This article appeared in the number of issues currently in the Information Library. POI is a quarterly journal of the Mill Bologna, directed by Angelo Agostini and dedicated to the themes of journalism and publishing people like us, has experienced total immersion journalism and publishing the information knows that the last five years in the profession and industry have experienced more change than in the previous three decades.
The pace of innovation will not slow down because the types of content and distribution platforms continue to multiply. Journalists and publishers finally seem to be aware and it is important that this challenge is perceived more as an opportunity than a threat. Converge features, not tools.
The digital age is that of convergence. However, the more access to information, knowledge, pastimes and friendships, the greater the number of instruments. The paradox is not due to shortcomings in the device but old habits and new users. Just reflect on the experience of many of us: we read in the newspaper office paper and yet, if we travel or in the country, download the digital version of the tablet, we look for the latest news about an all-news television channel or on a site, we book the train with the phone and on the way we watch a movie on the DVD player, listen to the radio in the car and we go to mp3 on the subway, chatting with a friend on Facebook from your mobile into the house but as soon as we continue Talk from your PC or TV connected to the network.
Some of these technological objects have many functions, but in fact if they take full advantage of two or three. The iPad is, for now, especially for information and games. But nothing beats the personal computer when we have a working document or find a hotel, the smartphone is perfect for making phone calls - God forbid! - And listen to music.
With a tablet you can do almost everything but still does not replace either the phone or the PC, let alone the radio. Just as the integrated TV will not kill the other platforms, while incorporating many. If the convergence of the functions but not the tools, those who provide information must articulate the product for each instrument taking into account its specific characteristics, the target public and the ways / times of use.
We must continue to churn out good newspapers every morning, provide news on the website without interruption, to produce usable video even in mobility, design services and applications that attract advertising on the tablet. Another way of saying the same thing is that we need on the part of journalists and publishers, cultural awareness, even before the technical rules that govern the digital universe, the different narrative tools that are available to better tell their story (which is the job of a reporter) to different audiences at different times.
The limits of the integrated writing. Until recently it was thought that the solution could be adapted for the Internet, perhaps automatically, a born-for-TV movie, or post on the site and give the radio a news article by a journalist of the paper. For this reason, many experiments have been made from the most obvious additions, the editorial offices.
But the word "integration" has different meanings. In the longer run you imagine a journalist who works in each case for different platforms. Integration apparently easy to understand for both publishers to "make savings in personnel, both for journalists - mirror image - fear of overexploitation.
Based on these mirror fears and hopes, the integration in Italy has beaten up more than elsewhere, constrained by professional structures and cultures traditionally closed. Meanwhile, abroad, the vast majority of editors of newspapers and many broadcasters (primarily the BBC) were actually "integrated", even according to very different models: one by the editors at newsrooms but coordinated centrally divided by half, from Editors multi-function specialist producer.
The Daily Telegraph of London has even revolutionized the workplace, creating an editorial in the center rotates with the editors, the areas of content on the "rays" responsible for the dissemination of their materials on all platforms. German press has actually preserved a lot different teams for digital and paper, but managed by a central office where they sit the leaders of the different platforms without one is considered to prevail over another.
But there are divergent trends. The only American general newspaper with national circulation, USA Today, that five years ago had completely integrated its editorial structures, decided to return to a separate organization. In late October the announcement by President Dave Hunke: the current organization of work does not allow the necessary flexibility to deal with the opportunities to platforms such as smartphones and tablet, so it will be reviewed.
Above all, a consideration of Hunke deserves careful analysis: the new platforms can not be treated as mere extensions of old, have their own personalities and their (potential) public demand specific care. For example, the average age of those who use the tablet is 10-15 years less than the usual buyers of newspapers.
To these younger readers, publishers are asked to provide products that meet their digital experiences and habits. All this, however, must not think that it is appropriate or even possible to continue as before, that is to imagine and build the traditional newspaper products in the same way, with the same tools and with the same organization of work and simply add specialized editorial, however, subordinate to the main product that is automatically identified with the traditional product (paper).
This is no longer possible not only for economic reasons but for cultural reasons: it is possible to do good journalism with mainstream media only to realize that these resources are embedded in a digital universe of relationships and communication which have laws very different from the world analog.
