AuthorGilles Demptos is News & Media Public Policy Principal at Impact4News Archives
February 2018
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Terrorism, Trust and the Media2/5/2018 When on 7 January 2015 eight employees of the French satire magazine Charlie Hebdo were killed by Islamic terrorists in their Paris newsroom, the condemnation of this barbaric act was unanimous in France and internationally. A controversy nevertheless arose rapidly when some voices suggested that, had the publication handled potentially sensitive religious issues with greater restraint, the tragedy might have been avoided.
Should the press rein itself in every time there is a risk of hurting the feelings of one social group or another? There is a certain amount of room for debate on this complex issue. But the mere suggestion that responsibility for the Paris killings could be lifted from the murderers' shoulders and placed even partially on the victims’ triggered a wide and legitimate outcry. Two days later, as the Charlie Hebdo assailants were still on the run, one of their accomplices entered a kosher supermarket in the east of the French capital. He killed four people and held several hostages. A few customers managed to hide in a refrigerated storage room. Using their mobile phones, they alerted their relatives and the authorities to their perilous situation. Somehow, that information was picked up and reported by a local news radio station, putting lives at risk, because – as it happened – the gunman in the supermarket was actually listening to that station to monitor the moves of the police and the situation of the other terrorists! This tragic anecdote raises essential questions about the role and responsibility of the media when a grave crisis, such as a natural disaster, an armed conflict or a terrorist attack occurs. Transparency is key for restoring trust The press’ mission to report the news objectively, to enable citizens to take decisions with an adequate knowledge of the issues at stake and of the possible consequences of their actions and choices, is no doubt a complex exercise. It is also often a dangerous one, especially in the case of natural disasters, gunfights or the activities of organised crime. According to the annual report compiled by the International News Safety Institute (INSI), Killing the Messenger, a total of 115 journalists died in 2016 simply for doing their jobs. The global spread of terrorism and violent extremism in recent years, led by organisations such as ISIS and Al Qaeda, implies that we live in a world where any place can, at any time, be converted into a war zone. That is a threat that not only governments, intelligence services and police forces but also the media and – more widely – the entire society must be ready to face at any moment in time. Beyond the training of reporters in safety and first-aid measures, effective planning for emergency situations must include the setup and regular review of special workflows specifying how, in such circumstances, the news will be processed and distributed over the numerous channels available to modern media houses, including SMS alerts, chat apps and social media networks. In dealing with the eventuality of a terror attack, those emergency guidelines may also define, in coordination with the relevant government agencies, what kind of information should – or should not – be reported. Generally speaking, there should be no restriction whatsoever on the public’s right to be informed. Experience has shown that attempts to hide or restrict information about an unfolding incident severely damages people’s trust in the media and the government, and tends to cause confusion and fear to a far greater extent that the unequivocal disclosure of the truth. Stopping terrorism from cleaving society As pointed out in Terrorism and the Media, a recently published UNESCO handbook for journalists, “It is important to remember that the goal of these violent actors is not to bring terror for terror’s sake (…) Their real objective is to cleave society down the centre, turning people against each other by provoking repression, discrimination and discord.” In the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo attack, reprisals against the French Muslim population were widely feared. Leading newspapers and radio and TV stations played a key role in explaining the context of the attacks and in disclosing the extremist and criminal backgrounds of the assailants, thus preventing breaches in the population’s unified response to the horror of the killings. When a terrorist act occurs, the media should therefore aggressively investigate all aspects of the situation, using governmental and other sources, and disclose the nature of the attack, its impact, the identity of the perpetrators and any other relevant information so as to shed full light on the events with the required immediacy and exhaustiveness. The only tolerable exception to that principle is, of course, when the disclosure of certain information could – as in the Paris supermarket attack – put civilians’ lives at risk or disrupt police operations in their attempts to detain the perpetrators of the attack. This exception to the media’s duty to inform must be specified carefully. Strengthening journalism standards in times of crisis Beyond such specific exceptions, in times of crisis the ethics and standards of independent journalism should not be altered or weakened, but – on the contrary – strengthened and applied with the strictest rigor. More than in other situation, for instance, the media should make sure that all published information has been duly authenticated by reliable sources. In the tense and highly emotional environment of a crisis, news media should also of course refrain from using click-bait headlines, adopting a sensationalistic tone, or publishing images that are too gruesome or may harm the dignity of the victims. Some media may, for example, choose to blur parts of photos of an attack scene in order to avoid converting the victims' distress into a show. But once again, that humane respect must be carefully balanced against the media’s obligation to inform the public with the utmost objectivity and completeness. Apart from merely reporting the facts with speed and accuracy, the press’ ability to interpret the news, enriching the reports with analysis and commentary, is obviously decisive in helping the public fully understand and appreciate the impact of the events. By pro-actively preventing minority groups from being unfairly stigmatized and by widening the focus of their coverage to highlight the spontaneous manifestations of solidarity and mutual support in the aftermath of a tragedy, the press also has the power to short-circuit the chaos and division that terrorists aim to instill in the heart of our societies. A shared responsibility It is nonetheless worth mentioning that – no matter how well-prepared and how rigorously ethical they might be – news media cannot perform their crucial mission if the public does not value their role. That is also true if populist politicians publicly question the media's accuracy every time a story inconveniences them, exacerbating the current erosion of trust in traditional media around the world. Many people and institutions, including individual politicians, governments, political parties, technology companies powering social media networks and other mass content distribution platforms, and ultimately citizens themselves, have important parts to play in the functioning of the healthy news ecosystem that is vital to an open society, especially in the face of the divisive threat posed by extremist terror.
