09/10/2013 Dr. Dominik Faust

„Our print product will derive from the web offering“

Die Gruner + Jahr AG & Co KG transformiert sich unter Julia Jäkel von einem Zeitschriftenverlag zu einem Inhalte-Haus. Die Axel Springer AG setzt unter Mathias Döpfner weiter konsequent ihren Digitalisierungskurs fort. Und die Financial Times Ltd. baut unter Lionel Barber ihre FT-Printausgabe zu einer globalen Beilage für Online-First-Inhalte aus. Das sind nur drei Entwicklungen der vergangenen Wochen und Monate, mit denen große Medienhäuser auf die geänderte Mediennutzung reagieren. Welche komplexen Konzeptionen hinter solchen Unternehmensstrategien moderner Medienhäuser stecken, zeigt ansatzweise und beispielhaft Auszüge einer aktuellen E-Mail von FT-Chef Lionel Barber an seine Mitarbeiter:

Dear colleagues,

We are now ready to take the next steps in our successful „digital first“ strategy. […] Our plan is to launch a single edition, global print product in the first half of 2014. The new FT will be redesigned and updated to reflect modern tastes and reading habits. It will continue to exude authority and quality, delivering a powerful combination of words, pictures and data to explain the most important issues of the day. The new FT will be a better paper to suit the times. It will remain a vital part of our business, contributing significant advertising and circulation revenues. But, crucially, it will be produced differently and more easily. The changes will impact the structure of the newsroom – and the way we practise our journalism.

Tony Major and Kevin Wilson have been working closely on the design and production of the new-look FT. […] Here are some pointers:

  1. The 1970s-style newspaper publishing process – making incremental changes to multiple editions through the night – is dead. In future, our print product will derive from the web offering – not vice versa. The new FT will be produced by a small print-focused team working alongside a larger integrated web/day production team. The new slimmed down newspaper commissioning and editing team will report to me and Alec Russell, news editor.
  2. The structure of our planned single edition, possibly single section newspaper means minimal late evening changes and more templating of standard pages. We will however retain flexibility for a tailored UK edition with UK news pages. Our main design effort will focus on „show pages“ with accompanying rich data and graphics.
  3. Our news editors and reporters will shift further away from reactive news gathering to value-added „news in context“, while remaining faithful to the pursuit of original, investigative journalism. News editors will need to do more pre-planning and intelligent commissioning for print and online. This will require a change in mindset for editors and reporters but it is absolutely the right way forward in the digital age.

Diese Veränderungen bedeuten, so Barber weiter, dass die gedruckte Zeitung eine weitergehende Vorplanung haben werde als bisher. An die Stelle von Deadlines für die Print-Produktion würden Spitzenzeiten bei den Online-Zugriffen an Bedeutung gewinnen. Der gesamte Produktionsprozess werde zunehmend dem von Fernseh- oder Radiosendern ähneln.

[…] Finally, the changes in newspaper production will require further changes in working practices. […] We will need to move more resources from late evening to day and from afternoon to morning, notably in London. Production journalists will be digitally focused. Online, we will concentrate on smart aggregation of content from our own journalists and third parties. However, the emphasis online will be on articles rather than section pages. FT journalism must adapt further to a world where reporters and commentators converse with readers. Our goal must be to deepen engagement and ensure we meet readers‘ demands whenever and however they turn to us for breaking news and quality analysis. FastFT, one of our most successful innovations this year, has shown our determination to do just that. […]

We have transformed our business model, successfully charging for content and building a global subscription business. Last year, our online subscriptions surpassed our print circulation for the first time. Today, we have more than 100,000 more digital subscriptions than print sales. This is no time to stand still. The competitive pressures on our business to adapt to an environment where we are increasingly being read on the desktop, smart phone and tablet – remain as strong as ever. […]

These are challenging times. But as long as we embrace change and continue to innovate, we will continue to produce the world-class journalism of which we are all proud.

Lionel (08.10.2013)

(Source: The Guardian)

Foto: Faust

Dr. Dominik Faust

Der Autor verbindet operative Change-Leadership-Erfahrung mit hoher Methodenkompetenz sowie zertifizierte Veränderungs-Kompetenz mit multimedialer Storytelling-Expertise. Er verfügt über langjährige Expertise und etliche Zertifikate in Change Leadership, Change Management, digitaler Kommunikation und Facilitation. Als Führungskraft (+70 MA) und Top-Management-Berater hat er bereits zahlreiche Wandelvorhaben erfolgreich initiiert und konzipiert. Dominik promovierte über notwendige Veränderungen internationaler Organisationen zur Steigerung ihrer Effektivität und Effizienz. Auf Basis seiner breiten theoretischen und praktischen Change-Expertise berät er im viadoo-Team erfolgreich Führungskräfte auf C-Level.