The editors have to their traditional digital culture, whatever the means. To do so, in the digital world and must live, to live, you must have a minimum of instruments to navigate. You can continue writing paper only or services only to do a newscast, but if you really want to tell any journalist can ignore the development of social networks.
The integration of the brain. In fact, the integration was and remains necessary is that the brain: consciousness in newsrooms and in companies that, in terms of values \u200b\u200band information, journalism is one of a header, although many can and should be the how, when and platforms with which it correlates with their audiences.
But if the drafting of the text and shapes from a few or only one (which is always more frequent now), will have to ask which of the various functions can be performed and which not, which product forms are best to pursue a common mission and editorial and to what extent they are incurred.
A drawing will have the greatest luxury of specializing the functions (as is the case for decades, for example, among people at the desk editors, reporters and graphics) to think about their content specifically for a platform. All this will not be without consequences for the way we think and build the traditional product.
The new functions can not be simply added: processes and in some cases can be distinguished, although part of a single scheme and the new platforms are not designed as supplements or as a traditional platform of its simple extensions, but must be lived as tools indispensable to the citizens of the digital universe, and thus by its peculiar quality journalism.
For their part publishers have a task that seems impossible with the limits, not drive up costs (in Europe over the last three years 50 percent of the heads has reduced the staff) and, together, increase the products to be distributed. All this without affecting the quality. How? With a clear strategy that preserves the brand, quality assurance for the readers / users on any platform, creating conditions that would enable editors to tell the reality with the various technological means available and, finally, testing whether and how systems and organizations Editorial can support the new tasks.
Professional training. In this step, on the shoulders of journalists seems to shift the burden of greater responsibility. The "professional informants" must have a background that has never been applied to editors who are now in late career. The susceptibility to multi-task and the willingness to try every means at least have the baggage of anyone who wishes to become an informant.
A wealth of knowledge, ie, allowing everyone to imagine and create their own history and for different audiences at different times. Although in the end there will be a journalist "writes," another that "turn around and mount a" video, one that will build a user interface for the basis of data collected during an investigation.
The important thing is that the service is thought of leaving as a whole (the "integration of the brain) even if the content will be married by various editorial functions. Under these conditions, specialization later becomes a value to pursue and protect narrative to describe the specific skills of their various platforms.
In the difficult articulation of the relationship between editorial staff dedicated to the different platforms overlook new forms of production information, which in a few years will change the nature and form of the offer journalism. It 's a natural phenomenon: it is the journalist who must follow the habits and skills of new players, not vice versa (but often forget).
On this measure is the ability to change, generally very low among those who is a journalist. This, of course, can not happen if publishers do not become involved. In particular, if not invest more human and financial resources in training is not occasional or purely technical, but structured, learning and awareness-oriented learning objectives.
If you look at the international scene, restructuring of the publishing companies have all been accompanied by an effort of re-orientation and editorial resources. It is cut in many areas, from staff, but has invested heavily in training. And when it comes to training are not exclusively of courses to learn to use a machine or new software, but chances motivational and cultural studies broader perspective which alone can provide a sense of the extra effort that prompted reporters participate.
Unfortunately in Italy the training tends to be random, most often related to a purely technical training (for example, the introduction of new editorial systems) and / or the result of union agreements that are, in reality the economic benefits that are linked to attendance, rather than the need to rethink and upgrade their professional activities.
The Digital technology is not a technique to learn, but a culture to understand and live. Culture of which they are fully part of the "new journalism." The new journalism that technology makes possible. In recent years there has been much talk of citizen journalism, sometimes with excessive optimism.
It should be noted that no writing can no longer afford to ignore the value of collaboration and interaction with readers / users. The examples are endless: today many of the "stories" told by the editors take their cue from the user's ability to document them and give them a show first.
In fact soon we realized that the information professional with a head still swimming in a sea of \u200b\u200bother information and that with these (like it or not) are compared directly and constantly. What was once called "the interactivity of online journalism" imagined essentially a star schema, with the newspaper or the journalist at the center and the many canals or unique bijective link between this center and citizens / users.
The development of social networks has brought us much further. A network, on the other hand, is not a star. Social networks have discovered the general public (maybe even the "general public" by journalists) that the Internet is not only a means to communicate, not just a sophisticated telephone or a television to reach any adolescent is a set of relationships , is one form - one of the most important - taken from life in the digital age.
