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TBILISI: Finally, I can share some images from a special project that I have been working developing and designing for IREX Georgia since January. The facility will open in December and I am sharing below construction photos and some of our 3D renderings for the concept.

This new media training center is a lifetime in the making. All of my experiences as a journalist, technologist, teacher, and consultant have been rolled into this project.

I am so happy it is turning out to be the kind of place where the next generation of journalists will cut their teeth.

The center’s reporting and editing facilities in Tbilisi are equipped with the very latest visual media tools to allow students for to produce professional caliber, competitive content for print, broadcast, online and mobile consumers.

IREX’s new Multimedia Education Center (funded by USAID) is a multipurpose, multimedia editorial studio and learning environment that embraces mobile media, S.M.A.R.T. newsroom concepts to provide a hub for discussions that intersect across the disciplines of technology, journalism, and governance in the Southern Caucasus.

The S.M.A.R.T. newsroom concept features state-of-the-art thinking about new media, open space architecture, mobile-oriented media labs and has attracted schools like the Georgian Institute for Public Affairs (GIPA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Ilia State University to program training courses.

The entire space is essentially a large multi-platform stage where every square meter provides a studio-grade environment available for interviewing, editing, producing and hosting multi-platform content. 

The concept of bringing studies out of classrooms and into a studio environment is an innovative and groundbreaking innovation in journalism education. 

The S.M.A.R.T. concept I developed would challenge many traditional solutions to how to organize classrooms, computer labs, studio space, editing space, meeting rooms, technology, security, sound control, lighting to name a few.

S.M.A.R.T. stands for the values assigned to serve users who will occupy the facility.

Scalable
Multi-purpose
Agile
Responsible
Trusted

The SMART newsroom space is designed to be easily reconfigured at will by students working on projects and by administrators to adapt to changes in the learning environment.

The gear and furniture in the facility is non-fixed and can be easily transported to new facilities should they become available.

Examples: Lightweight collapsible portable sound booths, rolling partitions that allow rooms to serve multiple purposes, wheeled desks and modular furniture that can easily be reconfigured and a modern approach to producing streaming video that does not rely on a dedicated control room.

S . . . also stands for Social and Student

M . . . for Multi-media and Manageable

A . . . for Asymmetrical and Active

R . . . for Resourceful and Responsive

T . . . for Technology and Training

As we developed these ideas further with partners and funders it became clear that all of the computers and electronic newsgathering gear had to be mobile.

That meant no dedicated studio, no TV control room, no fixed interior walls, wheels on every piece of furniture and many other unconventional approaches.

Many of our solutions just aren’t commercially available in Georgia so we are hiring teams of local furniture makers and craftspeople to build the environmental furniture, rolling walls, cafe space and equipment lockers.

Working with the architect and these craft folk has been rewarding.
At the start of the project I seeded the prospective architects with ideas and images collected from my travels to the top media centers and world capitals over the last six years. Details and inspiration collected from visits to furniture stores in Europe, a funky mobile phone shop in Mitte, public spaces in Moscow, TV studios from Brussels, and many others.

We were lucky to get a contract with the architect who shared our enthusiasm.

Expect to read much more about this space in the near future.

I produced this custom report for The Toronto Star’s Web site from Berlin, Germany where I was sidelined in the first days of the revolution.
The Toronto Star editors ran a shorter version of this report.

What is offered here is the full-length version - a ‘Director’s Cut’ if you will.

This video report features unique and exclusive footage from inside Egypt’s universities, streets, slums and even their state-owned and independent newsrooms.

I worked for four years in Egypt training Egyptian journalists and journalism students and was scheduled to fly to Cairo when the protests started. I never made it into the country because the violence escalated and my backers postponed the trip. While I was in limbo, I continued to conduct Skype audio interviews with my Cairo contacts each day. I have about a dozen full-length audio interviews, some of which are very raw and powerful. I am still determining if i will use them to produce a multimedia record of what life was like in those moments.

The past few days I have been making audio interviews with several Egyptian sources about what is happening in the country and in their neighborhoods. Fascinating history unfolding. Will take some time to edit the hours of recorded audio and cut into a story. I probably will turn it into film because I think that subtitles will need to be added to aid comprehension.

Why would print subscribers get the same newspaper on their iPad for free?

The direct answer to the question is that because, in many cases the same publishers already also offer their ‘print’ content on the Web for free.

