Digital-First Strategies in Legacy Newsrooms:

Exploring the tipping point

by

Sherry Aske

A research essay submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral

Affairs in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Arts

in

Communication

Carleton University

Ottawa, Ontario

© 2016, Sherry Aske

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Digital-First Strategies in Legacy Newsrooms: Exploring the tipping point

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 3

The Digital Dilemma

Defining Digital-First

Methods

PART 1: LITERATURE REVIEW……………………………………………………………………………………………….. 12

Challenge 1: Technological Innovation: Turning experiments routine

Challenge 2: Journalistic Culture: The journalist is no longer king

Challenge 3: Organization: Too many goats to feed

PART 2: CANADIAN LEGACY MEDIA & DIGITAL STRATEGIES………………………………………………….35

The Toronto Star

The CBC

CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….46

Strategy Recommendations

REFERENCES……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………50

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INTRODUCTION

Legacy news organizations are at a turning point. Subscribers and viewers that were

once loyal to traditional distribution platforms are drifting away to consume news online. In a

digital news world, companies such as Buzzfeed, Vice, and the Huffington Post have a head

start providing constant, up-to-the-minute-coverage for online news consumers. While the shift

to digital news consumption did not happen overnight, legacy media outlets have begun to

adopt digital-first strategies in an effort to catch up, and survive in an increasingly dispersed

media environment. This shift has been messy and problematic. No two organizations have the

same approach. With no blueprint and no concept of best practices, the move to prioritize

digital platforms has been a process of trial and error. Those within the media industry have

both embraced and resisted these changes. To understand the scope of these challenges and to

identify the best way to proceed, this paper looks outwards at the documented experiences of

legacy news organizations so far, and inwards at the ongoing efforts of some of Canada's main

media outlets. It examines how two Canadian legacy news organizations are approaching digital

strategies. The goal is to identify common challenges and offer a series of recommendations

legacy news organizations can consider when implementing digital-first strategies. This is not

meant to present a one-size-fits-all approach, but to offer advice newsrooms can consider in

conjunction with their own business models, audience demographics, available resources and

distribution requirements.

THE DIGITAL DILEMMA

The shift to digital is not an overnight phenomenon. News organizations and news

consumers have been moving online for more than two decades. What is changing, however, is

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the number of news consumers who are getting content exclusively from digital platforms.

Lifestyle changes, widespread Internet access and the increased affordability of handheld

devices such as smartphones and tablets, mean that the news audience is, literally, on the

move. Many organizations find that more than half of their audience members access content

exclusively through digital platforms (Sharma, 2015). The Pew Research Centre first reported in

2008 that the Internet had overtaken newspapers as the main source used to access

international and national news in the United States (Pew, 2008). While monitoring media

consumption during that year’s the presidential election campaign, researchers found that 40

per cent of news consumers were getting their news online, compared to 35 per cent turning to

newspapers. The numbers for young people were even higher, with 59 per cent of those under

the age of 30 heading online for national and international news (Pew, 2008). The number of

online news consumers has steadily increased. In 2012, the number of people who reported

getting their news from digital forms rose to 50 per cent. At the time, online numbers were just

below the 55 per cent of people who reported getting news from television, but well above the

29 per cent of people reportedly getting their news from print papers and the 33 per cent of

people relying on radio (Pew, 2013).

Today, online news consumers represent a majority of the market. In the Reuters 2015

Digital News Report, two-thirds of smartphone users said they use the devices for news on a

weekly basis (Newman, 2015). The 2015 State of the Media report describes the current

landscape as a "mobile majority,” referring not only to the trend of more people consuming

news on cell phones, but also to the fact that mobile phones are driving more traffic to news

from social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter (Mitchell, 2015, p. 4). A recent Pew

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survey suggests 63 per cent of Facebook and Twitter users use social media networks to get the

news (Barthel et al., 2015). While legacy platforms have not been abandoned, newspaper and

cable news consumption continues to decline. In the United States, prime time viewing of cable

news dropped by eight per cent in 2014, according to the Pew 2015 State of the Media report.

The same report suggests weekday newspaper circulation fell by 19 per cent between 2004 and

2014 (Mitchell, 2015, p. 5). Legacy media outlets are not blind to these changes.

As researchers at Pew point out, changing news habits have a tremendous impact on

how news organizations produce and distribute news on a daily basis (Mitchell, 2015, p. 4).

Despite business models built on print and television distribution, legacy news organizations

are attempting to move with their audience. This involves changing how news is gathered and

written (Franklin, 2013, p. 1). It involves tailoring the format of content for digital platforms and

adapting to a new speed of news delivery: now. Such changes raise important questions about

the quality of journalism being produced, and the potential impact on a robust, informed

society (Franklin, 2013, p. 1).

In Canada, the federal government has taken notice of the "shifting information

consumption habits of Canadians," (Ditchburn, 2016). Heritage Minister Melanie Joly has

announced a sweeping review of Canada's cultural industries in an effort to update policies for

the digital age (LeBlanc, 2016). While the review will focus on various sectors, this project

focuses specifically on news production and delivery, and the technical, cultural and

organizational impact digital strategies create for those involved. In the past, news production

centered on industrial-style methods that favoured expediency and division of labour. It is

perhaps dishonest to suggest that news gathering was ever neat and orderly, but it is

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impossible to ignore the disorder of an increasingly digital industry characterized by continuous

change and disagreement about what news should look like and how and when it should be

delivered. In examining the present moment in the industry, this paper suggests that legacy

news organizations, their staff and their journalistic priorities, are split between traditional

formats and production methods, and catering to the insatiable, complex demands of a

digital news world.

DEFINING DIGITAL-FIRST

Researchers have noted the lack of consensus in the industry about how to define digital

journalism. “Digital” has become synonymous with a sprawling domain that includes online

media, social media, the blogosphere, data journalism, and interactive journalism (Franklin,

2013, p. 2). There is also disagreement about who can produce digital journalism, what it looks

like, and what it SHOULD look like (Franklin, 2013, p. 2). This project is not immune from the

above debate, but it is simplified in that it deals specifically with digital platforms as they relate

to legacy media outlets. For instance, a digital platform for a legacy media organization is any

form of news delivery that makes use of online or wireless technology and that differs from its

original business model. For example, the Toronto Star, which started as a newspaper, now also

publishes content using mobile and tablet applications, social media networks and a website. It

is the decisions regarding these additional platforms which make up its digital strategy. The

CBC, which began as a radio and television broadcaster, now has similar digital offerings.

In general, a digital-first strategy refers to an organization's commitment to prioritize

the needs of digital distribution platforms, such as websites, mobile applications and social

media networks, ahead of traditional distribution platforms, such as printed papers and radio

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and television newscasts. Material should appear on a newsroom’s website, mobile and tablet

applications and social media pages as soon as it is ready (Sharma, 2015). The specifics of the

strategy vary widely from organization to organization depending on the number of digital

platforms an organization has, the audience it hopes to reach, and the nature of the content

itself. This project deals primarily with three aspects of digital-first strategies. These are:

1. Changes to newsroom workflow and organization to favour instantaneous reporting

2. Changes to which delivery platforms receive priority

3. Changes to the format in which news is presented

The third category is not universally applied. For example, some news organizations emphasize

packaging content specifically for particular platforms. This is based on the understanding that

digital users consume information differently than a television audience or newspaper

subscriber. At the BBC, reporters are encouraged to move away from two-minute story

packages to produce shorter segments that can be viewed quickly, while on the go (Thordar,

2015). Bullet point summaries, fact boxes and interactive features are also increasingly popular,

as well as writing that takes a more conversational tone (Garcia, 2015; Sharma, 2015). At other

organizations, a digital-first strategy may simply involve posting a newspaper article online or

on a tablet application, even if it has yet to appear in the printed paper. This shift in priorities

goes against decades of ingrained practices and challenges a journalistic culture in which

information comes from a single, centralized source. Taken together, these changes have

resulted in technical, cultural and organizational challenges for legacy news organizations and

their employees.

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METHODS

This paper will proceed in two parts.