Therefore, the journalist of the digital age - that ultimately produce for the web, for television, for a newspaper or paper version of the iPad - must recognize its node to be connected to other nodes in a network where the roles are confused and functions are hybridized. Will have to navigate this ocean with no previous certainties, ready to rediscover its role and its role in front of an audience that is no longer confined to listen: it communicates the same and does it in public.
The journalists who continue to ignore anything they do at their own cost and expense of the quality of their journalism will lose credibility and, with one of the many paradoxes of the digital universe, it will create formidable competitors. The journalism of the data. The most interesting example of journalism of the digital age comes from what some call data-driven journalism, a type that provides articles, reports and surveys based on the processing of huge amounts of data and the provision of direct analysis of these same readers.
A type of journalism that could never give out digital universe. Journalism has always carried out the function of data / facts, to select the most relevant to the audience and organize them in an understandable way. In the digital world this function can be increased to higher levels by offering the data in their entirety and creating meaning around them.
The data is a matter which is the journalistic work, both as terms of substance and as a means of examples of stories and trends. In the analog world, however, the journalist must be confined to explain or show some example data in its history or in the accompanying tables. The new environment and new digital tools available to help instead of putting the entire set of data so that each reader / user / citizen has access to the materials used by journalists and select those relevant to your profile.
This trend has led many newspapers in the United States, Britain and now also in other European countries to develop and deliver structured information that is organized in a database to collect the entire universe of available data and are searchable by users / readers. It 's a trend that started from information local and hyperlocal.
The whole world of journalism in the U.S. is planning in this direction. Major newspapers have added to the drawing figures of journalists / engineers, editors can tell their story using the data and the tools to visualize data. The New York Times has created a team that goes by the name of the Interactive News Technology professionals work together and see all different, but the wording.
Produce informational materials-only newspaper. The Gannett chain of newspapers have been drastically reorganized three years ago and is now present in each drawing a structure called the Data Center news. Of course it is easier to imagine journalistic work on the data in countries where government data already collect and, in one form or another spread them.
The trend crosses the civil movement, political and institutional framework of the Open Data, which leads to the spread of "open" data collected by the government, in formats that allow the reuse and unconstrained owners. In the name of transparency and control of citizens on government.
This movement has already brought the first fruits: the United States have begun, then it was time the United Kingdom, which has made available all of the spreadsheets on the balance sheets and estimates of public expenditure (Combined Online Information System). The governments of Canada, Australia, Estonia, New Zealand, Spain, have already embraced this approach.
In Italy we are particularly back because that is still the norm in the early 90's for which the public administration has an obligation to provide access to the file only "concerned", without an enabling legal and regulatory framework with specific criteria and procedures. In 2010, however, something began to move also thrust on us by groups of politicians, activists and digital enlightened government officials.
The Piedmont Region has begun to release some data sets, as well as the State Accounting. They have created political pressure and cultural movements such as the Manifesto for Open Government and create bottom-up "places" where the little digital that is accessible is recorded and made available to all.
A pact for the years of transition. The data driven jourmalism is a field, in our view, very useful to test journalists and publishers are able to adapt to new skills and organization products, content and platforms? Maybe so, but on the condition of being aware of the stakes and quickly find agreement on how to proceed.
A recent McKinsey survey among journalists of over 500 newspapers around the world shows that in Europe, the wait should be between five years 51 percent of players on paper, 31 on PC, 15 on the smart phone, the 12 on the tablet. We believe that these numbers overestimate the impact of personal computers and underestimate that of the tablet: in any case, it is fair to expect that the newspapers that sticks in your fingers will still be alive for at least three decades.
This is evidenced by our daily experience here, seeing live old habits and new needs. Michael Shapinker revealed in a commentary in the Financial Times and then again at the Sole24Ore: "For me, if I spend several hours a day on the Internet and use various electronic devices, I will read it and loved ones and account books and newspapers will survive until" .
Even so, he said jokingly, "... if a newspaper stuffed in the bag for the beach, that will never happen if you fall on the rocks? No, no problem. What would happen if water were to fall into one of your digital media players instead? Better not even think about it. " All true. But it is equally true that we needed to write these lines Shapinker reread the article and copy the quote exactly, we found immediately sull'iPad Download your back: time it takes a minute.