Once publishers stop posting their original print content for free on the Web they begin to recapture scarcity and gain economic leverage in the market - but only for original material.
That is Econ 101: Supply and demand.

Paywalls are one approach to try to find this market.

Another approach that I have talked about with editors-in-chief I consult with is to offer something completely different on a newspaper Web site other than the articles from the paper.

Yet another is to drive Web readers to the paid apps.
For example: if you are in Germany and visit the Web site of country’s best-selling newspaper “BILD” from an iPhone or iPad you will be redirected to the paid app. No longer does their Web site deliver free news to i-Device users.

Owner Axel-Springer is pioneering this step.

Publishers are trying to recast themselves to enjoy a position that music and film content publishers currently enjoy. Content producers who earn money selling the same material more than once. In other words, they sell the ‘experience’ as much as they sell the ‘content.’

The vast majority of news execs who came into power when the business model was monopolistic still believe that they are in the ‘content business.

That is simply not true.

Content is but one part of the experience.

“Paid content” is the search for a gilded unicorn in a glass cage. A holy grail if ever there was.
Forget about it, better models exist for selling an experience that customers will pay for.

For example just consider how many copies of STAR WARS you may have already bought? On VHS, LASERDISC, DVD, BLU-RAY, CABLE, IN PAL or NTSC. Or did you splurge for the widescreen limited edition in a special box set? You have already seen the movie . . . but have you see the ‘director’s cut?’

The adage is simple: “Why sell something once, when customers will buy it twice?”

Required reading

1. Social News Site Ongo Combines Aggregation And Paywalls
   
2. Apple Plans Service That Lets IPhone Users Pay With Handsets
   
3. Murdoch: The Sun Will Have ‘Strong’ Paid Component

The New York times printed at A4 size

Tbilisi: I travel quite a bit and I had to arrive in Georgia to find this very handy and practical version of The New York Times. It is printed at A4 size and features clean layouts and smart editing of the best of the best of the day’s edition. Frankly this is a much better product than the NyTimes iPad app.
The paper cost one Georgian Lari but is distributed free at my hotel.

Please NyTimes can I get this great product in Berlin, Bitte?
And Cairo? Shokran.

(Photo taken with my iPhone while on a break teaching design and story planning tactics with newspaper editors)

I recently sat, quite literally in fact, on a sofa with Janet Robinson, the CEO of The New York Times to talk about paid content, intellectual property rights for news publishers and the future of paid content as the market shifts from search to mobile apps.

She had just given a lecture at the World Editors Forum in Hamburg and Editors Weblog editor Emma Heald and I deftly arranged to interview her in the room we were using for film interviews with editors-in-chief.

We bypassed the hoard of Euro TV reporters who tried to corner her as she came off the stage and quietly slipped her past the mob to join us in our discreet interview bunker where it would just be just be me, Emma, a student journalist, and Janet (Well Janet AND her two PA’s - one from the U.S. and another from Paris.)

We talked for about 20 minutes about many issues and Emma has written previously about some of those ideas - in particular about the Time’s approach to trying to do thing differently.

Below is the running Q&A from a very interesting seven minute section of our cozy chat.

Note: Feel free to attribute quotes from this article, but kindly remember to credit them to this author and or link to this original document. These quotes were not made at a press conference. These are not “pool quotes.”

“What do you think about the paid content strategy of “The Times of London?”

TIME STAMP
00:10.00

Janet Robinson:
“I’ve been asked this question a lot. I don’t know how they prepared, to be quite honest.

It’s not my place to talk about The Times of London did or did not do or the success they are having or not having. What I can tell you is that we (The New York Times) have spent two years preparing for our metered model.

And I think the way we feel about the metered model, it’s still allows us to be part of the open Web ecosystem. And in light of that, people of course, as I noted, can come into the site and enjoy free content before they are asked to pay, to become a paid subscriber.

I’m not sure whether the Times of London did that.

And I don’t think you enter into a paid model business, you know, like we are entering into, unless you do very careful research and really making sure you understand how your consumer interacts with your content.

I wouldn’t advise anyone in that audience to go to a paid model, until they do their homework. Until they really think through what they need to do.

So if there are people that are contemplating moving to a paid model (and I think more will, as people gain more courage in regard to people changing their habits about buying news and information on the web) I would advise them, you know, very, very expansively to make sure they look at what they need to do to prepare.

And that means talking to your readers.

