1.
Digital News in a Distributed Environment
Columbia Journalism School, June 21, 2016
#towpnp#dnp2016

2.
Platforms and Publishers:
A Snapshot
Emily Bell, Pri Bengani, Pete Brown,
Alex Gonçalves, Nushin Rashidian, Claire Wardle
Tow Center for Digital Journalism
June 21, 2016
#towpnp

3.
Agenda for Today
Background to the research
Key findings from interviews with publishers
Key findings from interviews with platforms
Content analysis: who is posting what, where
Conclusion and questions
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4.
How we got here

5.
Tow Center work has always focused on journalism and the social web

6.
January Snapchat launches Discover
April Google announces Digital News Initiative
May Facebook launches Instant Articles
2015 June Launch of Google News Lab
September Launch of Apple News
October Twitter launches ‘Moments’
October Google announces Accelerated Mobile Pages
February Google/Twitter launch AMP
March Facebook Algorithm tweaked to favor live videos
2016 April Messenger bots introduced, including CNN
April Facebook Live launched for all
June Instagram’s feed becomes algorithmically driven
June Snapchat Discover stories appear in ‘Updates’ feed
June Snapchat rebrands Discover
#towpnp

7.
Today we’re announcing a two year research project
1. Policy exchange forums
2. Workshops
3. Focus groups
4. White papers
Launching Fall 2016
#towpnp

8.
Initial Research Findings

9.
1. One roundtable attended by fifteen social media and audience editors.
2. Interviews with more than forty journalists and executives at news
organizations.
3. Interviews with eight platform executives from five companies.
4. Content analysis of nine publishers and their output on twelve platforms.
5. Analysis of the AMP carousel based on Google Trends keywords.
#towpnp

10.
Key Findings

11.
#towpnp

12.
Newsrooms are posting ever more journalism directly to platforms, but
with little idea of the ultimate rewards.
Platforms influence much more than distribution, e.g. format, story
selection.
Publisher strategies for platforms are dictated by business models and
no one solution works for all.
Publisher relationships with platforms are not all equal.
Non-commercial but important civic issues unaddressed.
Some platforms are now publishers, by design or default.
#towpnp

13.
#towpnp
Newsroom Manager, Print Publisher
Some publishers are focused on the opportunities
“Platforms have given us way
more creative freedom than we
have in the past to tell a story.
We're creating new forms of
storytelling.”
Newsroom Manager, Local Publisher
“Our influence in the world has
more impact because of the
reach we’re able to get on
these platforms.”

14.
“They are publishers, they control
the audience in many ways.
They’re the gateway to the
audience and they determine what
they will allow and what they won’t.
It’s their world. I see them as a
partner, but we call them a
frenemy...and I don’t even know if
that’s totally accurate.”
Digital Manager, National Print Publisher
#towpnp
“We are collateral damage in
the war between platforms.
They're fighting with each
other …they will promise
certain things to some, they’ll
give [a publisher] a chance to
play, but not to others.”
Newsroom Manager, Local Publisher
But some publishers feel powerless

15.
“I think the New York Times and the Washington Post did a disservice for
a lot of us by jumping into bed with Facebook on Instant Articles so
quickly without really scrutinizing [the deal]. It really ends up hurting us in
the long haul.”
Some publishers worry that the industry is hurting itself
Newsroom Manager, Local Publisher

16.
#towpnp
“It’s incredibly cut throat right now, and Snapchat plays it
very close to their chest in terms of if they let you onto
their platform. It’s like the Hunger Games, because you
fight to get on it and you fight to stay on it.”
Manager, Digital Native Publisher
Some worry it’s getting brutal

17.
Key findings from interviews with
publishers

18.
1. Business models are driving platform strategies
2. Conflicting opinions exist at the local level too
3. Branding on platforms is a key concern for all publishers
4. Lack of consistent data and metrics is a major challenge for all
publishers
5. Publishers are worried about who owns the audience
6. Some appetite for industry collaboration

19.
1. Business models are driving platform strategies
#towpnp

20.
“Everything that I’m doing with my social teams around the world is all
about creating a CNN news habit. And I don’t care how or where that habit
happens, and I don’t care where you’re a user. It can be on Snapchat and
you’re coming back to us three times a week, or it can be on Facebook
Messenger and you’re engaging with our content eight times a week. I care
that you have a CNN news habit. And that makes us relevant going forward
in the world of disrupted distribution.”
Samantha Barry, CNN
For many publishers reliant on advertising, it’s an all-in strategy

21.
“It is still important to get people back to the site. We’re looking at
distribution platforms as a space where we can build a new
relationship with readers and engage with our current readers. There
is an understanding that we need to meet the audience where the
audience lives, and when that audience is an 18-34 year old
audience, we understand that there are new habits… and this is
really about educating a new audience about what value the Wall
Street Journal brings.”
Carla Zanoni, Wall Street Journal
For publishers with a subscription model, it’s about getting people
back to the site