How would we have done only a few years ago, when the newspaper was the first of three days already served, effectively, to clean the glass on the stairs at home? 
The pace of innovation will not slow down because the types of content and distribution platforms continue to multiply. Journalists and publishers finally seem to be aware and it is important that this challenge is perceived more as an opportunity than a threat. Converge features, not tools.
The digital age is that of convergence. However, the more access to information, knowledge, pastimes and friendships, the greater the number of instruments. The paradox is not due to shortcomings in the device but old habits and new users. Just reflect on the experience of many of us: we read in the newspaper office paper and yet, if we travel or in the country, download the digital version of the tablet, we look for the latest news about an all-news television channel or on a site, we book the train with the phone and on the way we watch a movie on the DVD player, listen to the radio in the car and we go to mp3 on the subway, chatting with a friend on Facebook from your mobile into the house but as soon as we continue Talk from your PC or TV connected to the network.
Some of these technological objects have many functions, but in fact if they take full advantage of two or three. The iPad is, for now, especially for information and games. But nothing beats the personal computer when we have a working document or find a hotel, the smartphone is perfect for making phone calls - God forbid! - And listen to music.
With a tablet you can do almost everything but still does not replace either the phone or the PC, let alone the radio. Just as the integrated TV will not kill the other platforms, while incorporating many. If the convergence of the functions but not the tools, those who provide information must articulate the product for each instrument taking into account its specific characteristics, the target public and the ways / times of use.
We must continue to churn out good newspapers every morning, provide news on the website without interruption, to produce usable video even in mobility, design services and applications that attract advertising on the tablet. Another way of saying the same thing is that we need on the part of journalists and publishers, cultural awareness, even before the technical rules that govern the digital universe, the different narrative tools that are available to better tell their story (which is the job of a reporter) to different audiences at different times.
The limits of the integrated writing. Until recently it was thought that the solution could be adapted for the Internet, perhaps automatically, a born-for-TV movie, or post on the site and give the radio a news article by a journalist of the paper. For this reason, many experiments have been made from the most obvious additions, the editorial offices.
But the word "integration" has different meanings. In the longer run you imagine a journalist who works in each case for different platforms. Integration apparently easy to understand for both publishers to "make savings in personnel, both for journalists - mirror image - fear of overexploitation.
Based on these mirror fears and hopes, the integration in Italy has beaten up more than elsewhere, constrained by professional structures and cultures traditionally closed. Meanwhile, abroad, the vast majority of editors of newspapers and many broadcasters (primarily the BBC) were actually "integrated", even according to very different models: one by the editors at newsrooms but coordinated centrally divided by half, from Editors multi-function specialist producer.
The Daily Telegraph of London has even revolutionized the workplace, creating an editorial in the center rotates with the editors, the areas of content on the "rays" responsible for the dissemination of their materials on all platforms. German press has actually preserved a lot different teams for digital and paper, but managed by a central office where they sit the leaders of the different platforms without one is considered to prevail over another.
But there are divergent trends. The only American general newspaper with national circulation, USA Today, that five years ago had completely integrated its editorial structures, decided to return to a separate organization. In late October the announcement by President Dave Hunke: the current organization of work does not allow the necessary flexibility to deal with the opportunities to platforms such as smartphones and tablet, so it will be reviewed.
Above all, a consideration of Hunke deserves careful analysis: the new platforms can not be treated as mere extensions of old, have their own personalities and their (potential) public demand specific care. For example, the average age of those who use the tablet is 10-15 years less than the usual buyers of newspapers.
To these younger readers, publishers are asked to provide products that meet their digital experiences and habits. All this, however, must not think that it is appropriate or even possible to continue as before, that is to imagine and build the traditional newspaper products in the same way, with the same tools and with the same organization of work and simply add specialized editorial, however, subordinate to the main product that is automatically identified with the traditional product (paper).
This is no longer possible not only for economic reasons but for cultural reasons: it is possible to do good journalism with mainstream media only to realize that these resources are embedded in a digital universe of relationships and communication which have laws very different from the world analog.
The editors have to their traditional digital culture, whatever the means. To do so, in the digital world and must live, to live, you must have a minimum of instruments to navigate. You can continue writing paper only or services only to do a newscast, but if you really want to tell any journalist can ignore the development of social networks.