In the first, a qualitative meta-analysis is used to establish key challenges legacy

newsrooms experience as they implement digital-first strategies. As a research method, a meta-

analysis provides a systematic and comprehensive review of the information available on

digital-first strategies. Other researchers have used this method to establish patterns in the

field. Andrea Miller and Amy Reynolds employed a similar technique to explore economic

models and business strategies in the digital media environment in New Orleans (Miller &

Reynolds, 2014, p. 94) Qualitative meta-analysis is typically applied to research in academic

journals, however given the rapidly changing nature of the journalism industry, this analysis

also includes reports by established and knowledgeable leaders within the journalism

profession. It draws on news articles, industry statistics and reports from research organizations

such as the Nieman Journalism Lab, the Poynter Institute and the Pew Research Centre. These

organizations are known in the industry for their efforts to chronicle change, track trends and

offer instruction and resources to news organizations.

The reports discussed in this paper were gathered casually over a one-year period

stretching from April 2015 to April of 2016. Many were accessed directly through daily digest

emails published by the organizations listed above. Others were found through specific Internet

searches pertaining to digital-first strategies and digital journalism. The accumulated research

was organized into three areas where digital-first strategies have met resistance. The

challenges relate to innovation, journalistic culture and newsroom organization. It should be

noted that this paper does not address in depth, the economic challenges media organizations

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are facing in the digital news world. The erosion of funds from traditional print and broadcast

advertising has crippled the size of many newsrooms and obliterated others (CBC News, 2015;

Canadian Press, 2015). While digital advertising revenue is growing, it still represents only a

fraction of funding at most media organizations (Pew Research Centre, 2014, p. 3; Barthel,

2015). This paper is not trying to ignore the elephant in the room. There is little doubt digital

methods also challenge the very lifeblood legacy news organizations have survived on for

decades. The focus here is on challenges to news production and reporting. The financial

consequences of a shifting industry warrant their own analysis, one that done correctly, would

not fit into the scope of this paper. While the challenges addressed here do not encompass all

of the obstacles legacy newsrooms face, they do outline three key areas of concern that guide

the questions asked in the second section of the paper.

The second portion of the project involves a series of interviews with those involved in

the implementation of digital-first strategies. The goal is to explore how Canada's legacy news

organizations are addressing the technological, cultural, and organizational challenges

identified in the literature review. It examines how these organizations are serving an

increasingly digital audience and what that means for their legacy platforms. The original plan

was to interview senior staff at the Toronto Star, CBC and La Presse. These three legacy news

organizations were selected to shed light on the Canadian media industry at large. The selected

organizations represent the country's largest newspaper, its public broadcaster and a major

French-language newspaper. While the values and intended audience of each organization

differ, choosing a mix of legacy media outlets allows the project to identify potential solutions

that can cross organizations and serve the industry as a whole. Interview requests were sent by

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email to senior staff at all three media organizations in May, 2016. Senior staff were chosen,

rather than reporters, assignment or production staff, for their ability to speak publically about

their organization's strategy and for their insight into the direction their organization is taking.

After discussing potential candidates with publishers or the organization’s communication

department, a 30-minute phone interview was conducted with the head of strategy for CBC

News and centres and the chief operating officer of digital at the Toronto Star. Numerous

attempts were also made to find an available candidate at La Presse. After approaching the

publisher and the director of continuous improvement, a company spokesperson said all staff

dedicated to the organization’s digital operations were unavailable for interviews within the

time frame of the project. As a result, an in-depth analysis of La Presse’s digital strategy had to

be eliminated from the paper. Publically available information about the company’s digital

strategy is included as supporting material as it showcases a legacy news organization which

has almost completely abandoned its traditional distribution platform.

In a final section, key points from the accumulated research and interviews are used to

form recommendations legacy news organizations can consider as they adopt digital-first

strategies. It should be noted that while this paper is the product of a Master’s research

project, the author is also employed as a journalist at the CBC, one of the organizations

discussed here in depth. To avoid a conflict of interest, all of the included information is

publically available or was obtained through interviews, in which the subjects were informed in

advance of the author's employment. While the author has an inside understanding of the

challenges facing the journalism industry, this paper is not intended to document personal

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experience, but to provide insight into a specific moment in the industry, supported with

statistical and anecdotal evidence from others in the field.

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PART 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

CHALLENGE 1: Technological Innovation: Turning experiments routine

Digital-first strategies require technological innovation on two fronts. First, they require

newsrooms to adopt new platforms and applications to reach their audience. This can be

anything from a daily tablet publication, to a weekly podcast, to a profile on a photo and video-

sharing application such as Instagram. As new distribution platforms emerge, media

organizations have to make decisions about which ones they will adopt and where those

platforms fall in terms of priority. Second, many of these platforms require a rethinking of how

news is presented. This second form of innovation requires news organizations to consider how

their audience consumes news. For example, given the large percentage of people who now

consume news on their phones, shorter articles, graphics and video overlaid with text are

common methods used to serve an on-the-go, often distracted audience (BBC Academy, 2015).

Some forms of digital innovation are more challenging to adopt than others. This section will

explore some of the simpler ways newsrooms have tweaked traditional reporting methods by

focusing on methods adopted by the BBC. These methods are slowly becoming common

practice at other organizations as well. The BBC was chosen as it was an early adopter, and

because it has publicly documented its shift to digital reporting through its educational

journalism website, the BBC Academy. It will then turn to the murkier aspect of digital

innovation: the experiments and large scale projects that legacy newsrooms dabble in as they

play with what is possible and try to understand what works, and what does not.

Perhaps because of its size and available resources, the BBC has emerged as a leader in

repackaging video for digital audiences. Its staff are experimenting with a range of formats,

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including 15-second stories that can be distributed on Instagram or Twitter. These bite-sized

stories take one or two punchy clips from an interview and subtitle them so mobile users can

watch with or without audio (Thordar, 2015). Another format, labelled Go Figure, consists of an

image that gets Tweeted out with a key statistic and a link to the full story. Using text over still

images, graphics, and video has become a go-to format because it gives users the option of

viewing the story with no sound in public settings (Thordar, 2015). Both formats are created

specifically with mobile phone users in mind, with the goal of driving traffic to the BBC’s

website (Albeanu, 2015b).

Digital innovation means the BBC is also shifting its standards for video. This does not

mean eliminating quality. Rather, producers suggest the secret to doing digital well may be to

emphasize quality over quantity (BBC Academy, 2015). It might be more accurate to suggest

that digital news demands a different set of characteristics. News organizations can no longer

assume they have the audience's attention. Content on phones and tablets needs to capture

someone’s interest amid hundreds of other posts, and spark enough of a reaction that it will

hopefully be shared (BBC Academy, 2015). At the BBC, the policy for digital platforms is that

shorter is better. There is more tolerance for personal storytelling. Staff are increasingly using

what the BBC calls the “show-and-tell” format in which a reporter casually addresses viewers

while walking through a location such as city hall, an airport or hospital. Personal narration is

also accepted, particularly when news breaks. A raw, first-person video account of what a

journalist sees as they arrive at the scene can be distributed with no editing (BBC Academy,

2015). Old taboos, including handheld, shaky video, are now characteristics that help drive

view-counts. The BBC’s metrics suggest audiences are drawn to the authenticity and drama of

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unpackaged video (BBC Academy, 2015). A digital-first pilot project on the BBC’s international

pages that focused on short, 250-word stories and sharing more audio and video saw web

traffic increase by 20 per cent (Sharma, 2015).

While the BBC was an early adopter of shorter, personalized, sharable news formats,

similar methods are becoming commonplace at other legacy media outlets. Short clips, raw

video, text-over-video, graphics and quotes-over-images are increasingly appearing on the

social media feeds of Canadian media organizations such as Maclean's magazine, the Globe and

Mail and the CBC, although posting a photo and link to a full story remains the dominant form

of social sharing. Short clips, raw video and graphics are also appearing with greater frequency

on newsroom websites to replace packaged video stories. In other cases, individual pieces of

media are combined with text to tell a story through curation. For print-based legacy media

outlets, the methods described above may require innovation in that staff will need training in

photo and video editing. Even in newsrooms familiar with gathering and editing video,

journalists may require training on new publication systems. Finally, new digital platforms will

likely require all journalists to adopt an additional writing style that can be used to cater to the

social, sometimes casual nature of digital platforms.

A greater challenge to innovation may simply be keeping up with the variety of

applications news consumers frequent. It is not enough for a news organization to post raw

material on its own website. Recent studies suggest social media, particularly Facebook, drives

the largest amount of traffic to news websites (Ingram, 2015). This is why media organizations

are using the reporting techniques described above to post to Twitter and Facebook along with

links to their websites. Many newsrooms also run their own mobile and tablet applications.

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These applications may feature the same content found on an organization’s website, but apps

require different formatting for smaller screens, and the writing of notification and breaking

news alerts. There are also third-party applications which vary depending on an organization’s

audience. Common choices include photo and video sharing services like Vine and Instagram.

