Country Report AZERTAC on the “News Agencies Content and Business
Model in Era of Mobile Popularization”
Dear Colleagues and Friends!
Mobile technologies have firmly become an everyday part of human activity. Something that seemed to be fantasy some time ago (and none of us seem to be so young not to live in those days and witness it), today is already a reality. Mobile technologies claim considerable share of credit in creating, analyzing and disseminating news.
You all were present and took an active part at the 5th News Agencies World Congress which took place last November in Baku (by the way, thank you for that). And you all remember that many presentations and follow-up discussions dealt precisely with this topic. Many colleagues of ours spoke about mobile technologies, and this shows that the issue is of a growing vitality and importance.
Contemporary media does use all the advantages of mobile technologies. For example, we at AZERTAG broadly use them, and this helped us to reduce time interval between witnessing or learning about the event and delivering the news to the society through our channels. And it is a two-way traffic – those technologies help not only us, who actually produce the information, but also the society that consumes the news. Mobile devices are used not only to send the information, but also to receive them by the eventual beneficiaries, i.e. the audience. Needless to say that those who disregard technological innovations fall out of the competition race and lose in the market.
Here I cannot help to recall a very emotional statement by the CEO of NOKIA who said “We didn’t do anything wrong, but we however lost”. Indeed, Nokia is already a “yesterday”. Who buys Nokia today? Almost all of us have either iPhone or Samsung or some other smart phones in the pockets. Yet, Nokia used to be number one some 10-15 years ago. In a way, the CEO was right – they did not make any mistakes. But to be kicked out from the market it is not enough just to avoid the mistakes. You must do a lot more than that. Otherwise, as we all see, you are out.
Mobile technologies is not only the devises that we use to send or receive the information. It is also very closely associated with social media, because many users read the latest news from social networks by using exactly those devices. These are millions of people. Today you don’t have to ride on the bike or horse from your farm to the village in order to buy the newspapers and read the news. You can do that in between milking cows and collecting eggs without leaving the farm. Just one year ago, 87% of Facebook users entered this platform through their mobile devices. Today it is 92%. Twitter reached 82%. Our clients read and listen to us increasingly through their mobile devices. We have to take this into account when we produce the good that they consume – news.
In our country, Azerbaijan, 78% of people are internet users. The percentage of the Internet users entering the web through their smartphones and iPads grew from 45% in 2015 to 58% today.
Naturally, this tendency forces us, at AZERTAG, to think more and take these trends into consideration. We made sure that our website is mobile-friendly, accessible and well-operational through those devices. We constantly work to improve the application and its functions. According to our studies, 52% of our news are read through mobiles. For now, we consider it satisfactory, but again, it is not our choice – it is the choice of the users. If they find our mobile application to be user-friendly, they will continue giving preference and the percentage might grow.
Same is about the videos. Over the last 3 months, we have had 400.000 views of our video reportages, and 56% of them were through mobile devices. Our YouTube channel has even higher percentage. For instance, in the first quarter of the current year, 1.1 million minutes of videos were watched by the users, while 71% of this duration was through mobiles.
This yet once again proves, as I mentioned earlier, how closely mobile technologies and social media are integrated. And that’s why we, at AZERTAG, pay so much attention to these issues.
There is another side of the coin. The users themselves give preference to the new technologies. They are interested in placing advertisements. There are more smartphone users than those of notebook or desktop. And we have to take this into consideration and, in a way, help our clients by making our platforms user-friendly, convenient and easy.
AZERTAG pays attention also to the creation of the story in a very short time by using smartphones, sending them to the newsroom, including not only the texts, but multimedia files. We used to do it before, but now we had to intensify our efforts. We spread quite a lot of news, photos, videos written and shot by our correspondents on the site of event. Of course, the quality of such photos and videos is different from those made by professional cameramen or photographers, but we win by keeping the temperature of the news hot because we release the news very quickly.
We work to improve the quality of photos and videos, making the texts shorter and more informative. Quality and speed is our moto. In order to reach this goal, we must not overlook the growing importance of mobile technologies in our work and news production market.
Thank you for your attention.