The integration of the brain. In fact, the integration was and remains necessary is that the brain: consciousness in newsrooms and in companies that, in terms of values \u200b\u200band information, journalism is one of a header, although many can and should be the how, when and platforms with which it correlates with their audiences.
But if the drafting of the text and shapes from a few or only one (which is always more frequent now), will have to ask which of the various functions can be performed and which not, which product forms are best to pursue a common mission and editorial and to what extent they are incurred.
A drawing will have the greatest luxury of specializing the functions (as is the case for decades, for example, among people at the desk editors, reporters and graphics) to think about their content specifically for a platform. All this will not be without consequences for the way we think and build the traditional product.
The new functions can not be simply added: processes and in some cases can be distinguished, although part of a single scheme and the new platforms are not designed as supplements or as a traditional platform of its simple extensions, but must be lived as tools indispensable to the citizens of the digital universe, and thus by its peculiar quality journalism.
For their part publishers have a task that seems impossible with the limits, not drive up costs (in Europe over the last three years 50 percent of the heads has reduced the staff) and, together, increase the products to be distributed. All this without affecting the quality. How? With a clear strategy that preserves the brand, quality assurance for the readers / users on any platform, creating conditions that would enable editors to tell the reality with the various technological means available and, finally, testing whether and how systems and organizations Editorial can support the new tasks.
Professional training. In this step, on the shoulders of journalists seems to shift the burden of greater responsibility. The "professional informants" must have a background that has never been applied to editors who are now in late career. The susceptibility to multi-task and the willingness to try every means at least have the baggage of anyone who wishes to become an informant.
A wealth of knowledge, ie, allowing everyone to imagine and create their own history and for different audiences at different times. Although in the end there will be a journalist "writes," another that "turn around and mount a" video, one that will build a user interface for the basis of data collected during an investigation.
The important thing is that the service is thought of leaving as a whole (the "integration of the brain) even if the content will be married by various editorial functions. Under these conditions, specialization later becomes a value to pursue and protect narrative to describe the specific skills of their various platforms.
In the difficult articulation of the relationship between editorial staff dedicated to the different platforms overlook new forms of production information, which in a few years will change the nature and form of the offer journalism. It 's a natural phenomenon: it is the journalist who must follow the habits and skills of new players, not vice versa (but often forget).
On this measure is the ability to change, generally very low among those who is a journalist. This, of course, can not happen if publishers do not become involved. In particular, if not invest more human and financial resources in training is not occasional or purely technical, but structured, learning and awareness-oriented learning objectives.
If you look at the international scene, restructuring of the publishing companies have all been accompanied by an effort of re-orientation and editorial resources. It is cut in many areas, from staff, but has invested heavily in training. And when it comes to training are not exclusively of courses to learn to use a machine or new software, but chances motivational and cultural studies broader perspective which alone can provide a sense of the extra effort that prompted reporters participate.
Unfortunately in Italy the training tends to be random, most often related to a purely technical training (for example, the introduction of new editorial systems) and / or the result of union agreements that are, in reality the economic benefits that are linked to attendance, rather than the need to rethink and upgrade their professional activities.
The Digital technology is not a technique to learn, but a culture to understand and live. Culture of which they are fully part of the "new journalism." The new journalism that technology makes possible. In recent years there has been much talk of citizen journalism, sometimes with excessive optimism.
It should be noted that no writing can no longer afford to ignore the value of collaboration and interaction with readers / users. The examples are endless: today many of the "stories" told by the editors take their cue from the user's ability to document them and give them a show first.
In fact soon we realized that the information professional with a head still swimming in a sea of \u200b\u200bother information and that with these (like it or not) are compared directly and constantly. What was once called "the interactivity of online journalism" imagined essentially a star schema, with the newspaper or the journalist at the center and the many canals or unique bijective link between this center and citizens / users.
The development of social networks has brought us much further. A network, on the other hand, is not a star. Social networks have discovered the general public (maybe even the "general public" by journalists) that the Internet is not only a means to communicate, not just a sophisticated telephone or a television to reach any adolescent is a set of relationships , is one form - one of the most important - taken from life in the digital age.