We had, you know, Times Select, which was a very successful paid model. People, I think, are a little bit confused about Times Select. It was a very successful paid model. We garnered $10 million in one year. 780,000 subscribers.

That’s not a bad showing, let’s put it that way.”

“But in the end, you could make more money on the open Web?”

02:05.30
Robinson: “Yes. You could grow your audience, and you could certainly garner more advertising, at a time when search had become so predominant as a way to use the web.
So that is exactly why we pulled Times Select down.

But now, I think, because . . . ‘how many apps do you buy?’ I know how many I buy. I buy a lot, you know, and there’s every reason to see there is a behavior change in the consumer when indeed you have a service that centers around news and information. When indeed, that’s beginning to change, I do think people are going to be more open to paying for content that richly deserves to be paid for.”

“We’re here in Hamburg where Axel Springer and other European publishers have united to draft the ‘Hamburg Declaration‘ to seek stronger copyright protection for news publishers in Europe. Does copyright law need to be strengthened in the U.S. to empower publishers of news there?

03:10.50
Robinson: “I think, well I’m somewhat familiar with what’s happening here in Europe in regard to IP protection and making sure that indeed sources are very carefully monitored. I do think that the United States is becoming more aggressive in regard to IP monitoring, and I believe it’s long overdue.

I think you’re going to see much more governmental interest in indeed what intellectual property is going to be. And just individual companies banding together more I think in regard to intellectual property protection.

I think that the group here in Europe have been very pro-active, including Axel Springer, in forcing the issue and getting a great deal of publicity around it, which I think has probably served them well.

But I’ll be interested to see how that rolls out going forward.

I would caution though, that there are partnerships that indeed we didn’t dream of ten years ago. Not every partner is an enemy, and I think sometimes people feel as though that everyone that indeed has, you know, some bearing with regard to intellectual property or they may have a bone to pick with them in regard to intellectual property, they are necessarily an enemy.

I wouldn’t say that. I think that it really is incumbent upon the companies themselves to work with, you name them: Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, whoever they may be, in regard to setting the terms in which you will work with them.

I think the more we do that, the more pro-active we are as news and media companies, in setting the stage, and in setting the ground rules, the better off we are going to be.

And they can be very successful and very lucrative partnerships for both.
I just think people have to understand it a bit better.”

“One more thing… What are your future plans for the iPad?”

05:21.00
Robinson: There will be a full coverage — right now, the New York Times app is ‘Editor’s Choice,’ that is going to be taken down or phased out in the November time frame, because we are going to put a new app up that will be full coverage of The New York Times. We wanted to be very much part of the launch, the very initial launch. That’s why we did ‘Editor’s Choice.’

It’s been very successful. Over 600,000 downloads, but we want a full app. What we now want is for that to be a paid app. So when we go to the paid model at the beginning of next year, that app will be paid for. You also are going to see a Boston Globe app, an IHT (International Herald Tribune) app. You’re going to see an IHT navigator. That’s going to be coming in the fall November time frame as well. So we have plans to do many more applications that we think will be of great service to the reader with all of our properties.

“Some details about the app? Will users get a daily download and be able to read offline or will they need a data connection to get content? Will subscriptions be bundled?”

06:33.20
Robinson: “Well, we are going to bundle — you can buy the app separately — but we are going bundle many of our products together. So if you are a home delivery subscriber, and you would like an iPhone app as part of a bundle, you will have that opportunity to pay for it that way.

We’ll have all digital access, so you can have the website, the iPad app, the iPhone app, Kindle, any combination thereof. That’s what we’re working on right now. So in, I would say early December, you’re going to see the full explanation with regard to the meter, full explanation with regard to the pricing, and full explanation with regard to the bundle.”

CAIRO: Robb Montgomery will be in Egypt to work with the Media Development program and advise on the Al-Ahram FUTUROOM project.

Upcoming workshops

Contact Robb Montgomery

CAIRO: Robb Montgomery will be producing a series of workshops on digital journalism and multimedia reporting for the Egypt Media Development Program, A USAID-funded project.

Upcoming workshops

Contact Robb Montgomery

TBILISI, Georgia: Robb Montgomery will be producing a series of newspaper design workshops for Editors, publishers and designers as part of the IREX program for Media Strengthening.

Upcoming workshops

Contact Robb Montgomery

I interviewed several key thinkers at the 17th World Editors Forum in Hamburg last week.
You can watch some of the edited clips on the WEF Hamburg You Tube Channel.