Aslan Aslanov
OANA President
Director General of AZERTAC
Country Report
The Role of Media Agencies in not Marketing Terrorism
Bahrain 2017
With the dramatic increase in terror-linked incidents throughout the world, the media have been facing the formidable challenge of how best to deal with the tragic events as they unfoldand what kind of coverage they should give them.
The dilemma of the media that are genuinely committed to thorough, accurate and objective information is how to reconcile between the people’s right to know what is happening around them as well as in other parts of the world and the traps cunningly placed by terror groups to use the media and obtain the maximum publicity for their ideology and for their deadly acts.
The problem is that media cannot just pretend that nothing had happened or that what happened was rather insignificant and not “newsworthy”. The proliferation of mobiles and tablets across the world have turned almost every person into a journalist ready to provide pictures and videos within minutes and sometimes seconds of the event unfolding.
Faced with such a fierce competition, the public media run the high risk of losing their credibility and importance if they cannot rise to the challenge and provide coverage of the events.
However, the public media have a deeper sense of responsibility towards society and the nation and therefore have to contemplate issues before they make decisions that could have disastrous effects.They need to make sure that their coverage meets their professional criteria and that it is accurate, comprehensive and well-balanced.
In cases of acts of terror, the media have in addition to make sure that they are not making any kind of propaganda, no matter how small it is, for the group behind those who perpetrated the attacks.
Bahrain News Agency (BNA) sees all acts of terrorism as evil, regardless of who is behind them or whom they are targeting. They cannot be explained or excused and they do not deserve to be highlighted in a way that gives extra points to those who plot, prepare or carry them out.
Studies of how most of the media operate today vis-à- vis terrorism indicate that the most prevailing factor is emotional reactions to the events. The emotional nature of media people is usually cleverly targeted by terror groups to ensure a subtle propaganda for their statements and video clips prepared by terror groups.
Drawing on its long experience in covering events, BNA has been successful in ensuring its reporters and editors abide by a strong sense of discipline at all times and under all circumstances, and regardless of their religious and political affiliations.
Such an approach has helped BNA avoid getting caught in the propaganda strategies of terrorism and its supporters.
Thus, reporters are trained on how to read both the surface structure and the deep structure of a report to make sure there are no loaded words or malign terms that, intentionally or unintentionally, glorify or praise terrorism, terrorists or terror groups.
Beside the style book adopted by BNA, meetings are held regularly with senior staff and reporters to discuss the use of some words or terms.
Thus, the terror group Daesh cannot be referred to as the Islamic State because it is neither Islamic nor a state. Repeating the name is just playing in their hands and helping them propagate their ideology.
A suicide bomber cannot be reported as a martyr because killing innocent people is religiously, ethically and socially unacceptable.
BNA does not quote terrorists or their supporters because we cannot and we must not allow ourselves to be used as their mouthpiece. The people have the right to know what they said, but we at BNA do not accept to speak on behalf of terrorists and as per our policy, our reporters and editors sift through all reports to ensure they are “terror-clean” before they are posted and shared with our partners and associates.
We also refuse any form of ideological or sectarian prism to taint the media message, particularly when confronting terrorism, fanaticism and extremism.
We cherish such values and strive to maintain them as the media are being forced to move at a pace that is ominously blurring the crucial distinction between speed and accuracy, ideology and objectivity, neutrality and bias.
We believe at BNA that institutions in any country differ by the character of the functions and the nature of the roles they perform, but do converge beyond their own borders in order to achieve the noble values of humanity.
Resisting, rejecting and fighting terrorism are among such values that must always rise well above all other considerations, including polarization and self-serving interests that deplete resources and waste energies.
Our strategy at BNA has been to build strong bonds of friendship, partnership and cooperation based on robust pillars with all the media, institutions and organizations that share our commitment to a world where the credible information is provided and the values of tolerance and mutual acceptance are highlighted. The underlying principle is that we all work together towards a more peaceful and stable world, while every media, institution and organization preserves its own character and its own approaches.