22.
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n=2,046

23.
Apple
News
Facebook
(posts)
Facebook
(native)
Instagram LINE Li.st
(List App)
Messenger Snapchat
Stories
Snapchat
Discover
Twitter Vine YouTube
#towpnp
n=1,050

24.
2. Conflicting opinions exist at the local level too
#towpnp

25.
“The algorithms, because they favor scale and reach they're naturally
going to favor national and international stories, and so local journalism
gets de-prioritized. I think we do run the risk of selecting winners in this
game.”
Some local publishers feel particularly left out
Newsroom Manager, Local Publisher
#towpnp

26.
“I would love to be in a place where we are thinking about engaging
an audience via Snapchat Story or Facebook Instant Articles. But
right now, we are just not there yet.”
Some local publishers are bogged down in legacy issues
Digital Manager, Local Publisher
#towpnp

27.
“Our very small local sites will close, but they will retain their social
presence and they’ll be able to publish their Instant Articles. Actually, we
think that that will probably generate more audience for them and
probably better commercial than having an actual website. So we
completely drank the Facebook Kool-Aid.”
Other local newsrooms see platforms as a route to survival
Digital Manager, Local Publisher
#towpnp

28.
3. Branding on platforms is a key
concern for all publishers
#towpnp

29.
Platforms offer brands the
chance to reinvent
themselves for new
audiences.

30.
"If we’re out here for branding but nobody even recognizes it, then that’s a
problem, because if our brand is related to the Snapchat brand then
maybe it’s not worth it.”
But for some platforms, design obscures news brands
Digital Manager, National Print Publisher
#towpnp

31.
“Instead of competing for the top spots on the homepage, what [reporters
are] saying is: ‘When is my story going to go on the main Facebook
page?’ It’s really competitive. It’s a bit like the old days of getting the
splash.”
It matters for individual journalist brands too
Digital Manager, Local Publisher
#towpnp

32.
4. Lack of consistent data and metrics
is a major challenge for all publishers
#towpnp

33.
“Now you have to collect data from another source and be able to
compare it to your site data. That’s not apples to apples because it’s
measuring different things and different situations. It’s just another strain
on your organization.”
Different metrics make comparisons very difficult
Digital Native Publisher
#towpnp

34.
“Facebook needs to give us access to [data] so we can better
understand what the trade-offs are that we’re making.”
Lack of data hinders strategy and product development for publishers
“We just don’t have as rich of a story on Facebook as we do on our own
site. We can’t connect the dots on time spent or reader engagement with
an Instant Article as well as we can with articles on our site.”
Senior Manager, Print Publisher
Senior Manager, Print Publisher
#towpnp

35.
“There’s so much mystery to it that we have to stay so vigilant trying to
get early reads on how the algorithm is treating everything that we’re
pushing out. We get better at decoding it but they keep changing it.”
Platforms are unpredictable
Senior Manager, Print Publisher
#towpnp

36.
5. Publishers are worried about who owns the audience
#towpnp

37.
“It all comes back to who owns the relationship with the user, is it
Facebook or [us]? That informs everything in terms of what the
advertising team can present, what are the different little conversion
hooks that marketing and product can get in there. It all comes down who
controls that relationship and that data.”
Digital Manager, Print Publisher
#towpnp
Who ‘owns’ the audience?

38.
“We think of our readers as the customers
that we want to serve with great news, great
experience.”
Michael Reckhow, Facebook, November 2015

39.
6. Some appetite for industry collaboration
#towpnp

40.
"We as an industry are not proactively working together to set down
equitable terms. There is strength in numbers and understanding
what each other is going through.”
“Publishers have more leverage than they think.”
Senior Editor, Digital Native Publisher
Newsroom Manager, Local Newsroom
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Some interviewees called for more industry collaboration

41.
Creative opportunity vastly expanded.
For most publishers, a better experience for users.
Platform teams and initiatives viewed positively.
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Lack of transparency around the algorithms.
Surrendering control for no net financial benefit (yet).
Serving multiple platforms is very resource intensive.

42.
Key findings from interviews with
platforms

43.
“As someone pointed out, there was Craigslist before, then it was
Google, now it’s Facebook. It will be Snapchat next. The world is
evolving and people are getting their news in different ways and as a
complement to the way they’ve always got their news. We didn’t set out
to do this. I wish we could all say we had a strategic vision. Instead it
was, ‘Huh, people like news, let’s give them more news.”
Platform representative

44.
1. The two mentalities and cultures are very different
2. Frustration at the way platforms are discussed in the media
3. All struggling with how to scale their partnerships
4. Platforms want to collaborate with the news industry to find
solutions
5. No two platforms are the same
6. Frustration that publishers haven’t done more to innovate

45.
1. The two mentalities and cultures are very different
“The news industry hasn’t caught up with the fact that we’re no
longer in an era of editor choice, it’s user first. It’s all about news
personalization.”
Platform representative
Interviewees at platform companies talked about having a culture of
innovation and that there was less fear of failure compared with
newsrooms.