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SCMP: A Digital Powerhouse11/6/2017 When the Alibaba Group announced its intention to buy the South China Morning Post (SCMP) in December 2015, the news immediately sparked concerns over the impact this new ownership could have on the state of freedom of expression in the former British territory. The Chinese e-commerce giant’s unexpected move – which echoed the buyout of The Washington Post by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos two years earlier – also triggered hope and curiosity about the capacity of tech companies to reinvent the news publishing business model. The first statement that Joe Tsai, the powerful Executive Vice Chairman of the Alibaba Group, had made about the acquisition of the 113-year-old English-language, Hong Kong newspaper of record, back in 2015, had indeed helped feed such hopes: “Some say the newspaper industry is a sunset industry. We don't see it that way,” he said. “We see it as an opportunity to use our technological expertise and our digital assets to distribute news in a way that has never been done before.” In the same announcement however, Tsai said Alibaba’s first strategic decision, as the future owner of the South China Morning Post, would be to take down its paywall. At a time when news publishers worldwide seemed to have finally acknowledged that digital journalism was not sustainable without audience revenues, tearing down one of Asia’s few successful paywalls sounded to many ears more counterintuitive than radically innovative. On the other hand, the appointment of Gary Liu as SCMP’s new CEO in January 2017 was immediately perceived as an unequivocal sign of renewal in an industry that is still lagging in its digital transformation and struggle to attract young talents. A former Spotify executive, Liu was CEO of the New York-based news aggregator Digg, which he had established as an industry-leading content data and discovery platform. A California native and Harvard graduate, Liu is a recognized digital media influencer and innovator. But far from being just a tech geek, Liu surprisingly comes across as first and foremost a passionate newsman: “My entry into the news industry was not accidental (…) I love the news industry,” says Liu. “And although it was not planned this way, my career in technology has always been in media technology. I’ve been at the very precise intersection of how to create, distribute and monetise media during the last 10-11 years.” Independent journalism comes first When asked what it means for SCMP to be owned by a tech company such as Alibaba, Liu addresses the issue of the newspaper’s editorial independence first. “We actually operate very independently (from the Alibaba Group),” he says. “We do not report into the media division of Alibaba (…) and that was done on purpose because the independence of this newsroom is extremely important, not only obviously to us, but to our owners as well. Our governing structure is set up in a way which allows this separation,” he says. The CEO of SCMP reports to an independent Board, which naturally includes Alibaba executives, but also other independent directors. Whether this governance structure effectively guarantees the absence of any kind of pressure from its ownership on the Post’s newsroom is of course subject to controversy in the rather tense political climate that currently reigns in Hong Kong. But the Post’s CEO's adherence to the values of independent journalism and his commitment to champion them sounds completely sincere. “I feel very strongly and have been convinced for a very long time that the sanctity of the news industry is actually very important for the maintenance of global peace and prosperity, but also for the education of multiple generations,” Liu says. The strict governance separation between SCMP and its mother company also means that, operationally, there is almost no integration either. However, their data technologies and content technologies sit on Ali Cloud, Liu says. “We have to be on a cloud service so, effectively, our choice is between AWS and Ali Cloud. And Ali Cloud is significantly cheaper for us and also more scalable,” he says. Focus on Big Data and AI Other technical areas for which SCMP plans to rely on Alibaba expertise are Big Data and Artificial Intelligence. “They are so far ahead of practically any other player besides Baidu here in Asia,” says Liu. “And they are certainly far ahead of us. It makes no sense to try to develop on our own something that Alibaba may have already built,” he says. Clearly, Big Data and AI are at the very heart of the digital transformation at work within SCMP: “I think about data in three ways,” says Liu: (1) “It helps us operate the company with more precision and efficiency, (2) it improves our user experience by making our products smarter, and (3) it contributes to a future of artificial intelligence.” “The Fourth Industrial Revolution, as coined by Klaus Schwab the founder of the World Economic Forum, is being driven most by artificial intelligence,” Liu says. “AI will change practically every industry, and every job, including ours. When we think about AI at the SCMP, we're planning for two things: NLP (natural language processing) and NLG (natural language generation).” “NLP will allow users to discovery and consume SCMP news content in a myriad of new ways, for example through intelligent speakers (Google Home, Amazon Echo). It will also allow us to understand