In the name of God
News Agencies’ Content and Business Model in the Era of Mobile Popularization
Smartphones seem to be the most popular device in the hands of people around the world which take them to a digital world. In a country like Iran in which people are very social and prefer group-life to an individual one, social networks grow very fast and become very popular in a shorts possible time as long as they respond to such demands and provide users with options and services addressing their desire to be in an online community.
With rise of smartphones, this desire could be addressed very easily and of course quickly; people now can momentarily have their digital lives in their hands and join groups, channels and networks to communicate with each other. In recent years, mobile-based social networks and applications have dominated media world in Iran and many smartphone owners use such apps to get their information and news. They used to take any content they received from friends or groups they had joined for granted. However, now, the public awareness of reliability of news sources has risen and people tend to rely more on official sources such as news agencies or official profiles.
Yet a long way has been passed through by news agencies to regain their position in world of news and information. What the media needed to do was to, first, follow the developments and be part of the current of changes. Second, it was necessary to hold initiatives based on the capabilities modern technologies offer.
With channels being the latest and most popular trend on mobile-based social network apps, news agencies and media have focused on using it. Channels provide quick access to latest news and events, with sharing options and multimedia content. Mehr News Agency has been no exception to this and has worked on its channels on social apps. MNA admits that it was late in paying enough attention to mobile phones, but when in the game, it initiated a more user-friendly policy with customized features. In First step, various channels in different categories and based on desks news are provided at. The second and more important step by Mehr News has been a customized use of channels benefitting from keywords; normally, every news story or news item has a set of keywords attached to it. Based on the initiative, users can set news alerts and news feeds according to keywords they choose to receive the latest news on that topic in shortest possible time.
The initiative has had a considerable impact on the audience reach to website and traffic has risen by about 25 percent only on the website. The views received on the mobile phones are also another way of increasing audiences. This presence has also helped Mehr News Agency to be one of reliable sources for mobile users who have now understood that they cannot trust all the rumors and shared contents.
With this increased traffic in mind, the mobile-based social networks and apps have provided a new platform for advertisements, too. Channels are now ground for exchanging ads to raise the members and increase the views of contents. If working good enough, the channels can even bring some income to the agency too. Channels with hundreds of thousands and few ones with over a million users sell their ad places whereas one should but it for over a month in advance to appear on cellphones of the members.
The new world of smartphones and cyber space has provided a threat to news outlets, but it is also offering new opportunities too; it is on news agencies and media to enjoy the advantages.
IRNA Country Report
42nd OANA EBM
Beirut (May 2-4, 2017)
I would like to thank NNA for hosting the meeting of executive board of OANA here in Beirut and I hope this meeting will help OANA achieve its goals.
Mr. Chairman,
Dear colleagues,
The media are meant to improve communication among people, and people are both the targeted audience and the major customers of the media. Therefore, whatever approach that helps people live a better life is in line with the primary duty of the media.
Of course the media serve the interests of their owners. Even so, the survival of a news agency, a newspaper or a TV channel depends on the promotion of humanity and peaceful coexistence on the basis of common interests.
Media, in the past, used to place limitations on the publication of reports concerning violence and moral issues. Printing a photo of the police commander firing his pistol into the head of a suspect in South Vietnam shocked the world and rapidly intensified anti-war sentiments in the United States. But today, terrorists behead people or burn suspects alive and the reports, photos and movie clips of their brutal crimes are published widely by the media. This way, the media not only raise fear among people, but they also develop a violent life style.
For centuries, people of different faiths and ethnicities lived together peacefully in many countries. But today, growing violence and instability poses a big threat to us, the people. Advanced knowledge and modern educational facilities have not stopped violence.
On the one hand, human beings use modern technology to live healthier and longer. But on the other hand, they commit horrific and lethal violence against each other. What an obvious contradiction!
Who can promote peace and ethics more effectively than the media?
American philosopher, Douglas Kellner, says "Media images help shape our view of the world and our deepest values: what we consider good or bad, positive or negative, moral or evil."
That is true. So even if we sometimes have to cover a violent act, let us express deep contempt for that act. And if we need to report stories about the victories of one side of a war, let us also write stories about how to establish permanent peace.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Dear colleagues,
I'd like to put forward these suggestions regarding how not to market terrorism:
1 – Media are free to support what they believe is right, but when it comes to violence and tyranny they need to impose limitations on the quality of their reports.
