The first ever WAN IFRA Innovate Local in person event at World News Media Congress focused on two key questions for local journalism:
👉 The Big step in digital transformation; stopping print – with a vision! La Presse in Montreal started that process in 2013 with the launch of a tablet version and completed it in 2018 when the presses were permanently turned off. François Cardinal told us that a key success factor was choosing and sticking to the strategy, preparing readers for it and executing to plan. "If you keep offering a printed version, people will keep reading print." Today they are profitable with the new business model.
🙌 Breaking Data – i e using local, public data to produce essential (hyper)local journalism.
👌 Part I: Markus Rask Jensen described how Amedia in Norway "turns data into gold" by producing and distributing hyperlocally relevant stories on top earners (in Norway tax records are public), house sales, local sports, elections, traffic and more. "Location is king – hyperlocal is better than just local."
👊 Part II: Professor Gabriel Kahn of USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism talked about Crosstown LA, a platform the department has created in collaboration with engineering students. The headline: "With a newsroom of two part-time journalists, we deliver 114 unique newsletters each week – one for each neighborhood in LA." It's all based on publicly available available data, and due to the granularity –> relevance, open rates are >90%.
🎯 We concluded with a panel discussion on above topics and more. On a question on how to drive a shift to reader revenues, Pia Rehnquist who heads up Bonnier News Local in Sweden, suggested starting with a defined value proposition like investigative journalism aimed at young readers. Patty Michalski, SVP Content and Innovation at Hearst News said the group creates templated story formats centrally, to enable the local newsrooms to produce journalism in a variety of ways depending on reader needs.
Thank you so much to all our speakers, and to the team that made it happen! Niklas Jonason Valérie Arnould
PS! Speaking of investigative journalism – don't miss our next webinar featuring Lena Kvist of Borås Tidning talking about how her team's stories drive twice as many conversions as other articles and how the team generates a flood of tips from readers – all while supporting the news title’s brand and mission. Registration link in comments.