Messaging and chat applications are another growing area, and even they require a different

approach to how information is packaged. Messaging applications go beyond sharing content,

and focus on interaction and dialogue with users (Lloyd & Boggie, 2015). Different apps afford

different levels of conversation, but this style of news delivery is different even from the

reporting done on Twitter and Facebook. Text-over-video and easy-to-read graphics are meant

to grab the attention of people scrolling Facebook and Twitter newsfeeds. Chat applications are

based on a one-to-one or one-to-few communication model. They focus on conversation rather

than broadcasting (Lloyd & Boggie, 2015).

In short, the list of digital platforms legacy media outlets can adopt is never ending, and

each format requires its own writing and formatting-style to be used effectively. The speed of

change combined with the constant shifting of preferred formats and delivery platforms, means

that as soon as a newsroom attempts to train staff and implement a strategy, a new application

or platform is already grabbing hold. In its annual year end list of predictions for journalism, the

directors of the New York Times Research and Development Lab described the hamster-wheel

dilemma of innovation: "the lesson the Internet teaches us again and again is that everything

changes. The biggest mistake a publisher can make is to assume their current approach will

hold, when in fact we must all constantly experiment," (Lloyd & Boggie, 2015). Research

suggests media organizations are experimenting if they have resources available. The additional

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challenge comes with integrating these experiments into day-to-day news production,

particularly for legacy media organizations who must also devote resources to traditional

delivery platforms. Furthermore, while many of the methods listed above involve tweaking

current practices or building on a journalist’s existing skills, other forms of digital innovation

require entirely new skill sets and resources. Three examples of such innovation follow. Each

highlights an exciting opportunity for the industry and its own layer of challenges.

Executives at the Wall Street Journal have suggested virtual reality will become a main

storytelling format for the future (Wang, 2015). Using a VR headset allows users to experience

360-degree video. It is described as more realistic than 3D, as whatever is on the screen fills a

user's entire vision, giving the impression of being physically present in an environment (Stein,

2015). The New York Times launched its first virtual reality film, the Displaced, in November of

2015. Staff brought the story of three child refugees to print subscribers by mailing them a

cardboard viewfinder that could be used with a cellphone application (Wang, 2015). The appeal

for journalists is huge. Virtual reality allows news organizations to tell a story by placing the

audience inside a Syrian refugee camp or a Guinea hospital during the Ebola crisis. News

organizations can "tell important stories in an entirely new way...to wring from the audience

the intense emotional reaction that these stories deserve," (Dennis, 2016). Other legacy media

outlets experimenting with virtual reality include the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times,

the BBC and PBS (Doyle et al., 2016, p. 8). But despite the "extraordinary reactions" the

technology is generating, executives note that producing a virtual reality film is an ambitious,

lengthy and costly process (Polgreen, 2014). A report from the Knight Foundation suggests a

basic kit for capturing and assembling a virtual reality film costs about $5,000, in addition to

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paying journalists and production staff (Doyle et al., 2016, p. 19). The head of visuals at the Wall

Street Journal notes that there is no shortage of excitement around virtual reality as a new

storytelling format, but that for the time being, it remains an experimental method (Wang,

2015). It may be years before virtual reality is adopted as a mainstream format, however

newsrooms wishing to get ahead of the curve are committed to experimenting now.

Long-read interactive pieces are a much more widely adopted form of digital

storytelling. The New York Times’ 2012 “Snow Fall” piece is often held up as an early example of

creative and immersive content. The digital feature tells the story of an avalanche in

Washington’s Tunnel Creek through infographics, audio, video, still photos and text (Briggs,

2013). More recent Canadian examples include the Globe and Mail's piece, Confined: The death

of Eddie Snowshoe, which won an award for best editorial packaging at the Canadian Online

Publishing Awards for 2015 (The Globe and Mail, 2015). The six part feature uses text, images,

original documents, timelines, video and interactive sidebars to tell the story of a 24-year-old

man who died by suicide after spending 162 days in segregation in an Edmonton prison (White,

2014). These pieces favour desktop and tablet users. While they are widely celebrated by

industry professionals for what is possible, digital natives are quick to point out such projects

offer little help to legacy newsrooms, as they lack replicability. As Quartz editor Kevin Delaney

put it, “I’d rather have a Snow Fall builder than a Snow Fall,” (Benton, 2015). Both virtual reality

and long-form interactive pieces require specialized staff who are familiar with the technical

elements these projects require. Newsrooms that want to attempt this form of storytelling

need to hire computer programmers and IT specialists. Likewise, projects based on the

visualization of large data sets require researchers familiar with navigating and sorting through

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large swaths of information. Such projects also require staff who can transform the relevant

data so it can be represented visually. In some cases journalists can learn these skills, but often

newsrooms are required to hire new employees if they wish to innovate (Schmitz Weiss &

Domingo, 2010, p. 1164). The other issue regarding some special projects is that they are not

always well suited to capture the attention of a fickle, on-the-go audience. Publishers have

already identified a need to ensure interactive pieces also transfer well onto mobile phones

(Wang, 2016b). That is not to say mobile users will never engage with long-form, interactive

pieces, only to point out that the strength of digital storytelling on a day-to-day basis may lie

more in speed and connectivity. For example, using live feeds such as Twitter to provide up to

the moment chronicling of breaking news, or using chat applications such as WhatsAp so users

can interact and network with journalists and other news consumers in real time. Newsrooms

that wish to produce digital content for all audiences, capturing both casual, social users and

loyal, attentive ones, will need to diversify their staff and skills.

As was previously mentioned, messaging and chat applications are another form of

emerging digital journalism. A report from the Tow Centre for Digital Journalism suggests that

by 2020, mobile apps like WeChat, Snapchat, WhatsApp and Telegram that provide a concierge-

style media service will be the main way audiences consume content. This is significant because

the subscriber-based, pocket-sized audiences these apps cater to require an intimate, personal

approach that is very different from the attention-grabbing style of social media news feeds

that legacy newsrooms are only just becoming accustomed to (Lloyd & Boggie, 2015). In

addition to news gathering and content sharing abilities, messaging apps allow media outlets to

create special channels for small groups of users. These can be used to deliver text messages,

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news alerts, stickers, trivia and emojis (Marconi, 2016). The messages are meant to engage

members in a discussion, with a journalist initiating a conversation and then acting as a form of

mediator (Marconi, 2016). The Globe and Mail launched an experiment using WhatsAp during

the federal election campaign. The newsroom used the app to send 46 messages over the 78-

day campaign based on the question, "What’s the one thing you need to know today to help

you make an informed vote" (Whetstone, 2015). About 1,700 people signed up to receive the

messages. Project manager Melissa Whetstone says while the experiment received rave

reviews, it was logistically daunting. WhatsApp restricts the size of a channel to 256 people,

which meant staff had to create six individual groups and repeat the publishing process for each

one. As the Globe and Mail’s WhatsApp account was tied to a single cell phone number, staff

had to pass that phone back-and-forth between editors for the project (Whetstone, 2015). The

BBC has observed similar obstacles in its pilot projects with WhatsApp, but continues to

experiment with the app because of its potential for real-time reporting and two-way

communication. The broadcaster says twenty-five thousand people subscribed to its WhatsApp

channel to receive health alerts during the Ebola crisis. "You know that 100 percent of your

subscription base will review it instantly," the BBC's mobile and apps editor Trushar Barot said

in an interview with Digiday, "They are much more heavily engaged and much more motivated

to respond," (Southern, 2016b).

These last three examples highlight the experimental nature of digital reporting, and

represent only some of the areas legacy outlets are exploring. Other formats gaining popularity

include live video streaming, podcasting, daily digest emails, and interactives based on big data.

The list of possibilities is constantly growing. Likely because of its shifting nature, innovative

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digital storytelling often remains a step removed from day-to-day news production (Stencil et

al., 2014). This is partly due to the resources digital projects require and partly due to the

technical expertise required to bring them to fruition. In most cases, media outlets use

innovative formats on special occasions, such as the Globe’s WhatsApp experiment during the

federal election campaign. Familiar methods which allow content to be produced quickly and

efficiently remain the norm. A 2014 Duke Reporters' Lab report concluded "producers still

think of digital tools as extras -- "bells and whistles" that augment traditional story forms rather

than a primary story forms in their own right," (Stencil et al., 2014). In other words, reporters

and editors may be aware of digital tools and formats, but these often get added after-the-fact,

when time and money permits. Funding digital innovation appears to be a significant barrier.