better the sentiment of the world, through the analysis of content data,” he says. “NLG will allow us to 'outsource' commodity news creation (for example, financial reporting on indices, earnings, sports score/results, etc.) to machines, which are much faster and more accurate than us,” Liu says. “This will allow our journalists, who are infinitely more valuable than machines, and a limited resource, to focus on impact reporting: investigative, deep-dive journalism that elevates thought and understanding.” From Hong Kong to the world About the paywall issue, Liu is very straightforward: taking it down is closely aligned with SCMP’s ambitions to become a global news media. “Our mission is to lead the global conversation about China,” he says. “We believe that the world needs to understand China better (…) because the mass populations around the world have a narrow understanding of what China is and, more importantly, of what China’s rise means for the rest of the world.” “When I say, 'understand China,'” Liu says, “I’m not just saying to see the good side of China. I’m saying see all sides of China. I will strongly defend that we have strong, objective coverage of the good and the bad of China. The enlightening and uplifting, and the weird. We have all the flavor and nuance in between.” “This means that we, as a news organization, have to go from being the paper of record for Hong Kong to becoming a news organization that covers China for the world,” he says. “Taking down the paywall has allowed our international traffic to grow exponentially,” he adds “Our digital traffic in the last 12 months has more than doubled, among the active users.” Long term value of quality journalism That said, Liu doesn’t rule out that SCMP could reintroduce some forms of paid subscriptions in the future, once its global presence is established. “Fundamentally, I believe that a quality news industry, a quality news product should be paid for. Consumers should pay for a higher quality, thoughtful and objective journalism. Because it costs too much to create for not having value there of some sort,” he says. “I also believe that digital advertising is not enough to sustain the news publishing industry. So a free product that is only monetized through ads is not sustainable. Which would lead to the conclusion that subscriptions are an important part of the news industry in the long term,” Liu says. SCMP’s digital transformation strategy is articulated around three pillars, which Liu summarizes in concise words: “First, having a strong conviction of who we are, and what our purpose is. The second thing is to build new products – the right content with the right packaging and the right distribution channel. And the third thing is to launch and propagate them in new marketplaces,” he says, mentioning the USA and South-East Asia as the key markets to explore in short term. Seizing collectively a unique momentum For achieving these goals, Liu believes that there is currently a window of opportunity that news publishers must not miss. “We are in a time when, suddenly, three things have coalesced,” he says. “We now have senior leaders across all major news organizations who understand the digital world, who obviously believe in it, and who are no longer stuck in the legacy and the inertia of the past,” he adds “This is quite new.” “We also have platforms who realized they have accountability,” he says. “Facebook is being the most public about it. We also know that Google understands they have accountability, and they are in the back being very active about it.” “And the third element,” Liu says, “is our readers and consumers. They are realizing that the way they are consuming is putting blinders on them. We have readers seeking out high quality journalism, which is objective truth, which they are starting to be willing to pay for…” In this context, Liu strongly believes that media leaders across the Asia Pacific region should speak to each other and collaborate so that a common understanding of how the digital world works and how to operate a news organization in this new digital world can emerge. “I want us to come to a collective agreement on what this changing consumer behaviour and changing platform behaviour means for our industry,” Liu says. This article was originally published in Asian Newsmedia Focus Q4, 2017 edition and is republished here, courtesy of WAN-IFRA
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While Vietnam often makes the headlines as one of the fastest growing ASEAN economies – the country’s economy is expected to grow in the 6 to 7% range from 2016 to 2018 – its news media industry is little known beyond its borders. As in matured Asian countries, the large Vietnamese-language newspapers, which long dominated the media landscape, are experiencing a sharp decline in advertising and circulation. Simultaneously, a myriad of small digital-only news media outlets are literally sprouting all over the web. VnExpress, which launched in 2001, has pioneered this evolution. Its Chairman and Editor-in-Chief, Thang Đức Thắng, shared with ANF some of the key milestones of its development. As with many iconic publications, VnExpress first came to light thanks to an encounter of a visionary project with an audacious investor, with the added advantage of favourable historic circumstances. Towards the end of the eighties, as Vietnam moved toward a free-market economy with its Doi moi (Renovation) measures, the Vietnamese government relied