New Media Strategies - Sarajevo

Radio Sputnik, will it fly or will it die?

The editorial proposition, sustainable business plan, workflows and technical details for an imaginary radio station and internet site for Zagreb, Croatia, were pieced together during a 48-hour interactive workshop on New Media Strategies at the SHC HQ in Sarajevo, BiH.

The creation of the editorial, financial and technical framework for Radio Sputnik involved eight senior editorial and technical staff from media operations in Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia and Hercegovina.

Participants and organisers of the workshop

They’d come together for a workshop designed to examine how to create an independent and financially sustainable media operation, broadcasting on-air and online.

However, although Radio Sputnik, with its catchy slogan “will it fly or will it die”, never reached the launch pad, it was more than a piece of fun.

Before the exercise, Claus Solvsteen and I set out a series of editorial and business solutions that have been tried, tested and proven to work with some of the world’s leading media operations as well as with small, independent media organisations in transition and post-conflict countries.

Those attending the workshop then split into groups.

Working on the editorial proposition for Radio Sputnik

Two examined the station’s core editorial proposition (CEP) to try to identify what Radio Sputnik’s editorial focus should be and how it should be different from its competitors.

They looked at issue-led journalism and how a responsible media operation should inform the public debate so that the audience can make educated choices in their lives.

They also explored how to create hundreds of original stories a year in order to free them from a dependency on news conferences and the wires.

Another two looked at who the audience should be and what future audience they could win.

They examined a variety of business models as they looked at ways of generating revenue, including advertisements, subscription, barter deals and sponsorship.

The third group looked at editorial workflows and the technical tools needed to deliver content to all the devices with which the users might want to receive Radio Sputnik's news.

Their brief was to ensure news was created once without reversioning and duplication so that it could serve the widest audience and be exploited for maximum revenue gain.

Working out the details for a sustainable business plan

The fourth group looked at how a website could be created to best showcase Radio Sputnik’s core strengths, attract and engage users, create fresh revenue opportunities and boost the brand.

All knew it was just an exercise, but all threw themselves into the process as if their lives depended on the financial survival of the mythical radio station.

What was clear at the end of the process was that far more information had been taken in, digested and then improved than is often the case in media training workshops.

The make-believe Radio Sputnik helped focus minds, ensure those taking part understood the issues at stake and helped participants appreciate the realities of building a financial sustainable and robust independent media operation.

The processed was helped by having a great team of high-quality, can-do, positive journalists and managers taking part in the workshop - they were a delight to work with.

Perhaps the slogan for Radio Sputnik should be changed to ‘Radio Sputnik, getting ready to fly’.

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Participants:
Iva Vukusic and Jelena Berkovic from Radio 101 Zagreb, Croatia
Amna Popovac and Amela Rebec Radio Studio 88, Mostar, BiH
Nejra Runic and Dusko Okjaca PBS, BiH
Larisa Rankovic Ebart Media Documentation, Belgrade, Serbia

Media Development Organisations: The Swedish Helsinki Committee for Human Rights and the Media Development Loan Fund (MDLF)

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Makfax, Skopje, Macedonia

In a rented office on the 17th floor of the state-run Macedonian TV building, the independent news agency, Makfax, is planning for the future.

Makfax aims to deliver 'unbaised, impartial and true coverage of the most important political and economic events' in Macedonia, and is the only news agency that covers issues in the three languages, Macedonian, Albanian and English.

It delivers that service to the majority of print, broadcast and online news outlets throughout Macedonia.

In its charter, Makfax says it is committed to delivering a service that is free from 'the state, political parties and related business groups'.

The latest project, in conjunction with the Swedish Helsinki Committee for Human Rights (SHC), is to offer a free, reliable news service to 50 small media operations dotted throughout the mountainous country, which borders Kosovo, Albania, Serbia, Greece and Bulgaria.

Posing with the Makfax team in the newsroom. Makfax Executive Director, Risto Popovski is on the right.

These are media operations that might not be able to cover all sides of a complex region if it were not for Makfax and the SHC.

In its charter, Makfax says it fully rejects...

