Magazine

Irish media start-ups venture online in wake of recession

Ireland’s media landscape has been battered and bruised by the financial crisis that has thrown the country into a deep recession.

As advertising revenue plummeted, local newspapers up and down the country were forced out of business or scaled back to skeleton staff. National broadsheets shed jobs like it was going out of fashion and budding journalist graduates frequently joined the dole queue.

Despite all, in the midst of what seemed like a media meltdown, one branch of the media tree was budding tentatively. Online news sites, independent from any conventional media outlets such as print, TV and radio, were coming onto the scene.

Storyful.com is one such site that emerged roughly six months ago. Its focus is on international news, sourced and told through social media, with so-called ‘curators’ trawling social networks for news content.

For Storyful’s founder Mark Little the recession was one factor, though not the major one, that influenced his decision to start up the website.  “I felt Ireland has reached a defining moment. Too many people talk about what needs to change and too few people take responsibility for that change.”

In a previous life Little worked as a foreign correspondent for Ireland’s national broadcaster RTE. In recent years the rise of social media however proved that it was no longer necessary to personally gather news on the ground.

Little commented: “The opportunity was the growth of social journalism: the rise of social networks and mobile communications gives everyone the chance to join in the process of newsgathering.”

Storyful

Filtering out the useful information from the vast quantity of ‘noise’ circulating online remains a challenge, Little admits. Some 110million tweets are posted each day and to the untrained eye finding the ones of value can be like searching for a needle in a haystack.

“We believe the responsibility of journalists is to manage the overabundance of information for the benefit of the community rather than ration out scarce information to a passive audience,” he explained indicating that Storyful’s mission is to work with citizen journalists rather than simply gathering such information from the web.

Though one strand of Storyful’s business model is to provide breaking news content sourced through social media to global clients, another is to engage with citizen journalists that populate social networks.

However, establishing a world news service driven by citizen journalism is no easy mission. Little admitted, “We are still struggling to work out the best way to make our Storyful.com website a hub for truly social and collaborative journalism.”

Little is optimistic about the new method of newsgathering. “Social media will become the primary means of newsgathering, at least when it comes to breaking news. But the old values of journalism - the old standards of context and accuracy - have never been more relevant and necessary.”

Those who hold conventional news forms dear are likely to consider Little’s prediction for the media landscape apocalyptic.

“A few of the very best newspapers will survive in print form but only as sources of comment and context, not breaking news. That will move almost entirely online,” Little predicted.

Though TV will become stronger “thanks to the rise of online video and mobile devices” with few exceptions it “will be primarily consumed online at the time of the user’s choosing”.

Storyful’s growing success is a tribute to Little’s tenacity and dedication rather than a sign of a conducive business environment in Ireland.

“Ireland has high journalistic standards, an interest in the world and a strong storytelling tradition, so that helped to an extent. But in general, Ireland is not a hospitable environment for high-risk media start-ups. Things are changing but slowly,” he said.

On a domestic front another news site that is fast establishing itself as a major media outlet is thejournal.ie. Speaking to an Irish audience, in its early days the journal often assembled news from a variety of domestic media outlets and relayed them with its own rubber stamp on them.

It started publication in October last year and has since acquired large followings both on Facebook and Twitter. Not unlike Storyful, thejournal has tapped into the social media frenzy and the opportunities it offers.

Thejournal.ie

Susan Ryan is a writer for the news site, which she joined six months after graduating with a Masters in journalism. All of Ryan’s views are her own but she was happy to offer a glimpse behind the scene at the news site and talk about what motivated her to venture into online news.

Looking at the Irish media landscape she said: “The decision to start [thejournal] came from a frustration that there was a lack of comprehensive news site in Ireland.”

As a start-up, thejournal was initially heavily reliant on news from other media outlets, which it assembled and relayed on its site. By scouring existing news, the journal concentrated on pulling together information that provided a different take on each news story. 

As a newcomer this was the best start, Ryan explained, but as thejournal gains more recognition and a wider readership reporters are generating more of their own news.

“Initially we were following what was in papers. Now we’re developing far more of our own content,” said Ryan.

Through its activity online thejournal has acquired a following of almost 41,000 on Facebook dwarfing the 4700 followers of one of Ireland’s major broadsheet, The Irish Times.  On Twitter thejournal has nearly reached an equal footing with the newspaper at 13,600 followers compared to the Irish Times 13,700. 

Ryan always saw herself working in online news. She had had previously worked for RTE’s online service, where she was trained. It gave her a taste for the medium, which she considers more free and malleable through its ability to incorporate audio, video and print, than any other news format.

A lack of job opportunities in web based news sites made her branch out into radio for a while. “I don’t know how I would have survived in online if the journal hadn’t arrived. If it hadn’t I think I’d have stayed in radio,”she said.

Nothing can beat online news when it comes to delivering news fast, according to Ryan. Tweeting live from conferences is one thing thejournals reporters do to stay ahead of the news curve.

“The particular night we really saw it was the night Michael Martin was asking for a leadership vote,” she recalled.  Pressure had been mounting on the Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen to resign with Martin, a member of the previous leading Fianna Fail party, calling for a leadership vote on a Sunday night in January.

According to Ryan, thejournal, unlike other news forms, was able to put out the story immediately via Twitter.

“We got a really good response from people tweeting that if they hadn’t seen this, they wouldn’t have known it happened till the following day,” she said.

Despite online news’ role in delivering fast news Ryan still sees scope for newspapers to make a living in this digital age.  “Newspapers can’t be beaten for analysis at the moment,” she said, before adding, “Online doesn’t have the luxury of time.”

 

Tags:

Related articles

• Home |
• Seminars  |
• Events |
• Media Landscape |
• Newsroom|
• Media News|
• Resources

Terms of service and Privacy policy.

Copyright © 1992- 2011 European Journalism Centre. All rights reserved.

Valid XHTML and CSS.

European Journalism Centre

Sonneville-lunet 10
6221KT Maastricht
The Netherlands

Tel. : +31 43 325 40 30
Fax : +32 2 400 42 20

E-mail: info[at]ejc.net