digital news

Broadcast newsrooms must change philosophy to survive into a digital future.

At least 20 Sinclair-owned stations posted “stories” on their website starting last Thursday hyping a new “Keep America Great” hat for sale on the Trump campaign’s website. All of the stories appear to have initially linked directly to the campaign’s online store, though that link has since been removed on some of the stories.

Jim Spiewak, an anchor-reporter at Sinclair’s CBS affiliate in Salt Lake City, says he’s found the secret to standing out amidst all the digital choices — you can’t just be a generalist, stretching yourself thin and reporting on any and all topics to shallow results. Viewers are loyal to specialists.

Last Saturday, NBC News’ Think newsletter subscribers got an entry that looked very different from what they’re used to. The rebooted product is a small part of NBC News’ larger effort to become more responsive to audience needs. A trio of vertical sites launched in 2017 — Mach, which focused on emerging technology; Better, focused on health, wellness and productivity; and Think — have led that charge, helping NBC News experiment with new features and tactics and to figure out what types of content it should be producing for different pockets of its audience.

Television stations occupy a rare space at the intersection of media’s past, present, and future. TV is a “legacy” product dating back 70 years, yet TV newsrooms are equipped with the essential tools to succeed in the future of media where visuals trump text. Additionally, those well-known anchors and reporters are now de factor social influencers, giving TV stations that embrace digital a rosier outlook on our collective future.

Lauren Donovan is a 24-year-old journalist working for KCCI, the Hearst CBS affiliate in Des Moines, Iowa. Don’t let her age fool you: she is a well-established weekend anchor and morning reporter, with a social media following in the thousands.

Six years after acquiring the digital news upstart, E.W. Scripps is nudging Newsy closer to profitability and wider audiences. The largely millennial viewership sees Newsy’s “anti-partisan” approach as a balm to the louder polarities of its larger digital and cable peers.

Quibi is to launch two daily news shows aimed at millennials after striking a deal with NBC News. The broadcaster’s news operations becomes the first producer to partner with Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman’s short-form digital service for its curated daily news strand Daily Essentials.

Meet Ben Winslow, a “multi-platform journalist” at Tribune’s KSTU in Salt Lake City, Utah. He’s on Twitter, he’s on Facebook, he co-hosts a podcast — and oh yes, he’s also on TV. But Winslow is not just posting his work to different platforms; he is using each one in a distinctive way.

There’s a lot that newsrooms could and should learn from what’s made platform and technology companies successful, sometimes at the direct expense of legacy news business models. Here are seven top takeaways.

Ben Smith, the editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed News built his division from scratch into the country’s premiere digital-native newsroom. Now media’s Boy Wonder finds his operation — and his company — at an inflection point.

Five mornings a week, Paul Gerke performs typical morning-anchor duties as part of the Today in Arizona team on Tegna’s KPNX Phoenix. But on some Fridays, he steps away at 6 a.m. and delivers a segment of his own — Paul’s Extra Point — that is resonating on social media by breaking away from the standard TV formula.

Mary Meeker recently released her 2019 Internet Trends Report. The annual report is an industry bible of need-to-know data points eagerly awaited by trend-spotters and strategists alike. It’s also usually 300+ pages of data. For news leaders who know they should read the entire report, but can’t find the time, fear not. Here are 10 trends affecting the news industry you need to know.

Carlos Amezcua and Lisa Remillard debuted BEOND.TV that establishes an online digital platform for original content paired with broadcast access. The new initiative launches with Carlos and Lisa, a half-hour news talk program that incorporates issue-driven discussions with Southern California flavor

In case you missed it, TVNewsCheck’s inaugural event brought together streaming executives for all the major news organizations forging a presence on OTT. Get up to speed here.

Jon Steinberg built his OTT business news channel Cheddar into a business that Altice purchased in April for $200 million. Now he’s president of Altice News, a unit that now includes, in addition to Cheddar, News Twelve and I24 news, an international news network. At TVNewsCheck’s OTT News Summit, he talks about how he realized there was a market for the younger-viewer-focused Cheddar, how the channel’s distribution model and programming strategy works, what its audience data reveals, discoverability and more.

Crafting the right strategy for each service is crucial, broadcast executives say at TVNewsCheck’s OTT News Summit.

With no common measurement data, OTT services are playing by multiple rule books, broadcast executives say at TVNewsCheck’s OTT News Summit.

Executives from leading local and national news players in the OTT space discuss their various options for packaging and presenting content on the platform. Also crucial is figuring out how best to differentiate one’s OTT service from the many competing options, overcoming a lack of viewing metrics and personalizing content for viewers.

News organizations are being challenged by technology giants and unsettled by a broader lack of trust but they have a much deeper problem: most people don’t want to pay for online news, the Reuters Institute finds.

CBSN Los Angeles marks the expansion of major market local news streaming services from CBS. It features local news content produced by KCBS and KCAL.

ASU Cronkite Professor Frank Mungeam, a Tegna vet, says doubling the length of the typical daily news stories will give them a longer tail on digital platforms.