By Sarah Toporoff
The CEO of the Global Editors Network,
Bertrand Pecquerie, tells us what he thinks are the biggest lessons learned at
this year’s GEN Summit. The summit was
held in Barcelona 11-13 June 2014 and welcomed over 600 editors-in-chief and
media innovators from around the world.
What are the biggest takeaways from the
GEN Summit held in Barcelona?
Bertrand Pecquerie: I think there are
three main lessons from the GEN Summit. First, the Internet was disruptive, but
mobile platforms including tablets are much more disruptive. New pure players
(like Mashable and Vice) are better at captivating new audiences than
traditional platforms. All media will have to work with more than 50 percent of
their traffic coming from mobiles and many of them are not ready. Even The New
York Times and The Guardian said they were running behind on defining a mobile
news strategy.
Another big take-away is that newsroom
integration was a buzzword 10 years ago, but that is no longer the case. Today
the trend has reversed towards newsroom disintegration: specific teams for
specific platforms. You don't use your tablet the same way as your computer and
it requires specific attention from publishers. The newsroom will become a
'control room' with less people at desks and more journalists in the field. The
notion of the 'collective intelligence' of journalists working in the same room
will disappear.
The last main lesson is that
journalists and audiences have the same devices and free editing tools.
Citizens can now create their own 'collective intelligence' through MOOCs,
social networks and training tools provided by small startups or big IT
companies. Google Media Tools is a good example.
Is newsroom innovation becoming a reality?
Bertrand Pecquerie: Skills have improved
in newsrooms and now you find efficient developers, graphic designers, data-viz
specialists. Journalists have also learnt to work with these new breeds of news
staff. Ideally, newsroom innovation will become a reality. The process should
start with the news teams themselves and not just from startups coming into the
news market like Storify, Storyful, etc.
Not to be overlooked, automated or
robot journalism will appear in Europe between 2015 and 2020. Many journalists
will either have to change their skills or lose their jobs. This shift can also
be an exciting opportunity to focus on investigation, analysis and data-viz.
Today, too many journalists are copying and pasting press releases handed down
by powerful companies and organisations. Don't forget that there are many more
people in the communication department of an international brand than in a
classical newsroom.
How do you see the main newspapers ten
years from now?
Bertrand Pecquerie: The German model will
win: a newspaper at three or four euros per day, aimed at an elite audience
that still wants to read a print newspapers. Advertisers will follow with
luxury or high-brow ads. But newspapers will not remain mass media, they will
become niche media, as they were before the 1850s.
One or two reference newspapers will
emerge per country. It will become impossible to have four to six as is now the
case in Spain, France, Italy, etc. Their success will depend on their capacity
to attract native readers living abroad. Already at The Guardian (London),
almost 70 percent of their audience is based outside the UK.
Which newspapers will decide to be pure
online players by 2018?
Bertrand Pecquerie: I don't see general
newspapers making the shift, but the first ones will be financial newspapers
and sports newspapers. When data are key, these topics are first in line to
become online-only.
This post originally appeared on the Global Editors Network
website and is republished on IJNet with permission. The Global Editors Network
is a cross-platform community committed to sustainable, high-quality
journalism, empowering newsrooms through a variety of programmes designed to
inspire, connect and share.
Sarah Toporoff is a marketing and communications
intern with the Global Editors Network. She tweets @SJToporoff.
Image CC-licensed on Flickr via Steve Garfield.
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