     • Quality must be maintained
   • Multiple forms of convergence
     • satisfies consumer demands and lifestyles
     • Cross-marketing of a single product

2. Definition of convergence

   • As a survival
   • Protect their place in the market
   • Deliver news and information in a new and different way
   • Everything to do with mindset
   • convergence has almost as many interpretations as it has advocates
     • convergence involves a reporter who is a specialist in a particular area being able to repurpose information so that the reporter ’s expertise appears in several forms.     
     • United States
       • The convergence process is more likely to involve a daily newspaper partnering with a local television channel.    
       •  Television’s contribution is to use its brand and wide reach to promote the newspaper.    
       • Five forms of convergence in the country by Rich Gordon
         • Ownership convergence
           • Applies to the partnerships between large media companies that permits ‘‘synergy’’ cross-promotion and content sharing between print and television owned by the same company.     
           • Gordon quotes the president of Tribune Publishing, Jack Fuller: ‘‘Owning television, radio and newspapers in a single market is a way to lower costs, increase efficiencies and provide higher quality news in times of eco- nomic duress’’.      
         • tactical convergence
           • Is Gordon’s term for the partnerships that have arisen in the US media. Tactical convergence does not require common ownership, just as ownership convergence does not imply collaboration on tactics.    
           • The most common model of tactical convergence was a partnership between a TV station and a newspaper, usually under separate ownership. It was a business arrangement: ‘‘In most markets, the primary motivation for  –and initial results of– these partnerships seemed to be promotional".      
         • Structural convergence
           • Convergence occurs when media companies re-organize the newsroom and introduce new positions. It is more related to newsgathering than management.     
           • One good example is the Orlando Sentinel ’s creating a staff of multimedia editors to re-package print material for cable television.    
         • information gathering convergence
           • convergence also occurs at the journalistic level and is Gordon’s term for situa tions where media companies require reporters to be multiskilled      
           • Technology makes the multi-skilled journalist possible but in reality we may not see many Inspector Gadgets, for several reasons. Most journalists simply do not have the necessary level of technical expertise, and training has never been a high priority in many newsrooms (see the comments on training later in this paper). In terms of the quality of final product, it is not possible for one person to cover a major story adequately for all media. The ‘‘platypus’’ reporter is useful for handling isolated news events or features.     
         • Storytelling convergence
           • It operates at the level of the working journalist, though it needs management support for equipment. Every new medium offers innovative ways to tell stories.    
     • How to do convergence
       •     One of the participants at the Defining Convergence panel in South Carolina, Michael Romaner, pointed out that convergence was still evolving and for him was still an experiment: ‘‘If anyone is doing the work and considers it anything but R&D, they are way off".     
       • Full media convergence involves a radical change
         • in approach and mindset by both managers and journalists. It involves a shared desk where the key people, the multimedia editors, assess each news event on its merits and assign the most appropriate staff for the story.     
       • Editors are the key of journalism
         •     A true multiple-media editor will be one who recognizes, for instance, that breaking news report- ing is no longer a staple of printed journalism, and therefore that printed newspaper content must rise to a higher level while working in concert with its online siblings.     
       • Communication is a key factor
         • If a story evolves to the point where one person is not enough, the reporter needs to be sufficiently flexible to know when to call for help, and sufficiently confident to know that the call for help will not lead to ridicule. People on the multi-media desk also need to be trained to assess a story and send the most appropriate individual or team     
       • A change of mindset attitude
         • The team is more important than the lone wolf reporter because teams produce better multi-media reporting. It also means that news organizations will need to invest in widespread training, to teach journalists skilled in one medium how to tell stories in another .   