You’ll find thematic clips from Erik Wilberg, Lucy Küng, Janet Robinson, Neil McIntosh, Giovanni di Lorenzo and Abdel-Moniem Said. I made many more interviews and hope to edit them in the near future.

It was an intense week for sharing new ideas. The congress was sold out, there were editors from more than 60 countries with many top people engaged in the packed sessions.

I was lucky to have a team of talented professionals and student journalists to coordinate. Our little group produced live streaming video coverage, high-end film-style interviews and thematic video journalism documentary reports.

I also got a private sit-down interview with Janet Robinson, CEO of The New York Times Company.

Editors Weblog editor Emma Heald and I literally met her on our studio sofa for 20 minutes and queried her about developing new ideas across the enterprise, the NYTimes’ strategy for paid content and her thoughts on the ‘Hamburg Declaration.”

The Hamburg Declaration is not widely know in the U.S. but is supported by hundreds of European publishers that are calling for online copyright to be respected and strengthen intellectual property rights in the digital era. It is designed to give newspaper publishers leverage in negotiating with distribution partners.

Janet wouldn’t agree to be filmed on camera but she did agree to me using the audio from the interview. Good thing I was sitting next to her on the couch in our studio. An iPhone microphone has to be close enough to a person’s voice box in order to get usable audio.

Ask in English and he answers in German. Natürlich
Another tough interview to get was of Giovanni di Lorenzo, Editor-in-chief of Die Zeit (Germany).
He had a plane to catch and there was only time to ask three questions because of the schedule. He also answers interview questions in his native German.

No problem.

I had arranged for a Hamburg University student to sit behind me to translate if I needed to understand better his responses.
I know a little German and I could follow his answers and pick up certain key words and numbers that allowed me to move quickly.
Saving the time for consecutive translation gave us more time for questions and answers.

So, it was a risk, but it paid off because the pace and flow of the interview kept moving forward and we got good footage and detailed answers.

After the interview I asked the Hamburg University student to translate Giovani’s answers from the tape playback and pass them to our video editor, Torbjörn Fraenckel, who used the text to make the subtitles.
Torbjörn is a professor at the University of Gothenburg and a great colleague to work with. He makes documentaries around the world and is really expert at bringing the students into every task we were doing.

Video report on Press freedom
Artur Karda, deputy director of Poland’s Media Regionale was a hard-charging roving video reporter during the Forum and has filed the first of his three reports from the meetings. Here is his first film.

Artur was working every angle and device possible at times playing back video to a colleague for translation from Ukranian to English. He never gave up - his enthusiasm and energy a model for all.

Live streaming - courtesy of the EJC
Ivan Picart and Wilfried Rutten from the European Journalism Centre provided livestreaming coverage from selected sessions and those are available on the EJC’s Vimeo channel for post-event viewing.

Many thanks especially go to Bertrand Pecquerie, the director of the World Editors Forum who made all of this possible.

In the first part: Scottish design guru, Ally Palmer talks about the generation gaps between newspaper publishers and youth media consumers.

In the second part, Toronto Star Editor-in-Chief, Michael Cooke talks about the revenue problems and where new opportunities for newspapers come from.

== ABOUT THE FILM ==

Breaking the News is a multi-year project that examines the profound and rapid changes in journalism and the effects on news gatherers, consumers and the exchange of democratic ideas.

The film is a touchstone that marks an historic period where journalism is rapidly transforming from a reality of single-copy deadlines to instant news created and consumed in a mobile culture.

The changes in the reporting, distribution and consumption of news is having
profound effects on journalists, publishers and consumers. 

U.S journalist/filmmaker Robb Montgomery is directing the feature-length film documentary as he travels the world and talks with journalists at publishing houses large and small over a multi-year period.

Journalism is immersed in an era of unprecedented change in both scale and speed.

This story bears witness to the contraction of old media empires and, at the same time, the emergence of the new models of newspapers that appeal to a new generation of networked media consumers.

Montgomery recently previewed interview segments from the ongoing documentary, “Breaking the News”, to a room of almost 100 industry leaders in Toronto, Ontario at Ink+Beyond and in Cologne, Germany at the CO/Pop Festival.

His presentation centred around the theme of evolution and how newspapers have to start making revolutionary changes to survive in the natural selection the marketplace imposes on the industry.

Preview scenes from Breaking The News