Therefore, the journalist of the digital age - that ultimately produce for the web, for television, for a newspaper or paper version of the iPad - must recognize its node to be connected to other nodes in a network where the roles are confused and functions are hybridized. Will have to navigate this ocean with no previous certainties, ready to rediscover its role and its role in front of an audience that is no longer confined to listen: it communicates the same and does it in public.
The journalists who continue to ignore anything they do at their own cost and expense of the quality of their journalism will lose credibility and, with one of the many paradoxes of the digital universe, it will create formidable competitors. The journalism of the data. The most interesting example of journalism of the digital age comes from what some call data-driven journalism, a type that provides articles, reports and surveys based on the processing of huge amounts of data and the provision of direct analysis of these same readers.
A type of journalism that could never give out digital universe. Journalism has always carried out the function of data / facts, to select the most relevant to the audience and organize them in an understandable way. In the digital world this function can be increased to higher levels by offering the data in their entirety and creating meaning around them.
The data is a matter which is the journalistic work, both as terms of substance and as a means of examples of stories and trends. In the analog world, however, the journalist must be confined to explain or show some example data in its history or in the accompanying tables. The new environment and new digital tools available to help instead of putting the entire set of data so that each reader / user / citizen has access to the materials used by journalists and select those relevant to your profile.
This trend has led many newspapers in the United States, Britain and now also in other European countries to develop and deliver structured information that is organized in a database to collect the entire universe of available data and are searchable by users / readers. It 's a trend that started from information local and hyperlocal.
The whole world of journalism in the U.S. is planning in this direction. Major newspapers have added to the drawing figures of journalists / engineers, editors can tell their story using the data and the tools to visualize data. The New York Times has created a team that goes by the name of the Interactive News Technology professionals work together and see all different, but the wording.
Produce informational materials-only newspaper. The Gannett chain of newspapers have been drastically reorganized three years ago and is now present in each drawing a structure called the Data Center news. Of course it is easier to imagine journalistic work on the data in countries where government data already collect and, in one form or another spread them.
The trend crosses the civil movement, political and institutional framework of the Open Data, which leads to the spread of "open" data collected by the government, in formats that allow the reuse and unconstrained owners. In the name of transparency and control of citizens on government.
This movement has already brought the first fruits: the United States have begun, then it was time the United Kingdom, which has made available all of the spreadsheets on the balance sheets and estimates of public expenditure (Combined Online Information System). The governments of Canada, Australia, Estonia, New Zealand, Spain, have already embraced this approach.
In Italy we are particularly back because that is still the norm in the early 90's for which the public administration has an obligation to provide access to the file only "concerned", without an enabling legal and regulatory framework with specific criteria and procedures. In 2010, however, something began to move also thrust on us by groups of politicians, activists and digital enlightened government officials.
The Piedmont Region has begun to release some data sets, as well as the State Accounting. They have created political pressure and cultural movements such as the Manifesto for Open Government and create bottom-up "places" where the little digital that is accessible is recorded and made available to all.
A pact for the years of transition. The data driven jourmalism is a field, in our view, very useful to test journalists and publishers are able to adapt to new skills and organization products, content and platforms? Maybe so, but on the condition of being aware of the stakes and quickly find agreement on how to proceed.
A recent McKinsey survey among journalists of over 500 newspapers around the world shows that in Europe, the wait should be between five years 51 percent of players on paper, 31 on PC, 15 on the smart phone, the 12 on the tablet. We believe that these numbers overestimate the impact of personal computers and underestimate that of the tablet: in any case, it is fair to expect that the newspapers that sticks in your fingers will still be alive for at least three decades.
This is evidenced by our daily experience here, seeing live old habits and new needs. Michael Shapinker revealed in a commentary in the Financial Times and then again at the Sole24Ore: "For me, if I spend several hours a day on the Internet and use various electronic devices, I will read it and loved ones and account books and newspapers will survive until" .
Even so, he said jokingly, "... if a newspaper stuffed in the bag for the beach, that will never happen if you fall on the rocks? No, no problem. What would happen if water were to fall into one of your digital media players instead? Better not even think about it. " All true. But it is equally true that we needed to write these lines Shapinker reread the article and copy the quote exactly, we found immediately sull'iPad Download your back: time it takes a minute.
How would we have done only a few years ago, when the newspaper was the first of three days already served, effectively, to clean the glass on the stairs at home?
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