• discrimination and inciting intolerance and hatred among people of different nationalities, race, language, religion, ideology, political or any other ground.
• distortion of truth, forgery, plagiarism, insult, slander and all types of bribe taking.

We were a team of three, me, Tudor Lomas, who runs the development agency Jemstone, and Zoran Zivkovic, who organises media strategy training the length and breadth of the Balkans for the SHC and the Media Development Loan Fund, MDLF.

Tudor and Zoran working on the free, open-source, content management system, Campsite, designed by MDLF for use by independent media in transition and post-conflict states.

Our host was the Executive Director of the Makfax News Agency, Risto Popovski and his team of journalists. Zoran, Tudor and I will return to Skopje in the autumn for phase two of the project.

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Client: The Makfax Independent News Agency
Media Development Organisation: The SHC

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Mediacentar, Sarajevo

The Mediacentar, Sarajevo
Picture courtesy Nataša Mirković

Imagine a set of editorial guidelines that are continually updated, with journalists in every corner of the world able to edit them, add to them, challenge and stretch them, enhance and polish them.

Such an online resource could be a vibrant, best-practice guide, reflecting the views of journalists from every continent.

It could take account of the tensions and issues associated with working in transition and post-conflict countries.

It could examine core editorial values such as accuracy, impartiality, integrity, privacy, globalisation, taste and decency, and all other editorial values and from every cultural perspective.

Sounds unlikely, but it’s happening.

After five days working together, a team of ten journalists from eight different Balkan countries has produced the first draft for these guidelines.

The countries represented were Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Macedonia, Bosnia, and Serbia and Montenegro.

Our hosts were the dynamic team that runs the Mediacentar, Sarajevo and the media development network, Netnovinar .

They’d set up a project, initiated by the South East European Network for Professionalisation of the Media (SEENPM), to deliver a best-practice handbook for journalists in the region.

It was to look at editorial ethics, particularly as they affect journalists gathering and delivering news online.

That task was big enough, but we decided to go one massive step further.

Working on the editorial guidelines wikis
Picture courtesy Nataša Mirković

We decided to not only produce such a handbook by the autumn, but also to aim to make the text available in Wiki form (like Wikipedia) and open it to everyone to improve.

Nedim Dedic, the technical genius at the MediaCentar, set up the wonderful open-source, distance learning tool Moodle and built in all the functionality we needed to produce the first draft of the guidelines in wiki form. The headings are

• Integrity
• Independence and Impartiality
• Accuracy
• Fairness
• Privacy
• Taste and Decency
• Audience Input

Hopefully, that Wiki will be made live once the handbook has been published.

The handbook will form the first iteration – the Wiki will ensure the guidelines are always fresh, relevant, focused and sensitive to editorial and ethical issues in every country.

Online journalism is moving too fast to have guidelines printed on paper only. A Wiki, with the potential of having every journalist in the world acting as editor and contributor seems a crazy, brave, but somehow logical way forward.

Let’s hope it works.

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Client: Mediacentar Sarajevo
Media Development Organisation: SEENPM

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B92 and the death of Milosevic

A thick blanket of snow fell on Belgrade on Monday, March 13, following the death of former President, Slobodan Milosevic two days earlier. When I arrived on the Sunday at lunchtime, people in Belgrade appeared to be going about life as normal. It was cold and wet with few venturing out on the street.

International TV crews gathered outside the parliament. Some delivered the news in tones that matched the atmosphere, others seemed more excited. What was clear was that talking to local journalists offered a far more accurate assessment of what was really happening than listening to some of the international anchors in front of the cameras.

Considering Milosevic used to draw crowds in their hundreds of thousands, it was interesting to see that only a few thousand turning out to lay flowers. Most were middle aged or older. All seemed genuinely distressed. The young appeared to want to move on. One young journalist friend of mine told me that he felt it was important people try to understand the grief of the old and poor Milosevic supporters in order to help the country achieve closure.

B92 went into rolling news for eight hours on the Saturday. It was an excellent effort considering the resources available. There was also some sensitive balance with the announcement of the death of Milosevic coming on the third anniversary of the assassination of former Serbian Prime Minister, Zoran Djindjic. B92 had to cover both stories, and they did so with solid editorial professionalism.

