My seminars treat the issue of Frequency and Recency as #1 on list of priorities for the modern newsroom
The New York Times is moving through change, disruption and new products at a fast clip. I like that, not just as a subscriber to the Times’ amazing and constantly evolving products, but also as a media observer and practitioner who is seeing so many of the things I preach practiced at the Times.
One of the centerpieces of my presentations recently has been : we must change our notions of frequency.
A newsroom that sees frequency as what happens every 15 minutes or less is tuned in to the audience. A newsroom that assembles daily to plan tomorrow’s newspaper is doomed.
A follow up to that: we must select those stories that readers are going to be talking about during the day, and expand upon them. If the reader comes to check, on that story 5 times in the course of a day, then we should be able to have updated that story.
It is easy to understand, but not so easy to implement, believe me.
That is why I like what I read about The New York Times’ new strategy:
The New York Times last week outlined its ambitious plans for its future in an 11-page memo that detailed how the paper thinks it can double its digital revenue by 2020. And guess what’s in store? The formation of the Express Team, a new breaking news desk that will “cover news that readers are searching for and talking about online.”
“I think what’s happened over the last 12 months is a growing understanding — from data science and machine learning — that time spent is one important measure, and that frequency is a very important attribute and very significant predictor of subscription and retention,” Mark Thompson, Times CEO, said.
Frequency, in my view, is the one big topic to explore, to dissect and to concentrate on for newsrooms that wish to be around in 2020. Again, The New York Times lead the way in helping us understand the new dynamics of a modern newsroom in the era of the media quintet.
Friday in TheMarioBlog: “Publishing a thousand front pages in one day”
As I have spent the week at Aftenposten, in Oslo, I have been conducting workshops for the digital team side by side with CEO/Editor in Chief, Espen Egil Hansen. His comments about the state of publishing today, and his specifics about frequency, in this blog tomorrow.
Preview:
“An article is the new front page. It is here that people meet us for the first time, often from social media. Forget the traditional home page as we know it. We must develop a system where each story stands on its own and lures readers into our website. That's the challenge.”