46.
Platform representative
2. Frustration at the way platforms are discussed in the media
“The media are looking for the moonshot. The want every platform
change to be the solution.”
“How can we get the benefit of the doubt?”
Platform representative

47.
3. All struggling with how to scale their partnerships
“We want to give tools to people so that they can do things for
themselves as opposed to us doing it for them.”
“So, it’s my big bug-bear, right? If you want to ring us, who do you
ring? So the emphasis is how do you deliver an ‘always on’ product
support to a range of publishers well beyond the people you can
actually actively hand hold?”
Platform representative
Platform representative

48.
“It’s more about finding a path together…we need to use the
opportunities when we are in the same room to show that there is more
of a possibility for us to be productive together.”
Platform representative
4. Platforms want to collaborate with the news industry to find solutions

49.
Platform representative
5. No two platforms are the same
“No two platforms are the same yet we are placed in the same
‘social media’ bucket. Researchers differentiate between network
news and cable news, newspapers versus online news. We are all
just labeled ‘social media’ .“
During interviews, platforms would compare themselves to one
another, explaining the number of years since their launch, their
different philosophies around the networked vs. native models, and
their different levels of reliance on algorithms.

50.
Who is posting what, where

51.
Which publishers are on what platforms

52.
Over one week, the news organizations we sampled
published on average 1,178 posts across 7 platforms
603 posts
7 platforms
2,046 posts
8 platforms
#towpnp

53.
#towpnp
Apple
News
Facebook Instagram LINE Li.st
(List App)
MessengerSnapchat
Stories
Snapchat
Discover
Twitter VineYouTube

54.
#towpnp
Key: Platforms
856
2,046
1,651
898
932
732
603
1,050
1,854
Posts

55.
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56.
#towpnp
(Apple News, Facebook
[native], Instagram, Snapchat)
(Facebook links, Line, Li.st,
Messenger, Twitter, Vine, YouTube)

57.
#towpnp
n=2,046

58.
Apple
News
Facebook
(posts)
Facebook
(native)
Instagram LINE Li.st
(List App)
Messenger Snapchat
Stories
Snapchat
Discover
Twitter Vine YouTube
#towpnp
n=1,050

59.
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n=603

60.
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n=1,854

61.
356 355
275
258
250
246
212 209
188
Key: Content Types
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62.
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63.
Pilot Study (US only): Orlando shootings
• June 12, 2016
• Data gathered at 45 minutes past every
hour
• 28 Carousels containing relevant stories
(12 for “Florida”; 16 for “Orlando”)
• 244 relevant stories in these carousels
• 38 different publishers had stories in
carousels
#towpnp

64.
Rank Publisher Appearances
in Carousel
Av. position in
carousel
1 NBC News 19 4.4
2 USA Today 11 6.3
2 Time 11 6.0
4 NY Daily
News
10 4.7
5 Yahoo 9 3.2
5 RT 9 6.4
5 ABC News 9 6.1
8 BBC 8 3.1
8 Slate 8 6.8
Rank Publisher Appearances
in Carousel
Av. position
in carousel
10 CNN 7 3.9
11 CBS News 6 4.7
11 New York
Times
6 2.3
13 Al Jazeera 5 8.0
13 Huffington
Post
5 6.6
13 The Hill 5 8.4
16 Relay
Media
4 3.3
16 People 4 8.0
#towpnp

65.
Conclusions

66.
The rise of the role of platforms in
journalism mean social teams are
increasingly making key strategic
and editorial decisions.
As with ‘legacy to Web 1.0’ twenty
years ago, there is no uniformity
about how publishers approach
this.
But in some newsrooms it is still
under resourced, or seen as
suspicious and peripheral.

67.
Some non-commercial but important civic issues unaddressed
#towpnp

68.
Archive
Public record at risk.
The daily archive of news stories is
increasingly contained on social
platforms where deletion and ‘link rot’
are common.
Platforms such as Snapchat are
designed to erase material once posted
for 24 hours.
#towpnp

69.
Ethics & Standards
Standards for native advertising unclear.
Transparency of distribution process and
algorithms needed.
#towpnp

70.
Transparency is needed from
publishers too
No transparency over nature of financial
relationships.
Who is being paid for what?
By incentivising publishers to use certain
tools and create journalism in certain
formats, platforms are changing
dynamics inside newsrooms.

71.
Landscape review published later in the year
Four policy exchange forums around key questions over the next
twelve months
Content analysis expanded to include local publishers and to track
changes
Algorithmic analysis continued
Focus groups carried out over the next 6-9 months
Next Steps
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72.
Any questions?

73.
Thank You
Please email towcenter@columbia.edu with any feedback or suggestions
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