On the day the body returned to Belgrade the B92 evening bulletin devoted half the programme to the event. A B92 crew came under verbal attack from Milosevic supporters during the making of one of the news packages, but nobody was seriously hurt.

I left Belgrade the eve of the funeral and return in eight days.

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Client: B92
Media Development Organisation: The BBC World Service Trust

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Novi List, Rijeka, Croatia

The old printing press in the Novi List reception

For 15 years, Novi List, a regional daily newspaper in Rijeka, Croatia, was produced using the Soviet-built press pictured above. Now the old press sits in the Novi List reception as a relic of the past and the company has a state-of-the-art printing operation churning out the daily print run and a packed portfolio of supplements and magazines.

Old printing press detail

Novi List is 106 years old and moved to a seven day a week production cycle in 1988 when it introduced the popular Sunday edition. It’s estimated that 90% of the Rijeka population read the paper each day.

The view from the Novi List newsroom

General manager, Zoran Borčić, was our host as Patrice Schneider and I spent four days helping with ideas for future development of the business.

Rijeka is a great place. A small city with great views out to the islands to the west and to the mountains to the east.

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Client: Novi List
Media Development Organisation: MDLF

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A1+ Yerevan, Armenia

Making the final cuts to an A1+ news package

The fog, that engulfed Yerevan airport for ten days just before Christmas 2005, finally lifted, although the air quality remained poor with grey skies and clouds of industrial pollution hanging over the city. There was also tension in the air following the referendum that many felt wasn't fair and open.

A1+, the TV station I was helping, had been taken off the air three years ago. They have print, radio and Internet outlets to continue to service, but, in TV terms, all they were able to do at the time of my visit was continue to create TV packages and bus them out to their affiliates dotted around the country's eleven regions.

One such journey involved a five-hour trip by taxi-bus to the south of the country and a broadcasting partner in the mountainous region of Syunik Marz, on the border with Iran.

News packages are taken by taxi bus to regional broadcasters

A1+ is taking the Government of Armenia to the European Court of Human Rights. You can read more about this on BBC News Online.

The visit was arranged by Press Now, a new media development organisation for me, but one I was impressed with in terms of their organisation and focus.

I was impressed by the A1+ team, especially their CEO, Mesrop Movsesyan. He is a man with a clear vision of the importance of a strong, independent media for the country. My translator, Lousineh - a writer on the A1+ site - was ever present and tireless in ensuring I had all the help I needed. Great people, well worth helping.

The website relaunched in February 2006.

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Client: A1+
Media Development Organisation: Press Now

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Syria News - Damascus, Syria

The border crossing point between Lebanon and Syria

After a week in Lebanon, visiting a mix of media operations involved in broadcasting and print, I made my way to Syria. The Lebanon and Syria visits were arranged as part of the BBC World Service Trust's Middle East and North Africa Media Dialogue (MENA) project.

The main purpose of my trip was to help a small independent media operation in Syria, but I was keen to accept the invitation to get to know the media landscape in Beirut on my way. I had told the team on the MENA project that I would only work with independent media and that I would not take on any clients that are politically aligned or aiming to inform only one section of the community. Three months earlier they had asked me to work with Syria News in Damascus and this was a return visit.

I had planned to fly. Before I left London I had been warned that it would be dangerous to take the road from Beirut to Damascus. The political tensions had risen a couple of notches following the assassination of Lebanon's former Prime Minister, Rafik Hariri and the fact that the day I was planning to travel was Lebanon's national day.

Entering Syria from Lebanon

The trouble with flying was that it would take 12 hours taking into account the taxi to the airport, the flight to Amman, Jordan, the five hour wait in the airport and the flight and taxi the other end. I was told, by people in Beirut, that I was daft to think of going by air. In the end I decided to take a taxi and go by road up over the mountains, across the Beqaa Valley and down into Syria.

It's a fascinating journey. Heavy traffic travelling in both directions. Long queues of lorries waiting at each border point. Tanks, soldiers and heavy fortifications at both border crossings. Stunning landscape on all sides with shepherds and flocks of brown sheep clinging to the slopes.