The examples explored above were all carried out by global and international media

organizations. Some of these companies have chosen to invest in innovation labs to ensure

digital projects are getting produced alongside legacy content. The New York Times has a

Research & Development group dedicated to "identifying trends and technologies that will

emerge in the next three to five years," (Nytlabs, 2016). In Canada, the Globe and Mail created

a designated mobile and interactive news team in 2014, assigned to both "push the boundaries

of digital storytelling" with in-depth pieces, and prioritize the daily filing of lists, charts,

graphics, quizzes, comparisons and explainers (Frehner, 2014). The team’s WhatsApp

experiment demonstrates that digital innovation is not always successful. Formats can prove

logistically daunting, too expensive sustain, or can simply fall flat with users. But without a

permanent allocation of resources, legacy media outlets can easily neglect digital storytelling

methods to save time and money. Innovation can also be neglected in breaking-news situations

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when staff are used to producing a certain type of story. This suggests that a legacy media

organization attempting to implement a digital-first strategy needs to carve out specific

resources to ensure digital storytelling methods are part of the news production process on a

moment-to-moment basis. To be truly digital-first, this allocation should represent the bulk of a

newsroom’s resources, in order to prioritize digital formats over traditional articles, video packs

and audio stories. Finally, because the rate of innovation vastly outpaces the rate of adoption in

most newsrooms, media organizations need to commit to constant experimentation, despite

the reality that some projects will fall flat. Without this risk, legacy outlets may implement

digital-first strategies only to find themselves, once again, left behind.

CHALLENGE 2: Journalistic culture: The journalist is no longer king

Digital-first strategies disrupt the very practices and attitudes legacy media

organizations are built around. Practices refer to the industrial-style processes that legacy

organizations use as they build towards a final, end-of-day product, whereas attitudes refer to

the notion that journalists and the organizations they work for control the production and

distribution of news. The disruption of journalistic culture is by no means new. Journalists have

adapted their work habits to accommodate each information-distribution technology since the

printing press. In 2002, veteran journalist and author Stephen Quinn was one of several

journalists already arguing for the re-organization of news work to cope with online demands,

dwindling advertising revenue and shrinking newsrooms (Quinn, 2002, p. 53). Quinn suggested

reporters could no longer think of themselves as exclusive to one platform, but must focus

instead on "getting the information out," (Quinn, 2002, p. 36). Ongoing talk of digital-first

strategies suggests this has yet to be fully realized, perhaps because old habits are simply too

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hard to break. But industry leaders continue to argue that the industry must undergo a

fundamental shift in culture if legacy organizations wish to compete and survive in a digital

environment (Brandel, 2016; Lloyd, 2015; Anderson, 2013). To achieve this, journalists will likely

need to abandon decades of learned behaviour and see themselves as players in a larger news

ecosystem, one in which the public and different types of journalists are equally important

(Anderson, 2013, p. 5).

Changing Practices

Legacy newsrooms are built around industrial-style production practices that favour

end-of-the-day products. C. W. Anderson likens traditional news production to factory work: “A

reporter went out and reported a story, typed it up, and then sat back and watched it ascend a

labor chain of increasing specialization…until it was placed in the next day’s paper,” (Anderson,

2013, p. 130). This assembly-line model has allowed newsrooms to produce content efficiently

for decades, but it is less effective for digital-first strategies which prioritize immediate

distribution. Today’s news consumers, particularly those using mobile phones for quick

updates, prefer a constant stream of information available at their leisure. News is no longer

consumed at a set time of day, such as in the morning over breakfast, but at multiple intervals

(Sharma, 2015). For this reason, legacy newsrooms need to adopt a culture that embraces a

more fluid form of news consumption, in which end-of-day products are not the end-goal.

Increasingly, today’s journalists are not asked to produce a single version of a story, but a series

of different information “bites” in several different formats (Sharma, 2015; BBC Academy,

2015).

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For example, a reporter may be asked to file a brief web update, perform a live radio hit,

Tweet from a press conference and return with video that can be posted in raw chunks online

and in a packaged segment on a television newscast. Independently, these information bites

are unlikely to provide the full picture or context of a story, but provide snapshots of

information as it becomes available. Alexis Lloyd, the creative director at the Times' Research

and Development Lab, has suggested abandoning the news article in its traditional, structured

form in favour of short, tagged, searchable "particles" that can be linked together and

rearranged like pieces in a puzzle (Lloyd, 2015). While this production strategy sounds as

though it might mean less work for time-strapped reporters, it confronts the ingrained habits of

legacy reporters, who are used to a longer period of information gathering that builds towards

a final product. Miniature news bites also confront the journalistic ego. In the assembly-line

model, the routine production of branded news articles is what gets rewarded (Anderson, 2013,

p. 130). Journalists acknowledge that they still judge their own work and the work of their

competitors based on end-of-day products, such as the article that appears in the printed paper

or the broadcast package that airs in the 6 o’clock news (Usher, 2014, p. 90). These are pieces

that their name and face are attached to, and these are the items that companies submit for

awards and industry recognition. There is no Pulitzer Prize for the best Tweet. If legacy

newsrooms wish to implement fully a digital-first strategy, staff at all levels need to recognize

the value of storytelling that does not look like traditional storytelling.

Unlike legacy methods, digital-first strategies demand a constant supply of content. In a

digital news environment where journalists can see what competitors are doing in real-time,

being able to quickly match it is considered a success. However industry leaders caution that

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such practices can lead to “volume without thought” or what some have labeled the

hamsterization of journalism (Usher, 2014, p. 4; Anderson, 2013, p. 130). This refers to the

practice of constantly churning out content, sometimes to the detriment of quality (Anderson,

2013, p. 146). One possible solution would be to diversify news production strategies so

elements of the assembly line approach can continue to be used in certain circumstances. For

example, an analysis of newsroom workflow suggests legacy newsrooms gravitate towards two

models of news production: an integrated model or a de-converged model. Each has its own

strengths and weaknesses. In an integrated model, reporters gather information and produce

content for more than one platform. At the New York Times, an example would be a journalist

who writes and updates an online story and composes a second-day story that will appear in

print. Digital expectations might include Tweeting, monitoring story comments, posting to

social media, or producing video (Usher, 2014, p. 82). This is also known as the one-man-band

approach. Its greatest fault is that it can lead to an erosion of quality as one person attempts to

provide coverage across platforms. In a de-converged model, reporters are left alone to gather

information and write for a single platform, while multimedia and digital demands are handled

by others (Tameling & Broersma, 2013). In this model, journalists end up specializing in a

particular form of storytelling. It allows them to work using platform-specific language and

style, such as the conversational tone required for broadcast, or the detailed reporting found in

print (Aviles & Carvajal, 2008, p. 230). One downside of the de-converged model is it requires

significant coordination within the newsroom. The production of a single story can involve

multiple meetings between reporters, senior editors, web editors, data journalists,

videographers and computer programmers (Usher, 2014, p. 15). The reality is that most legacy

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newsrooms function with some sort of hybrid system, adopting the de-converged model for

larger, non-deadline projects and the integrated model or one-man-band approach for day-to-

day news. This analysis suggests a hybrid system is likely particularly relevant for legacy

newsrooms attempting to focus increasingly on digital platforms, but where some staff are still

required to produce high quality products for traditional platforms. Another reason to adopt a

hybrid system is that some digital projects, such as virtual reality or interactive pieces, will

undoubtedly require collaboration between teams of specialists, and would be best suited by a

de-converged production style. The integrated model may be best for day-to-day stories in

which a single reporter has a firm grasp of the subject matter.

Even with a hybrid production model, the elimination of the daily news cycle remains a

major challenge for legacy newsrooms. Reports suggest even the New York Times, with its

innovation report and experimental lab, remains “stuck in old cultures, slaves to antiquated

daily production schedules,” (Potts, 2014). Part of the challenge is that editors may give two

different stories entirely different treatment. There is nothing routine about what is expected.

An analysis at the New York Times found, “no two journalists shared the exact same role, nor

did any single journalist encounter the same tasks each day,” (Usher, 2014, p. 84). This lack of

certainty is a direct challenge to the workflow legacy journalists are familiar with. Imagine

covering a story without knowing which platform it will be filed for? Legacy journalists are used

to making decisions about how much to gather and how many sources to consult based on time

constraints and the size of the news hole allotted to them. Digital platforms allow more

flexibility, but it means journalists must consider the needs of various platforms as they gather.