2 – Media have to publish as many reports about peace as they do about war.
3 – Media should assume an ethical duty under which they publish reports about the pains and sufferings of the people for the sake of human values, not for the sake of rulers and holders of power.
4 – I suggest OANA develop a plan of action for the exchange of news about peace so that every member agency publishes at least one article on peace every day.
Thank you for your attention.
News Agencies' Content and Business Model in Era of Mobile
Popularization
Country Report for OANA Executive Board Meeting in Beirut on
May 3, 2017
By Yoichi Kosukegawa
Deputy Managing Director
International Department
Kyodo News
Tokyo will host the Summer Olympic Games and Paralympics in 2020 and Kyodo News has been appointed the host national news agency for these big international sports events. It is an urgent task for Kyodo to tackle how to cover and report the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics in this digitalized age, in which almost everybody uses a smartphone and social media, while technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) are advancing rapidly. Toward the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, Kyodo is promoting new digital businesses and the use of AI mainly in four areas.
Digital Signage
The digital signage market in Japan is continuing to expand ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics. The market is expected to reach nearly 900 billion Japanese yen (about 8 billion U.S. dollars) in 2020, increasing more than 4 times from the level in 2016, according to estimates by a Japanese think tank. Kyodo has been actively providing content for digital signage services. News articles and photos from Kyodo are now available on large electronic billboards set on buildings in downtown Tokyo and screens in train cars as well as at stations and airports. By using content from a news agency -- which is rapid and accurate -- building operators, railway companies, stations, airports and other customers can update their digital signage services with reliable information in a timely manner.
News Manager
Kyodo News Digital Co. (KD), Kyodo's wholly owned subsidiary for digital services, has developed a system called "News Manager" to automatically produce a news program with narrations, cooperating with a private company. If we select a news item and file a related text article and photos, they will be automatically converted into a news program with narrations under this system. Last year, a news program produced under the system was shown on a large electronic billboard in central Tokyo on a trial basis. In the program, an "anchorwoman" animation character read out news articles provided by Kyodo. As part of businesses using this system, Kyodo is considering providing content for digital signage services and helping TV and radio stations produce news programs.
Use of AI to Produce News Articles
KD has been promoting research on the use of the latest technologies for news gathering and writing by forming a capital tie-up with an AI-related venture company.
One such research project is to automatically produce news articles about corporate earnings results. Under the project, news articles about corporate earnings results will be automatically produced after AI reads the earnings results released by companies, extracts the relevant figures and judges whether their earnings have improved or not. KD is seeking to introduce the system in the near future for actual use by Kyodo. In the future, the company is planning to apply this AI-assisted automatic news writing system to news articles about personnel affairs.
The venture company KD invested in has developed a system called "FASTALERT" to monitor social media and websites around the world, around the clock. If the system detects items worth reporting, it will notify the user of them. Kyodo's news watch team at its News Department has introduced the system, providing feedback to improve its usability. If the FASTALERT system detects a Twitter posting on a derailment accident, for example, it will notify the news watch team of the accident and the team will report to the News Department. The News Department will then contact a bureau near the accident spot to send reporters and cover the accident and take photos.
New Platform to Manage Content, Increase Ad Revenues
KD and Yahoo Japan Corp. established a joint venture, Nordot Inc., to provide a new platform to manage news content on the free zone of websites and maximize advertising revenues from such content. Nordot stores news articles and photos from their publishers in its database to automatically produce web pages with advertisements like AdSense. Content users -- such as portal sites and news aggregation websites -- can post on their open websites the headlines and first few paragraphs of news articles stored in the Nordot database. If readers click the button attached to read the rest, they will jump to the web page produced by Nordot. The page will be displayed in the most optimal form in accordance with the multiple devices of users, including smartphones, and ad revenues are shared between content holders and users.
Russian News Agency TASS
For the OANA 42nd Executive Board meeting in Beirut,
Lebanon
News agencies’ journalism in the era of digital innovation
We are living in the era of digital innovation when technologies, new trends and issues are emerging and developing very rapidly. News agencies undoubtedly occupy their own specific and important place in the media landscape as the main suppliers of information to the media with the major advantage of speed, real-time and accuracy.