An unscheduled stop just off the main road

I became a bit twitchy at one point when the driver took me off the main road to a cafe down a side road. Then I realised he just wanted to have a break and we shared a pot of mint tea and warm, freshly baked flatbread smeared with yoghurt and herbs. It was obvious a regular pit stop for him on this trip over to Damascus and his pals all greeted him, and me, like a long-lost friend. The driver insisted on paying for the snack.

Syria News is a great operation. I had been there once before and delivered a week-long training exercise in writing for the Web. This time we focused on helping Syria News build a sustainable business plan. Patrice Schneider, a colleague I frequently work with on MDLF projects, accompanied me. We ended the week having drafted a new business plan with a strategy for sustainability. The Syria News team are becoming close pals. Nedal and Danny have a clear vision for delivering issue-led journalism to inform the public debate.

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Client: Syria News
Media Development Organisation: BBC World Service Trust

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MDLF training - Kotor, Montenegro

The pier outside the hotel where the media training was held

The coastline at Kotor, an old medieval city in southern Montenegro, is rugged, dramatic, spectacular, awesome and foreboding. In places, the cliffs seem to falls directly to the sea. A twisting coastal road clings to the rocks in places.

At times it is only one vehicle wide. It takes three hours to travel 40km. Dozens of small villages crowd the coastline. Most have old castles or fortresses, some have narrow cobbled streets. None are easy to pass through. All are worth exploring.

The centre of old Kotor, a charming, walled city

Kotor itself is wonderful. The one downer is that there is a strong, foul smell in the old town. I was told it's because the old sewers have collapsed and they can't dig them up and replace them because it would damage the character of the place. If you can put up with the smell, it’s worth visiting.

If you do get the chance to visit, climb the steps from the old town to the castle. Hard work, but breathtakingly beautiful.

The purpose of the training was to help four small media operations in the region with their editorial propositions and business planning.

Radio and print journalists and managers attended the training

Those attending the training, at a small, family-run hotel about 3km from the town centre, were:

• Radio Tocak (Serbia)
• Radio Skala (Montenegro)
• Radio Antena (Montenegro)
• Grad (Krusevec, Serbia)

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Client: MDLF

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Media training - ANEM, Belgrade, Serbia

The New Media Strategies summit at ANEM in Belgrade brought together another batch of media operations from across the Balkans. Their main concern was creating sustainable Web publishing using content already created for their TV, radio, or print businesses.

Zoran Zivkovic of the Swedish Helskini Committee on Human Rights (SHC) and an MDLF advisor, was central to the organising of the event. Patrice Schneider worked with me. He concentrated on the business angle and I looked after the editorial.

It turned into one of the most productive sessions we have run. A lot must go down to the organisational effort put in by Zoran and our excellent translators.


Clients included:

• Makfax (Macedonia)
• SEENAPB (Bosnia & Herzegovina)
• Kanal 77 (Macedonia)
• Radiocity (Serbia & Montenegro)
• Agencija Vranje Press (Serbia & Montenegro)

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Media Development Organisation: MDLF

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68H, Jakarta, Indonesia

Drinking tea with Heru, Editor-in-Chief at 68H

I loved the outdoor canteen at the Tempo Centre in Jakarata, home for the radio station 68H. Each lunchtime we ate at a small cafe under the shade of shrubs. Each day were sampled local dishes cooked in front of us. It was wonderful stuff.

Heru, the Editor-in-Chief, and Tosca, the CEO at 68H, wanted to produce more content with fewer staff covering more hours. It boiled down to introducing a new workflow with different shift patterns and a change in responsibilities during those shifts.

A new workflow aimed at saving resources and improving output

It was a model that had worked elsewhere, but, as always, we were able to modify the solution and improve it, not only for 68H, but also for future clients.

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Client: 68H
Media Development Organisation: MDLF

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Media Training - Odessa, Ukraine

Odessa is one of the most beautiful sea ports I have visited. Its beauty lies in the fact that it doesn't try. And there is the permanent scent of the Soviet past. All streets are laid out in parallel grids, tree lined, dappled and cobbled. It also benefits from the fact that it is twinned with Liverpool - a plus for any city anywhere in the world.