The pacing has also changed. The tempo has gone from a “lean back” approach to “now”

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(Garcia, 2015). In many cases, gathering and reporting occur simultaneously, or with very little

in between time, unless editors decide in advance that distributing information will be delayed

so a reporter can take an in-depth approach.

The frenzied pace of digital reporting is likely why some legacy newsrooms are

attempting to establish some form of digital news cycle. For instance, newsrooms familiar with

audience habits can still identify peak periods and decide on routine, albeit more frequent

intervals for publishing. In the United Kingdom, The Times of London and the Sunday Times

have a digital strategy which includes a new website and new mobile and tablet apps. In

keeping with industrial-style processes, they plan to publish material four times a day: first

thing in the morning, 9 a.m., noon, and 5 p.m (Lichterman, 2016). The head of the corporation's

digital department said he hoped the hybrid system would better serve the audience, but

would still give staff time for accurate, in-depth reporting. "We recognize that people might

check their smartphones a hundred times per day," Alan Hunter told the Nieman Lab in an

interview, "but they're not checking for news a hundred times per day," (Lichterman, 2016). It

should be noted that establishing a digital news cycle likely depends on the habits of an

organization’s audience and the platform in question. Montreal’s La Presse, which has

eliminated its daily print paper, updates it tablet application with fresh content only once, first

thing in the morning. The publisher has decided its tablet app will serve users looking for in-

depth, interactive reporting, rather than breaking news. The company uses its website and

social media feeds to keep its audience up-to-date during the day (Moses, 2016). For both

organizations, establishing a digital news cycle helps clarify the guidelines for when reporters

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are expected to file, and for which platforms. Legacy newsrooms may find clear guidelines are

the difference between the hamsterization of journalism discussed above, and organized chaos.

Changing Attitudes

As was noted at the beginning of this section, journalists have been adapting to new

technologies and production processes for decades. The difference with digital technologies,

and what requires such a drastic shift in culture, is that in the digital news world, news

organizations no longer have a monopoly on the distribution of information. In the old media

model, journalists and journalistic institutions served as information gatekeepers. News was

distributed through a few centralized sources in the mass media system, such as national

newspapers or a handful of established cable networks. These organizations could present

themselves as the authority on the news of the day and decide which topics made the public

agenda. Audiences had few opportunities to talk back or tell their own stories, with the

exception of letters-to-the-editor or radio call-in lines. In the digital environment, however,

individuals and organizations have their own means of publishing. Citizens, politicians,

corporations, and public relations professionals can share information and react in real-time,

blurring the distinction between professional journalist and amateur citizen (Canter, 2014, p. 2).

There are more voices with varying levels of authority. Some have suggested the role of the

journalist is shifting from gatekeeper to gate watcher. This is the idea that the task of the

modern journalist is to sort through the glut of information available online to determine what

is true, but also, what is most relevant to a public audience (Kaul, 2013, p. 138; Canter, 2014, p.

2). While verification and information mining are valuable skills, the journalist-as-gate watcher

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approach does not dispel the “we-know-best” mindset that may prove detrimental to legacy

media organizations.

Innovators suggest the current culture of journalism breeds disdain for the very people

journalists are trying to serve (Brandel, 2016). Even as newsrooms experiment with new

platforms and new forms of storytelling, they continue to “toss content down” from their

“mountaintop” with the hope audiences will like, share, and ideally pay for what they receive

(Brandel, 2016). In a plea to fellow reporters, journalist-turned-CEO Jennifer Brandel suggests

news organizations must change this top-down relationship with the audience if the industry is

to survive. She is not alone in this view. In a talk on the death of the mass media business

model, journalist and industry critic Jeff Jarvis argued a change in mindset is equally important

as any change in delivery methods. "We hang on to the idea that we owned the gateway to

information. We owned the advertiser and lastly we owned the distribution,” Jarvis said at the

2015 Newsgeist conference run by Google and the Knight Foundation. “We don't own that

anymore,” he argued, “but yet we still hold on to an entitlement," (Jarvis, 2015). Jarvis argues

that if the industry wishes to remain relevant, newsrooms need to understand that digital

audiences will not come to them, but must be actively sought out. He argues the future of

journalism involves knowing where people live, what they want and what they need, and then

going to there to deliver it (Jarvis, 2015). Jarvis’ analogy applies to both the physical

communities journalists live and work in, and the digital spaces they share with fellow citizens

and reporters.

So how does one transform theory into actual change? To begin, Brandel recommends

debunking an idea circulating in most newsrooms that audiences only want click bait and cat

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videos. To serve the public, Brandel argues journalists will need to see audiences as they see

themselves: as curious and engaged citizens with the same questions and concerns (Brandel,

2015). This first step may merely require a refresher in Journalism 101, but cementing a shift in

culture will require newsrooms to embrace interaction and engagement in ways that are

unfamiliar to legacy media outlets. Digital audiences are not satisfied to merely follow along,

but seek out opportunities to participate in the discussion. When given the opportunity, they

will produce content of their own, and will react and share with those who react and share with

them. News organizations must see themselves as enablers of this discussion. As one developer

at the Guardian put it, there "was a realization that we needed to be part of the Internet and

not just on the Internet,” (Aitamurto & Lewis, 2015, p. 323). Another helpful analogy compares

the challenges of reforming legacy journalism, to police reform. Digital spaces require, “moving

from a culture of cops as warriors to cops as members of the communities they’re supposed to

protect and serve,” (Brandel, 2016). In other words, it is not enough for journalists to shift from

gatekeepers to gate watchers. Journalists must go one step further and become gate openers

(Mitchelstein & Boczkowski, 2009, p. 571). In this role, they will continue to gather and

interpret and distribute information, but they will also link, connect, respond and react to

information in conjunction with digital users. To survive in a digital environment, newsrooms

need to change their routines and their mindset, opening information and themselves to the

public. Simply put, they are no longer king of the mountain.

CHALLENGE 3: Organization: Too many goats to feed

A third challenge created by digital-first strategies relates to newsroom organization, as

staff are pulled in multiple directions with reduced resources and unclear goals about which

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platforms are actually a priority. As any journalist will tell you, time and resources are in short

supply (Usher, 2014). Continued cuts at legacy media organizations mean that fewer reporters

are being asked to file for more platforms at more frequent intervals (CBC News, 2015;

Canadian Press, 2015). Convergence has reached a point where it is not uncommon for a

reporter to research, pitch, gather, shoot, write and edit multiple versions of a story for print,

radio, television, web, and social media platforms in a single day (Usher, 2014, p. 82). Unlike

staff at digital native companies like BuzzFeed, Vice and Quartz, journalists in legacy newsrooms

are expected to meet digital demands while still producing a final product that will “stand up at

the end of the day,” (Usher, 2014, p. 63).

This means priorities are split. News organizations must try to serve two masters: the

“now” demands of digital users and the traditional needs of their legacy platforms. As the

previous sections indicate, content in one format is not interchangeable across platforms

(Thordar, 2015). A two-minute television package may work in a supper-hour newscast, but will

not keep the attention of a user scrolling social media. But with no time or additional staff to

re-format a story for a specific type of distribution, newsrooms are often forced to share one

version across platforms. An analysis from the Duke Reporters Lab found that, for many

newsrooms, adopting a digital-first strategy quickly becomes posting newspaper copy online

and uploading video and audio packages with ‘webified’ broadcast scripts. There is no energy

left for “unique digital features that can drive as much, or even more, traffic with deeper

engagement and longer shelf-lives,” (Stencil et al., 2014). In short, quality suffers, and the

chances of capturing and keeping an audience lessen. This splintering of priorities is what some

industry experts have christened “the legacy problem,” (Albeanu, 2015a). It is the reason an

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increasing number of news outlets have announced plans to "start-over," to "reinvent" and

"reimagine" their entire news production process (Hare, 2016).

“We can’t keep doing all this shit,” one Times reporter said, “...blogging, videos and

writing for the paper. We can’t be great at everything,” (Usher, 2014, p. 4). Still struggling from

the latest round of buyouts, the Los Angeles Times has announced plans to reorganize staff to

focus on digital needs first, abandoning the old model which focused on filling each section of

the printed paper, then using the resulting material to feed the web. An editor explained,

“Freeing desks from having to think about and spend time producing the print paper will enable

editors and reporters to devote more energy to what makes the Los Angeles Times great –

timely, compelling and engaging content of all types,” (Roderick, 2016). Across the Atlantic in

Finland, the editor of the daily paper the Helsingin Sanomat had the most succinct summary of

the legacy problem: "We would be better at digital if we didn't have to produce the paper,"

(Albeanu, 2015a). The saying in journalism is that the goat must be fed (Stencil et al., 2014), but

the digital news world has multiplied the number of goats. Newsrooms are not responsible for

feeding just one goat, but an entire herd.