The potential of news agencies’ journalism in the tumult of media market changes depends on how quickly and successfully they can adapt to stay relevant. News agencies have to expand their content and develop the ways of presenting the material to make it much more attractive for users.
Proliferation of mobile communication technology and social media deprived the news agencies of a monopoly over the fastest mass communication of breaking news. In this new media reality, news agencies must take up new strategies of value creation including curating social media content and fostering more direct connection with the audience. Social network become a channel for news broadcasting and from this point of view, cooperation with social networks is very important.
Russian News Agency TASS is systematically pushing ahead its efforts to strengthen and expand its technological base and the range of media products and services, including niche-oriented ones. All this efforts seek to provide domestic and foreign audiences with the highest quality information.
In response to changing of patterns of users behavior and news consumption – transition to consumption of content from social networks, we increase groups in all main social media and we increase activity in popular messengers, and for increase in coverage of mobile users we one of the first media have introduced accelerated mobile pages (AMP).
TASS was the first among the Russian media to release a mobile application for the iPhone and Apple Watch. Along with mobile app “TASS-Now” we also have popular accounts in social networks – Facebook, Twitter, VK, YouTube channel and newsfeeds in Telegram and Viber, thus having a wide spectrum of means and methods of delivering of the content. Introduction of Google Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) technology has provided to users more convenient and quick access to reading news from TASS. Thanks to AMP technology, the speed of viewing of news on mobile devices increases on average by 4 times.
Changing technology and abundance of information must not affect the quality of information. We are living in the world where information is a key to success. Both the speed of receiving information and its quality are important. Thus, an error in the last name of a newsmaker in the headline of an urgent news item can do considerable damage to the image of a news agency.
TASS has developed and launched a News Quality Control System and a Quality Control Tool (QCT) to minimize or even exclude the risks of big and minor errors. This is TASS’s unique project that has no analogs in the entire news industry. This project has been developed by the joint efforts of TASS editors and the IT-department and introduced on order from the TASS management.
The Quality Control Tool is a software platform to check posted news stories and use the results to gather and analyze statistics for all of the Agency’s employees involved in the process of creating news items. In other words, the system allows assessing the quality of the newswire, as well as the work of each employee in particular. Assessments are made automatically and the impact of the human factor on assessments is ruled out.
Country Report
for
2017 OANA Executive Board Meeting
by
Xinhua News Agency
Respected Mr. Aslan Aslanov, President of OANA and Director General of AZERTAC,
Respected Ms. Laure Sleiman, Director of NNA,
Dear OANA members,
It’s my great honor to attend the OANA Executive Board Meeting（EBM） in Beirut, a renowned historic city. First of all, please allow me, on behalf of Mr. Cai Mingzhao, President of Xinhua News Agency, to extend my heartfelt gratitude to our host, NNA, for your thoughtful arrangements.
Founded in 1931, Xinhua is China’s state news agency as well as an international news agency. After over 80 years’ development, Xinhua has formed a news and information gathering network covering the whole world, and a multilingual, multimedia and multi-channel news release system. It provides news agency service, economic information service, newspaper and magazine service, TV service, photo service, Internet and new media service, etc. Multimedia products containing texts, photos, diagrams, videos and audios are supplied to world’s subscribers in Chinese, English, French, Russian, Spanish, Arabic and Portuguese 24 hours a day, with a daily release of over 6000 pieces.
This year’s EBM focuses on innovation and transformation of news agencies in the digital and mobile age, which is highly consistent with the development trend of the global media industry. Xinhua has made some attempts in this aspect, and I would like to share with you our experience.
Starting the Internet-related business since the mid 1990s, Xinhua has established a news release system for the online media. With a stable ranking of top 100 of over 1 billion global websites, Xinhuanet.com has over 133 million daily visits on its desktop application, and nearly 190 million daily visits on its mobile application. To adapt to mobile Internet trend, Xinhua launched a news application in 2015, and “live news”—a multimedia live broadcasting product—in February 2016. So far, this application has been downloaded over 220 million times. Over 80 percent of domestic major news is first released by Xinhua, making Xinhua one of the most influential news outlets in the country. On top of that, its overseas social media accounts have more than 29 million followers, and over 20 million daily visits.
