New report: Newsrooms have big multimedia ambitions; now it’s time to ace execution
WAN-IFRA, in collaboration with Base Media Cloud, today published the new report, “Measuring Multimedia Readiness in Newsrooms”. The report set out to gauge the realities of creating, managing and distributing multimedia content.
WAN-IFRA members can download the full report from our Knowledge Hub here. Non-members can download the report here.
Much of the report draws from findings of a global WAN-IFRA/Base Media Cloud survey of 58 news executives – CEOs, editors, technology executives and audio and video specialists. It also features five case studies of news organisations that have heavily invested in multimedia production and talent recently – all with a similar desire to deepen engagement with their varied audiences.
Their commitment and the responses to the survey reveal an industry indeed eager to innovate and invest, where some thrive and others struggle, still contending with gaps in skills, culture, coordination and efficiency.
No lack of eagerness to innovate
The dual realities of the current situation is best exemplified with these findings from the survey:
On the one side, 96.6% of respondents say multimedia is important to their audience engagement strategy, and 81.1% expect their video and audio teams to grow.
Yet no respondents describe their video workflows as “very efficient,” while 20% rate them inefficient. Distribution performs only slightly better: just 10% say they get finished video out highly effectively.
“There are many newsrooms around the world that are ahead of the curve with their multimedia ambition and transition, some featured in the report,” said Stig Ørskov, CEO of WAN-IFRA. “But regardless of where a newsroom is in their multimedia journey, the central message is clear: technology alone is not the answer. Many newsrooms already have the tools they need. The greater challenge is enabling content to move smoothly between people, teams and systems. When there is significant friction in the processes and planning, it slows production and limits the value of journalism.“
“What struck us most in the findings is where the hardest problems sit,” said Ben Foakes, CEO of Base Media Cloud. “Not in commitment, and rarely in a lack of tools, but in the spaces in between: the handover from one team to the next, the clip that exists but cannot be found, the system that does not talk to the one beside it, the slow, manual work to deliver to audiences at scale. These problems rarely appear on a strategy slide, yet newsrooms feel them every day.”
Survey takeaways
Some of those challenges are revealed in the survey as it starts to become clear that technology serves as a driver, but, as always, is not a cure-all: Nearly 40% of respondents said there is a sizeable skills gap needed to produce high-level audio/video. Another 49% said there was a moderate gap.
And 58.5% cited skills gaps as the No. 1 cultural barrier in newsrooms’ multimedia transition, followed closely by legacy print mindset (56.6%).
Therefore it is not a surprise that much of the investment earmarked for the next 18 months lies in skills: about 43% said talent and training is their top priority. Technology is important at 30%, but publishers aren’t short on tools.
Searching for content (39% cited) and transferring or sharing files (25%) lead publishers’ technical bottlenecks in their multimedia workflows.
AI is delivering the greatest value through workflow automation with transcription and subtitling (53% cited) and archive search and metadata (22%)
Industry researcher Damian Radcliffe contributed an overview and analysis of where the industry is heading with multimedia strategy. The five case studies featured in the report demonstrate the high-level strategies of where these news organisations are making their bets – both on their own platforms and other platforms – as well as some of the pain points they are experiencing. This includes The Independent and The Telegraph in the UK, VG in Norway, F.A.Z. in Germany, and The New York Times.