This begs the question, at what point does a legacy media outlet cut off a limb?

Eliminating legacy efforts altogether has been described as the "nuclear" option (Potts, 2014).

Eventually, however, newsrooms may be forced to amputate to survive. At the moment, many

legacy newsrooms find the bulk of their revenue still comes from advertising in traditional

platforms, such as printed papers and television broadcasts, but that is changing as audiences

and advertising revenue shrink (Pew Research Centre, 2014, p. 3). The Pew Research Centre’s

2015 report on the state of the news media suggests legacy organizations still make very little

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from digital advertising (Barthel, 2015). One analysis suggests an advertisement that would

have made a dollar in print only generates 10 or 15 cents online (Miller & Reynolds, 2014, p.

73). This is forcing companies to diversify their revenue options. It is now common for news

organizations to combine advertising revenue with subscriptions, grants, paid events and

sponsored content (Miller & Reynolds, 2014, p. 98). If traditional advertising revenue continues

to decline, the time may come when legacy newsrooms are better off abandoning legacy

efforts.

Some organizations, such as Montreal’s La Presse, have already gone this route. In

January, La Presse stopped printing its weekday editions to focus on its tablet application La

Presse+. Publisher Guy Crevier has said eliminating distribution and printing costs allowed the

company to keep resources that help produce rich, investigative journalism. Crevier has also

warned other legacy organizations to change their own models now if they want to get ahead

of any looming crisis (Albeanu, 2016). Torn between a loyal, if diminished legacy audience and

digital promise, some news organizations have opted for partial amputation. Dailies such as

those owned by Advance Publications in the United States have cut print distribution to just

three days a week to save money (Miller & Reynolds, 2015). The Boston Globe is beginning an

analysis of its operations to see if a similar strategy might be beneficial (Bilton, 2016).

The reality is legacy newsrooms cannot compete with digital natives if they continue to

stretch already reduced resources across multiple platforms. Therefore, it is likely organizations

that wish to implement digital-first strategies successfully will need to decide what they are

good at, or at least what they want to concentrate on, and focus their efforts on producing high

quality content for that area. As Jeff Jarvis explained, “We always go for volume over value.

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More content, more audience, more advertising availabilities. Surely we’ll make it up on volume

and it will all come out okay in the end. That model is not going to work anymore,” (Jarvis,

2015). In other words, in a world where anyone can produce content, media organizations will

need to stand out if they want to build and maintain a loyal digital audience. Newspapers in

particular are based on a model that aims to produce a variety show of information. Papers

often offer a mix of news, current affairs, sports, lifestyle and entertainment news, while also

reporting on areas such as real estate and the automotive and technology industries. But as

digital users have the ability to actively seek out the best information available when they are

interested in a topic, newsrooms have less to gain by trying to cover the waterfront. Traditional

television and radio broadcasts face similar dilemmas. It is now plausible to assume that

audiences tuning in may have already heard the news of the day through digital platforms. This

is grounds for legacy news organizations to think carefully about how they are presenting

information on traditional platforms. Newsrooms will likely need to decide based on their

audience whether old methods continue to serve viewers and listeners who may be pre-

informed. In an environment of information abundance, media analysts are calling on legacy

companies to ask themselves what they are good at. The trick to capturing a transient, fickle

audience will likely be to “do what you do best and link to the rest” (Anderson, 2013, p. 126).

This applies not only to the production of content, but also to the selection of platforms.

A digital-first strategy cannot include all digital platforms, particularly because new publishing

methods emerge each day. The secret may be to test new distribution methods, but only fish in

the areas where users are biting back (Southern, 2016a). For example, the Washington Post

experienced an increase in traffic after it began posting content through Facebook's Instant

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Articles. Metrics suggested users were reading longer and were sharing more of what they

read. The positive feedback means the company now uses Instant Articles for all of its Facebook

posts (Southern, 2016a). The Guardian, however, began using Instant Articles at the same time

and saw little change in audience engagement. As a result, the Guardian is now looking at other

revenue streams and does not limit its Facebook posts to Instant Articles. This highlights how

an all-platform approach is not necessarily beneficial. Rather than all-platforms, industry

leaders encourage media organizations to focus on “all the platforms that matter to them,”

(Southern, 2016a).

In conclusion, legacy media outlets are trying to serve two masters. Part of their

audience is online, but it is not yet entirely online. Some are still served by traditional

platforms, even if those platforms are no longer producing the revenue necessary to sustain

them. Media outlets that are not ready to stop the presses or pull the plug on television and

radio newscasts will need to manage a very careful balancing act between traditional platforms

and digital distribution methods. As newsrooms adopt digital-first strategies which require

constant, multi-platform production, organization and some division of labour may be the

difference between an effective strategy and one that produces news mayhem.

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PART 2:

CANADIAN LEGACY MEDIA & DIGITAL STRATEGIES

Part two of the paper looks at how two of Canada’s legacy media outlets are addressing

the challenges outlined in the literature review. While The Toronto Star and the CBC are two

very different media outlets, both are legacy organizations that continue to operate on

traditional and digital platforms. Both organizations are also taking measures to increase and

prioritize their digital presence. The literature review suggests legacy media outlets are at a

precarious juncture. This is not to predict, as many have done before, the end of television,

radio or newspapers. The goal here is merely to highlight what appears to be a critical moment

of decision making. If audiences are moving and their preferences are changing, at what point

do the scales tip so it is no longer advisable or feasible for legacy media outlets to do all things?

Think of each new platform or device legacy organizations are filing for as a new topping that

has been added to a classic pepperoni pizza. What started as winning recipe is now

overpowered by layers of new sauces, cheeses and whatever vegetable is in season. Arguably,

there comes a point when news organizations will sell more product if they decide to just offer

a meat-lovers pizza or a Hawaiian pizza. If the majority of news consumers have moved online,

away from classic pepperoni, is it time to bake a new pie?

THE TORONTO STAR

The Toronto Star has certainly asked the question. As Canada’s largest daily newspaper,

it was chosen for analysis based on its recent digital initiatives and its continued commitment

to publish a print edition seven days a week (The Toronto Star, 2016b). The “catalyst for

change” in the company’s strategy came in September 2015 when it launched the Star Touch

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app designed for a tablet audience (Holland, 2016). The goal was to create a product that would

help offset a continued decline in print advertising, while attracting a wider, younger audience

(Sharp, 2016; Bradshaw, 2015). It would achieve this through what was described as a dramatic

change in storytelling methods: “With Star Touch, readers will be able to expand photo galleries

and video to full-screen, tap into live news and weather, interact with statistical information,

adjust type size and background, explore relevant links to the web and engage with

advertisements," (Cruickshank, 2015). The app’s design is based on the model the French-

language newspaper La Presse rolled out two years earlier (Cruickshank, 2015). Unlike their

colleagues at La Presse, however, the Toronto Star did not develop the app with the intention

of phasing out its print paper.

Chris Goodridge, who has been with the company since 2004 and is now the chief

operating officer of digital, said the scales have yet to tip at the Star. “When we step back and

look at the next horizons, whether it’s five years, seven years, ten years, print is still a part of

our mix,” he said in a May phone interview (C. Goodridge, personal communication, May 12,

2016). The economic incentive for producing a printed paper is still there. After the first quarter

of 2016, media reports suggested print advertising continues to make up 45 per cent of the

company’s overall revenue, even as it steadily declines (Bradshaw, 2016). Goodridge also cited

brand loyalty as a key reason for keeping the print publication. “Our print readership is in many

ways our most loyal readership,” Goodridge said, noting that while La Presse was able to

migrate a large portion of print subscribers to its tablet application, a significant number of

people who interact with the Star continue to choose the paper as their preferred method.

Goodridge said the Star’s print subscriber base remains relatively stable at around 350,000. In

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comparison, La Presse had roughly 160,000 print subscribers when it cancelled its weekday

papers to focus on its tablet app (Marowits, 2015). Goodridge added that the revenue from the

Star’s print subscribers, which he said is now roughly equivalent to the revenue from print

advertising, is significant enough that the company plans to continue the print edition as long

as it is economically viable. “We’ll manage the operation and we’ll continue to line up costs and

expenses against the revenues that print is generating, but we don’t have a stated goal of

exiting print,” Goodridge said.