In 2012, Xinhua set up a new department named New Media Center, dedicated to strengthening new media development and media’s integrated development, and forging itself to be the leading “online news agency” in the new media area.
The main products of the New Media Center include: new media service, Xinhua news application, Xinhua official Wechat account, Live Cloud national service platform, Animated News series, etc.
--- New media service is Xinhua’s integrated news supply platform. Since its upgrading in June 2016, it has launched 9 integrated reporting products, such as VR video, live news, animated news. So far, new media service has signed over 700 subscribers above state designated scale, and releases about 130 pieces of news on a daily basis.
--- Xinhua news application’s total downloads have exceeded 220 billion. As the most authoritative news release platform in China’s mobile internet, Xinhua news application releases over 3000 piece of original news each day, from which over 80% of major current and political news are first released.
--- Xinhua official Wechat account makes full use of all kinds of resources and has made breakthroughs in terms of its pageview, influence, follower amount and originality since its revision in July 2016. Xinhua official Wechat account features “originality +news flash +new media products”, using quality content to forge core competitiveness. Columns like “One Minute” make new media products on hot topics to increase user sickness and enlarge brand influence.
--- “Live Cloud” national service platform was launched in February 2017, aiming to share the “live news” products with domestic media outlets, and provide them with a new platform for integrated news development. At present, it has 152 users. “Live Cloud” product can be launched in both users’ own application terminal and Xinhua’s news application terminal. The “live news” initiated by users could be displayed in their own application terminal, and also in Xinhua news application terminal with the same headline.
--- “Animated News” series are the creative integrated news products. They combine advanced technologies, such as 3D, animation, H5, VR, and integrate multimedia elements, such as photo, video, animation, narration, sound effect, to simulate news scenes and reproduce the process or critical points of major news events, to be displayed on the multimedia applications on the mobile phones and internet. A rich array of animated news products are well-received on the Internet, such as Spoiler: President Xi’s 7-day Trip to the US; Ga Bulong, Son of the Prairie; Reproducing the Details of Rescuing a 65-year-old Man Underwater; Qiuju’s Lawsuit.
Those are some of Xinhua’s exploration in new media reporting. Meantime, I hope to learn from your transformation experience, and look forward to strengthening communication and cooperation with all of you.
At last, I wish a complete success of this year’s OANA executive board meeting and prosperity of all the member news agencies.
OANA Country Report
Yonhap News Agency
Distinguished and honorable guests,
First of all, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to NNA Director Ms. Laure Sleiman and her staff for kindly inviting me to visit this beautiful country renowned for its prized cedar.
I also want to thank OANA chairman AZERTAC and other member agencies for their extraordinary efforts to prepare for the executive board meeting.
I would like to use this occasion to update you on the latest developments in the PyeongChang News Service Network, or PNN, and brief you on our future plans for the project.
PNN is an international news content sharing platform for the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games which will be held in South Korea next February. Yonhap News Agency has been developing the network since early this year.
As I introduced at the News Agencies World Congress in Baku, Azerbaijan, last November, the platform is designed to facilitate substantial cooperation among news agencies across the world to better cope with the fast-changing media environment.
I expect brisk exchanges of high-quality news content produced by member agencies through the PNN platform will help strengthen our news competitiveness and promote mutual cooperation. I also believe this project will help PNN members' quality content reach far more readers all over the world than ever before.
As of the end of April, thirty one news agencies have signed the PNN Membership Agreement and a number of other news agencies are also showing their interest in joining this platform. More than fifty news agencies are expected to join PNN by the end of the year.
We have already completed the development of the first version of PNN and expect it will enter operation in May. Now, the platform's project manager Mr. Yong-Seok Yi at the Media Technology Bureau of Yonhap, will provide you with a brief presentation regarding PNN's main features, website and next development plans.
Once again I would like to request your interest and active participation in the PNN project. Thank you for your precious time.
