Journalism in the Internet era is about collaborating with users and about expanding the channels, not hiding content behind paywalls.
So said senior Guardian executive Meg Pickard in an address today to Internet World in London.
The Guardian’s digital strategy differs sharply from other traditional media organisations in Ireland and elsewhere, led by Rupert Murdoch’s decision to start charging for online access to media content.
At the Guardian, it’s a very different story. The publisher is reinventing journalism and audience engagement and collaboration. Meg Pickard gave examples to illustrate the continuous evolution of its strategy:
- Building a tool to allow users to filter through thousands of expenses documents during the MP expenses scandal to help Guardian executives identify what angles and stories to follow
- Launch of a new “time capsule” type facility, Guardian Zeitgeist, which shows users which are the most popular stories from the Guardian online each day. This Zeitgeist site used to be for internal use only, but now everyone can use it by visiting Guardian.co.uk/Zeitgeist
- Sophisticated measurements which allow the Guardian to track its 37 million unique visitors across the four pillars of the Guardian’s digital strategy – consume, react, curate, create
- Harvesting user-generated news content
The Guardian’s business of telling stories has not changed, she said, but publishers are constantly challenging themselves and embracing new platforms, tools and editorial processes.
The publisher will not follow Murdoch’s lead and, as a result, could enlarge its audience if the paywall experiment results in users deserting other media sites.
It also raises issues for Irish publishers who are dabbling with paywalls
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