It is also why the Star is pursuing a multi-platform strategy, rather than the digital-first

or tablet-first approach former publisher John Cruickshank described when the Star Touch app

first launched (Bradshaw, 2015). In addition to its daily tablet and print editions, the Star shares

content on social media through Facebook and Twitter. It uploads video to YouTube and posts

to the third-party content sharing apps Instagram and Snapchat. In May, it launched an updated

version of thestar.com, designed specifically for mobile users (Cooke, 2016). In other words, the

current recipe includes five discernible platforms: print, tablet, mobile, desktop, and social

media. Third-party apps could even fall into a sixth category if one accounts for the need to

create original posts. And even this is not the complete recipe. Goodridge noted that the pace

of change in the industry requires constant experimentation with new delivery methods, such

as third-party publishing platforms like Facebook’s Instant Articles, Google AMP and Apple

News. “We need to be there to some degree so that we understand the opportunity and the

threat,” Goodridge said.

Goodridge acknowledged the consequences of all-platform publishing, pointing to the

success La Presse has had by focusing on digital. The LaPresse+ app gets around 250,000 unique

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device views every day, and it brings in more than three quarters of the organization's total

advertising revenue. About 100,000 of those new devices have come since La Presse

announced plans to cancel its weekday print edition (Albeanu, 2016). The Star Touch app has

not experienced the same degree of rapid growth. After nine months in operation, Goodridge

said the app gets about 26,000 unique device views a day. The company had hoped that

number would reach 180,000 by the end of 2016, but a spokesperson recently lowered that

goal to 100,000 daily unique device views (Hazard Owen, 2016). “I think we would all like to be,

at some point, at that point where there’s a little more certainty in our model and a digital

strategy would give you that feeling that there was more predictability potentially in your

future,” Goodridge said in reference to La Presse’s strategy, but maintained that an all-digital

approach is not yet in the cards.

When asked about what consequences a multi-platform approach has on workload,

Goodridge noted that the Star added journalists and production staff who could focus solely on

the tablet app when it added the additional platform. The Star’s own coverage of the app’s

launch reported that more than 70 people were hired to produce the daily tablet edition,

including reporters, editors, designers and multimedia experts (Cruickshank, 2016). Although in

January, the company laid off 13 newsroom staff, including 10 from its tablet team and three

from digital, according to an internal memo from the editor (Watson, 2016). Goodridge could

not provide exact numbers, but suggested the majority of journalists file material for all of the

Star’s platforms. Small pools of staff - he described each group as a small handful of people -

focus exclusively on the tablet, the printed paper, or the remaining digital platforms. “A

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journalist’s life has changed a little bit, but probably not a ton because we have added a lot of

design resources to help them package a story,” he said.

It is worth noting that Goodridge can only speak to the issue of workload from a

managerial position. Reporters and production staff may in fact feel added pressure from

having to produce digital content in addition to written articles. The app alone promises

subscribers “videos, photographs and interactive graphics… photo galleries, maps, audio clips,

fact boxes and more,” (Cruickshank, 2016). If the majority of staff are producing all of these

formats, as Goodridge suggested, interviews with journalists would need to be conducted to

determine whether or not a multi-platform workload is sustainable.

While the Toronto Star may not be ready to cut a platform, the decision to produce a

daily print edition and a daily tablet edition does suggest the company is making decisions

about the audience it is trying to attract. “We really like the tablet as a storytelling media,

particularly as a curated package that we can produce for readers every day,” Goodridge

explained. “It’s really geared towards news lovers. The percentage of our population that will

dedicate a certain amount of time in their day to news and information.” This suggests that

while the Star is following a multi-platform approach, management is pursuing platforms that

mirror legacy habits, both in terms of production and audience consumption. The description

Goodridge gave of a subscriber to the Star Touch is very different from an on-the-go mobile

user who checks for updates or snippets of information throughout the day. The tablet edition

is delivered once a day, at 5:30 a.m. The average Star Touch user spends an average of 25

minutes a day on the app, Goodridge said. If the Star is able to tap into and maintain a digital

audience that follows similar habits to those it is used to, it may be able to focus its strategy

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without a significant disruption to traditional production processes. As the literature review

suggested, surviving in the future may depend less on who a news organization chooses as an

audience, as long as they define and focus their efforts. If the Star is not willing to give up on

tradition, or their traditional audience, a plausible strategy might be to serve those readers and

digital users with similar habits, rather than chase after new ones.

“We’ve always had a willingness to invest in the future, Star Touch is a great example…

but we always try and think about the longer term and it’s so different with our traditional

brand,” Goodridge said. “We’re the Star. A lot of the people who work at the organization,

certainly at the senior level, one of the main reasons they’re there is because they want to see

that brand survive and thrive long into the future.”

THE CBC

An analysis of the Toronto Star suggests it has yet to settle on a single type of pizza.

Instead, it appears to have divided the pie in two. One half is for people who favour the

traditional printed paper, and the other half serves those who prefer digital access. At the CBC,

however, chefs appear to be splitting the pie into even smaller sections. CBC released a new

strategic plan in the summer of 2014 titled Strategy 2020: A Space for Us All. The five-year

strategy commits to prioritizing digital and mobile distribution methods, with the end goal of

doubling the public broadcaster's digital reach by 2020. "At the heart of the plan is flipping

content priorities from a traditional approach to mobile-first," the document reads, with an

adjacent chart demonstrating how the broadcaster’s legacy platforms of television and radio

will move from the top two priorities, to third and fourth place after mobile and online

distribution (CBC, 2014, p. 14). At the time the plan was created, research suggested television

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remained the primary source of news for Canadians at 46 per cent, with internet second at 30

per cent (CBC, 2014, p. 5). Those numbers have already shifted. Andrew Cochran, the head of

strategy for CBC News and the person tasked with overseeing the implementation of Strategy

2020, confirmed in a May phone interview that more than 50 per cent of CBC users now access

content using digital methods (A. Cochran, personal communication, May 13, 2016). The CBC’s

mobile audience in particular has experienced dramatic growth over the last two years, he said.

Cochran did not provide exact figures, but said mobile traffic to CBC local news pages has more

than doubled since the strategy's implementation. But when asked if there is a point when CBC

might be better poised to serve Canadians and survive in the digital environment by giving up

one or both of its legacy platforms, Cochran’s response was resolute.

“No, I don’t think that,” he said. “We’re seeing the audience growth (digitally) but at the

same time, we have audience success in our radio programs, particularly the morning radio

programs right across the country. And we know people still look to and rely on television as an

important source of local news.” CBC radio leads the market in 13 of the 23 markets where

ratings are taken, he said. Cochran's numbers were less specific for television, but he said

audience levels “remain stable in most markets,” despite new start times and show durations

that came into effect in the fall of 2015. Cochran acknowledged the challenge of needing to

grow where the audience is growing. While the strategy suggests moving from "broad to

focused" choices about services and content (CBC, 2014, p. 9) it also calls for the broadcaster to

provide Canadians with “more engagement, more information, more often, on more screens,"

(CBC, 2014, p. 4). A list of CBC’s legacy news offerings include local, national and 24-hour

television programs, as well as radio newscasts, documentaries and current affairs programs.

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Digital offerings include a news website, mobile site, a mobile and tablet application, digitally

accessible podcasts, news digest emails and a YouTube channel. The national and regional

centres also manage their own mix of social media accounts, including Facebook, Twitter, and

Instagram. While digital platforms did not appear overnight, the fact remains that CBC is filing

content in more formats and in more places than ever before. To add to the challenge, within a

year of releasing Strategy 2020, CBC announced plans to cut 244 jobs to save money while

adding 80 new positions in digital news (Houpt, 2015). Rather than eliminate a platform to free

resources, Cochran described a solution based on changing workflow and the culture

surrounding news production. He recognized that to produce for all platforms, the format of

traditional content will likely need to change.