I was told to take care walking out at night or on my own. There was no need to worry, I was fine. Everyone was friendly and at no time did I feel in any danger.

The students at the university were hungry for tips on how to cover the looming parliamentary elections. The sessions were long and the questions were sharp. Little did I realise at the time that we were heading for the Orange Revolution.

The journalists at the Odessa Press Club welcomed me to one of their sessions as a guest speaker, but their questions were fierce compared to those put by the students. We ended on good terms, despite the heat.

I was to return, a year later, for a media training session in the captial Kiev. I was there with Peter Preston of the Guardian Foundation. The atmosphere had changed totally following the Orange Revolution. According to the journalists I was working with, a lot of expectations had not been realised.

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Client: BBC World Service Trust

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B92 Belgrade, Serbia

The new B92 premises in New Belgrade are impressive. The move from two sites in the centre of the city enabled the news organisation to introduce a converged newsroom based around a news superdesk feeding content to all outlets, TV, radio, and interactive.


The CEO, Veran Matic, was keen to improve the quality of the journalism provided by B92 while, at the same time, reducing costs. We achieved it in months. Latest figures show the strategy is working in terms of ratings too. More about how we did it here. I worked on this project for two years, visiting B92 in Belgrade for a week almost every month.

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Client: B92
Media Development Organisation: BBC World Service Trust

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Malaysiakini - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

When the government of Mohammed Mahathir took away Malaysiakini's 19 desktop computers and servers, in an attempt to silence the independent media outlet, there was a public outcry.

Within hours of the story being broken on CNN International, hundreds gathered outside the Kuala Lumpur offices to hold a candlelit vigil, demanding the return of the computers. Slowly, the government returned the hardware, enabling Malaysiakini to continue to broadcast.

Patrice Schneider and I had been there to work with editor, Steven Gan, and CEO, Premesh Chandran, on a new business plan and subscription model. It meant going back to basics and focusing on the news operations core strengths. Read more about this in a Guardian article (free registration required to access the story).

Steven and Prem have remained firm friends ever since.

Media Training - Belgrade, Serbia

The warmth of a Belgrade summer, sitting in the courtyard of the wonderfully named Centre for Cultural Decontamination, set up during the Milosovic regime as an oasis for media and artistic freedom of thought.

I was there to run a four day training session with media organisations from across the Balkans representing TV, radio, print and online. At the end we were told that they all stayed because "usually we are talked at, you treated us as equals."

It was another chance to work with Patrice Schneider on an MDLF project, one of several we worked on together.

Those attending included:

• Vreme
• Danas
• B92
• BETA
• Lobi
• Svetlost
  

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Media Development Organisation: MDLF

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El Periodico - Guatemala City, Guatemala

The day we arrived at the El Periodico compound in Guatemala City, editor José Rubén Zamora had just published a lead story that claimed that the Portillo government was benefiting financially as a direct result of the acceptance of funds from mafia activities, including trafficking in narcotics, kidnapping and extortion. The article had taken six years to research. It had taken the authorities a couple of hours to respond. Read more on Poynter Online.

We were there to help El Periodico build a sustainable web publishing business, but it became clear, following calls to the American embassy, that it might not be a good plan to stick around. A few months later and José Rubén Zamora was again feeling the heat. An armed gang of 12 forced its way into his home, blindfolded him, held a gun to his head, beat his children, and carried out a mock execution. Read more on BBC News Online.

That led to international calls for the Portillo government to back off independent media. Read more on CNN and also read more on Poynter Online. This, in turn, led to calls from the World Association of Newspaper (WAN) for the government of President Alfonso Portillo to ensure that the state of Guatemala provided an environment which enabled journalists to carry out their professional duties without fear of attack and intimidation. Read more on BBC News Online.

José Rubén Zamora and El Periodico survived. The Portillo government fell. El Periodico has a successful web publishing business.

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Client: El Periodico
Media Development Organisation: MDLF

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