3. Competing model

   • The journalistic idea
     • journalistic values prevailed in the move to multiple-platform journalism
       • Andrew Nachison: ‘‘The danger seems to lie in making news values subordinate to business considerations’’.     
       • Gil Thelen, one of the pioneers of convergence, said multiple-platform delivery should be de- signed ‘‘to help people live [their lives] more easily’’    
     • Content that is deep and informative
       • GT: "We want to make sure these on-the-run readers can scan the paper quickly and get a good sense of what’s important that day. Yet at the same time, we want to make sure that when these busy readers do catch their breath and find time to read the paper more completely, they’ll enjoy the context, depth and perspective on the news that only newspapers can provide.     
     • Quality and extensive training
       • Quality of content, generated by quality staff, will be what differentiates great news organizations from the mediocre in the future.     
     • Reinterpret the old values for a new era
       •     editor Katharine Fulton concluded that smart journalists would embrace new forms of journalism such as multimedia storytelling and find ways to employ their traditional abilities to synthesize, explain and place events in context.     
     • Mindset
       • Journalists in the 21st century will need a flexible mindset and the ability to adjust to change.     
       • Brian Vesting: "If there is one word to describe what is being required more and more in newsrooms as journal- ism moves into the digital age it is flexibility. In an industry in which flexibility always has been an important element for success, it now seems to be vital for survival".      
     • Change.
   • Business idea
     • Multiple platforms
       • The business model sees multiple-platform publishing as a way to increase productivity among staff and –equally importantly– as a way to grab as large a share of the advertising pie as possible.     
     • Sell multiple media advertising campaigns
       • One advertising representative can offer a campaign in a variety of formats. This introduces the concept of ‘‘co-opertition’’. The term is an amalgam of competition and co-operation and represents a new form of business in which organizations that originally were competitors work together when it suits each party     
     • Co-operate
       • Walter Keichel said the essence of the theory could be reduced to two sentences: ‘‘Co-operate with others to increase the size of the pie. Compete in cutting it up.’’ But he inserted a cautionary note: ‘‘The others with whom you may wish to co-operate could include businesses with which you com- pete on other fronts".     
     • Survival
       • It iis [about] delivering a product that we know the customers will want. We started out on the multi- platform road 18 months ago. It is still rocky. You need a top-down commitment. Journalists, by their nature, don’t like change. We have to convince them that we have to serve the customer to retain our jobs.     

4. Driving convergence

   • Changing attitudes and life styles of new consumers
     • people’s information-seeking behavior is changing and media organizations need to change to respond to that need.     
   • Go where the audience is
     • The concept of news is changing all the time. [It is becoming] more personalized, more service-oriented and less institutional.     
   • Market fragmentation
     • Media managers want to control and protect their audiences. In a fragmented market the ability to cover as many potential members of the audience as possible is highly attractive, and may ultimately decide whether a news organization survives.     
   • Barriers
     • Legislation
       • In some countries such as Aus- tralia and New Zealand, legislation that forbids a company from owning a daily newspaper and a television channel in the same market has understandably limited the convergence process.     
     • Lack of adequate business
       • Aquino believes that one of the biggest issues with convergence is the lack of adequate business models. She noted it was difficult to plan and execute any form of multiple-platform publishing when no maps or guidelines were available     
     • "Easy" introducing convergence
       • Factors helping ‘‘easy’’ convergence included a focused leadership, the same owner, a flexible culture, co-location of media outlets, previous relationships between potential partners and no unions.    
     • "Difficult" introducing convergence
       • ‘‘Difficult’’ convergence arises when the organization has different owners, other leadership priorities, multiple managers, inflexible or dis- similar cultures, disparate locations     
     • Conflicting values
       • The availability of appropriate technology, declining economic conditions, a flexible mindset among editorial managers and journalists, and the presence of competition in the market also contribute     

5. Key factors

   • Management
     • The first is management buy-in, in the sense that management is seen to support and expect convergence. At the Orlando Sentinel in Florida, for example, new ecruits join the paper on the understanding that they will operate as multiskilled reporters.     
   • Information
     • Rolf Lie, editor of Norway’s Aftenposten, believes the future is not about paper or electronics. ‘‘It’s about information. Today’s journalist should say: ‘I’m not working in a newspaper, I’m working in news’’     
   • Change of mindset
     • A multi-media environment could only be successful if accompanied by a corresponding change in the attitude of journalists. But the transformation must occur first in the minds of editorial managers: ‘‘From my point of view, the chief editor has an important role. He must be a leader n terms of the changes’’     
   • Synergy
     • Another common factor is the placing of people with different skills in the same physical space to generate trust and sharing of ideas, which leads to synergy.     
   • Cultural factors
     • Convergence actually increases the complexity of cultural relationships within a newsroom, within a company, and within the corporate boardroom    
   • Encouragment
     • Editorial managers must be willing to foster an environment that facilitates learning. One of the key roles of journalism in the forthcoming knowledge age will be to turn information into knowledge*/to synthesize it for their audiences. This takes training, which requires an investment of time and money.     
   • Conclusion
     • Journalist
     • Publisher
       • maintaining ethical business practices
         • In essence they need to find ways to blend the twin aims of telling the truth and making money.        In essence they need to find ways to blend the twin aims of telling the truth and making money.     
         • The key
           • The key issue here appears to be the editorial and social values of the news managers. Ultimately convergence is about doing better journalism. The role of journalism is to tell stories with a purpose*/to help citizens make choices in an increasingly complex world.