“Trying to do all the things the way we’ve always done them is probably difficult to

sustain,” he said, when asked whether resources could feasibly stretch to so many places. "If

we are trying to do a television report for the 6 p.m. show in the same way it's been done for

the last 40 or so years, and at the same time do a different piece for distribution on mobile, and

a different version for something that’s going to go on Facebook or Twitter or wherever, that

becomes pretty impossible pretty quickly." What was less clear in Cochran’s response, is what a

sustainable form of radio and television news looks like if the broadcaster is prioritizing digital

storytelling. Cochran was adamant that there is a future for local television news, but

questioned whether a television newscast will continue to be a collection of two-minute

packages. He acknowledged the CBC is still searching for different ways to tell stories on legacy

platforms to help make the system sustainable. The current approach involves crafting stories

using what Cochran called “building blocks” that can be easily adapted to work on different

Aske 43

platforms and devices. He listed these building blocks as solid journalism, compelling visuals

and compelling audio. “With those three building blocks, almost like atoms, we can make a

compelling story for any platform,” Cochran said, explaining that once gathered, individual

elements can be lengthened or shortened, or augmented with video, audio or photographs

depending on the platform. The flaw in this strategy may be that the routine production of the

solid journalism Cochran described may depend on time and resources staff no longer have.

The shift to digital means they must now gather the fundamental elements and also work to

shorten, lengthen, tweak and reformat the same material for other platforms. The formula in

itself puts additional strain on journalists who are used to focusing on just two elements, such

as solid journalism and visual storytelling, or solid journalism and compelling audio. Cochran

was not ignorant of the demands created by having all staff consider the needs of all platforms.

“That in itself is a significant and challenging transition to make and we’re in the midst of that

now,” he said.

The heartening aspect of the strategy, in Cochran’s opinion, was that individual shows

have begun to embrace the potential benefits of the changes. Regional centres have begun to

shift from what he called a program culture to a story culture. In a program culture, staff

allocated resources to fill the needs of a particular program, such as a television newscast or a

current affairs radio show. As a story culture takes hold, Cochran said the focus has become

how to treat an individual story, and then asking which platforms or devices that treatment

might work for. He added that a story culture makes programs and platforms dependent on

each other, as opposed to the isolated silos associated with legacy news production. To

describe the emerging system, Cochran used the metaphor of a news river:

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“If you think of the news we are now gathering and getting ready to publish on mobile

and desktop through the day, all day long, think of that as a river that runs through the

day. And then on the river banks are all the different programs... And each of those

programs can, and we expect will, increasingly, be taking material from the river, adding

the content that they develop for their own particular shows… And then all of the

combined output goes back to the river after it goes on air and continues on.”

Cochran recently held meetings to discuss the strategy with employees from different

departments, and said staff have commented that they are seeing the benefits of working more

closely with their colleagues in other programs and other platforms. “They see that they will be

more successful if they can help digital and radio be successful,” he said, as evidence of the

news river in action.

Cochran, like Goodridge, can only speak to the strategy’s implementation from a

managerial perspective. Interviews with journalists would need to be conducted to determine

whether the shift from a program culture to a story culture Cochran described has been

achieved, and to determine whether staff feel this shift in workflow makes a digitally focused

four-platform strategy manageable. A Space for Us All is a five-year plan, but when asked where

the broadcaster stands in terms of its implementation, Cochran paused. He did not speculate

on where the bulk of newsroom resources are currently directed, but replied only that “more

and more” journalists are no longer considered just radio reporters or television reporters. “We

increasingly think about everybody over time being that much more fluent in the craft skills in

all of the platforms,” he said. This suggests there may still be a few dams interrupting the flow

of Cochran’s news river.

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When asked what one of the biggest challenges is of operating in the digital news world,

both Cochran and Goodridge cited the pace of change. Both identified constant

experimentation as essential to surviving and competing in a digital environment. “Things like

text-on-video,” Cochran said as an example. “Five or six months ago, text-on-video didn’t exist…

Everybody is coming up with the next new thing, so it’s how do we constantly adapt to those

forms of storytelling.” This suggests that as CBC shifts its culture and workflow away from

legacy habits, part of the solution may be to not form new habits at all, but to remain in a

continuous stage of reinvention. Indeed, while Cochrane said he sees no end to legacy media

platforms at the CBC, he did extend the need to adapt to television and radio. “We need to be

constantly re-evaluating, reinventing how we provide these services to audiences,” Cochran

said. “(TV and radio) are not going to go away. Is it a time of opportunity to be thinking about

new ways of doing things? It absolutely is.”

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CONCLUSION

This paper set out to make a series of recommendations for legacy newsrooms to

consider when implementing digital-first strategies. While an analysis of two media outlets,

especially two varyingly different organizations, cannot offer concrete evidence, the findings

can be used to better understand the current moment legacy news organizations find

themselves in. Neither of the featured organizations felt their audience had shifted enough to

abandon a legacy platform. Based on the research discussed in the literature review and the

cited interviews, here are three recommendations legacy newsrooms can consider if their

digital strategy also features traditional methods of news delivery.

STRATEGY RECOMMENDATIONS

Focus your efforts.

There is undoubtedly wisdom, especially given the financial uncertainty in the industry,

in not becoming dependant on one platform. However, by trying to be everything to everyone,

legacy newsrooms sour their own recipe. This is the “too many toppings on the pizza”

argument. It is a cheesy analogy, but an effective one for legacy organizations attempting to

produce traditional and digital content, as a pizza can have more than one topping. What it

cannot have, at least if wants to maintain its appeal, is every topping. Consumers can shop

around for where they get their news. Doing a few things well or standing out for offering the

best source of something is recommended over trying to find a way to do everything. This is

likely the biggest flaw with CBC’s attempt to try to make content work for all platforms. As the

literature review demonstrated, the most effective content is tailored and customized for the

audience and platform it is intended for (Thordar, 2015; BBC Academy, 2015). Legacy

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newsrooms should experiment, but they must also be decisive, despite the risk. When La Presse

stopped its weekday print edition, it decided it would no longer serve the 160,000 subscribers

who were still getting the paper delivered each day. The ability to focus on fewer products, to

direct virtually all of its resources at providing the highest quality tablet experience, must be

seen as at least partially responsible for the success of the La Presse+ app. Even eliminating

some legacy products, such as a certain sections of a printed paper, publication on certain days

of the week, or a television or radio program that consumes resources yet reaches few, might

provide employees with the time and energy needed to enhance the content they create.

Adopt new production methods.

If a legacy media outlet is not willing to abandon a platform, it will at the very least have

to operate differently to keep workloads manageable. At the Toronto Star, this involved hiring

additional staff, including those specialized in multimedia and visual presentation, who could

take care of needs specific to the tablet edition. It is not possible for this project to determine if

the added resources were enough to offset the demands of a new platform, but the effort

ensures at least some degree of support for Star journalists who must meet traditional and

digital demands. At the CBC, management is attempting to switch from legacy production

practices based on a creating a final product to a continuous cycle of content generation. Again,

this will not eliminate the challenge of having to produce more content, but it may lessen the

burden on previously isolated programs if they can now draw from a shared pool of resources.

Be prepared for legacy media not to look like legacy media.

This is the result of resources being stretched over a continuously increasing number of

platforms. For an organization to be in all places, digitally packaged content will undoubtedly

Aske 48

appear on and influence legacy platforms. Cochran spoke of television newscasts that may

feature fewer two-minute packages. Goodridge suggested the Star's print edition has become

more visual since the adoption of the tablet app, as some maps and graphics also work as still

images in print. Legacy audiences may embrace or reject these alterations depending on the

type of news they want to consume. The nature of the changes may also attract new viewers,

listeners or readers. Regardless of the outcome, it is unrealistic to expect traditional products to

remain unchanged while drawing from the same resources to create digital content.

This project revealed similar challenges faced by legacy organizations, such as their

ability to follow a shifting audience and to keep up with the speed of change. Pew's 2015 State

of the Media report noted that new platforms and new players continue to emerge at a rapid

pace. The report summarized that "with each new pathway or platform, the old ones continue

to be used, posing a nearly unattainable challenge to an industry in financial difficulty,"

(Mitchell, 2015, p. 8). It is possible legacy platforms will be around for years, even decades. Yet

with so many options available, legacy news organizations will have to make difficult decisions

about who their future audience will be and what they are realistically able to provide. As Jeff

Jarvis suggested, a strategy that pursues volume over value may not be the best option,

depending on an organization’s end goal (Jarvis, 2015). Is that goal to make the most money?

To produce the highest quality product? To reach a specific group of people? To reach the most

people? This paper maintains that legacy news organizations need to come up with a definitive

answer about who they will serve and how, if they wish to survive in the digital news industry.

Organizations that continue to operate with one foot in each camp will likely continue to

grapple with the technological, cultural and organizational challenges this paper discuses.

Aske 49

News consumers can go anywhere to order pizza. Why should they order yours?

Aske 50

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