heavily on the print media to keep the public informed about its policies. As a result, large, government-linked newspapers, such as Tuoi Tre, Thanh Nien and Lao Dong prospered and the number of newspapers and magazines doubled. With the reforms, the Vietnamese economy, traditionally centered on textiles, started to diversify. Founded in 1988, The Food Processing Technology Company switched its core business to information technology in 1990 and became the Corporation for Financing and Promoting Technology (FPT). The company rapidly became a major player in IT and telecommunications. Today, it is one of Vietnam’s leading conglomerates, with a presence in 19 countries. “As an internet service provider (ISP), the FPT Corporation wanted in the nineties to expand its user base,” says Thang. “From my side, I had dreamt for a long time of creating a new kind of journalism organization, totally different from the propaganda policies. The awakening of the internet inspired me in 1997 to build a publishing platform on which the government would have less control. These two aspirations crossed paths and VnExpress was born.” A journalist with close to 20 years of experience at the time VnExpress was founded, Thang had made his first steps in the profession at the Vietnam News Agencies. He then completed a PhD degree in journalism in Moscow before joining the Lao Dong Daily as Head of the Breaking News in 1995. Now the President and CEO of FPT Online Service and Chairman of VnExpress, Thang remains nonetheless the publication’s Editor-in-Chief and a journalist at heart. “A journalist's first obligation is to tell the truth, and their first loyalty is to citizens, providing the audience with real news,” says Thang. ”Although admittedly such journalism ethics are not always easy to maintain within the strongly regulated Socialist Republic, it immediately allowed VnExpress to differentiate itself from its printed competitors.” First private news publication in Vietnam The launched of VnExpress in February 2001 supposed a decisive change in the Vietnamese media landscape, since private newspapers had previously never been permitted. “From the first days, VnExpress was operated without the press license, only based on the license of FPT as an internet content provider,” recalls Thang. “That was the reason we launched as a purely online platform instead of a newspaper.” In just a few months, VnExpress became recognized by scores of readers and eventually obtained a license from the Ministry of Information and Communications of Vietnam in November 2011, thus becoming the first financially independent newspaper in the country. “Not long after our launch, VnExpress became the most read Vietnamese media platform over the world,” says Thang. “VnExpress has now more than 30 million page impressions on a normal working day, and about 6 million unique visitors per day, which is way out in front of other media organizations,” he says. It publishes 500 stories and articles per day, 95% of which are created by VnExpress’ multi-skilled journalists using the company’s multi-platform authoring tool. From news to entertainment Three years after its launch, in April 2004, VnExpress expanded its portfolio with the creation of Ngoisao.net, a digital entertainment supplement focusing on the showbiz lives of famous stars. From then onward, it experienced exponential growth, reaching the top 500 most read websites ranking on Alexa.com in 2005, and the top 100 ranking in 2007. In 2015, the number of VnExpress’ mobile users surpassed that of PC users and its Facebook fan page reached 2 million likes. In May 2016, the website recorded 51.8 million pageviews in a single day, a record soon broken on 9 November of the same year, with 65.3 million pageviews on the US elections day. The core of VnExpress’ business, explains Thang, is to “Deliver news on the internet platform and provide business advertising service. (…) VnExpress is a pioneer in terms of applying technology to digital publishing and overcoming challenges to create a solid platform to handle huge amounts of traffic,” he says. 20% growth year on year While the traditional print newspapers in Vietnam have experienced a sharp decline in advertising and circulation in the past five years – as in many places in Asian and all over the world – the digital businesses have continued to soar. “Over the past five years, hundreds of online newspapers have been established,” says Thang. “The switch from print to online has been incredible. The more online media there is available, the less people will go out and buy a print edition in the morning. Print is becoming more and more inconvenient for readers.” As for VnExpress, thanks to inroads beyond news into classifieds (Raovat.vnexpress.net, relaunched in 2016), eCommerce, niche websites and digital advertising solutions, it has continuously expanded and consolidated its market position. In 2015, it controlled, 20% of the online advertising market. VnExpress International, a recently launched English Edition of the website, quickly became the most read English-language edition of a Vietnamese publication. “Thanks to our reputation, our revenue has continued to increase, even during these tough times. In recent years, our revenue has grown significantly. For example, 2016’s revenue is expected to grow by 20% compared with last year,” says Thang. This article was first published in Asian Newsmedia Focus Q2, 2017 edition, and is republished here, coursesy of WAN-IFRA |