Less product description and advertising, more storytelling. Content marketing has now become the forte of many companies. They offer solution-oriented content, assistance, or simply entertainment. After all, people love stories, and this allows for the creation of a positive and sustainable brand experience in the long term.
Recently, newspaper makers have also discovered this path of active participation. We are actually used to journalists filtering and selecting reports. Through social media, traditional media reporting has long been supplemented by so-called “participatory journalism.” Anyone can share content and thus generate news. Journalists do research and inform themselves via social media, but a reciprocal relationship between journalist and reader has hardly taken place so far.
The Süddeutsche Zeitung has gone a step further with its current campaign Die Recherche and actively involves readers in the creation process of an article. From now on, readers decide which topic journalists will deal with for a month, what will be researched as a result, and which articles will ultimately be published.
The Implementation
Everyone has the opportunity to submit their preferred topic online. From all submissions, three topics are then selected by the editorial team (speaking of selection). The favourite topic of the month is then determined via a vote on the website. The first topic chosen was Tax Justice. Around 6,800 people, or approximately 40% of all readers, voted for it.
The Blog and Social Media
During the research month, the journalists do not disappear from view; instead, they continuously report on the current status quo of the research on the specially set up Research Blog, as well as on Facebook and Twitter. Currently, there is also a call for all readers who would like to be available as interview partners. The fan and follower base certainly has room for improvement. However, this may also be because the campaign as a whole has not made big waves so far.
Open Journalism is Not New
Open Journalism describes the crowdsourcing of relevant content and a new form of content marketing, where “new” here is relative. The first attempts at Open Journalism, with TheBlogpaper, date back to 2009. Since April 2013, there has been a similar campaign from The Guardian called guardian witness, with the Cannes-awarded commercial, which I do not want to withhold from you here. The message: users actively change and determine media reporting with their content.
On the website or via the smartphone app, photos, videos or texts can be shared, which then appear either in the breaking news, on the website or in print format.
CNN has also launched a similar initiative with iReport. After registering on the website, you can also share your story with the world there. Topics range from event coverage, a best friend who lost 150 kilos, to reports of protests. CNN leverages crowdsourcing and uses the website to search for eyewitnesses to the unrest in Brazil or the protests in Egypt.
What Exactly is Open Journalism?
Alan Rusbridger, a journalist at The Guardian, defined it in ten rules, which were summarised in an interesting lecture by
as follows:
- It encourages participation. It invites and / or allows a response
- It is not an inert, „us“ or „them“, form of publishing
- It encourages others to initiate debate, publish material or make suggestions. We can follow, as well as lead. We can involve others in the pre-publication processes
- It helps form communities of joint interest around subjects, issues or individuals
- It is open to the web and is part of it. It links to, and collaborates with, other material (including services) on the web
- It aggregates and/or curates the work of others
- It recognizes that journalists are not the only voices of authority, expertise and interest
- It aspires to achieve, and reflect, diversity as well as promoting shared values
- It recognizes that publishing can be the beginning of the journalistic process rather than the end
- It is transparent and open to challenge – including correction, clarification and addition
... And Can It Work?
Of course, voices have already been raised asking why journalists are still needed if anyone can do their job now. However, the concept of Open Journalism is not really new; rather, it is a contemporary extension. For a comprehensively researched article, interview partners and experts have always been needed. For years, social networks have been used for research, and users and their sources have been integrated, perhaps without them even noticing. And research is probably not getting any easier. (Almost) every source must ultimately be verified.
My conclusion: Open Journalism is not a revolution, but a very good complement, and based on the topics, interests and preferences can be derived, which in turn flow into reporting and provide the content that truly interests people.
Following this blog post, an interview about content marketing and Open Journalism was published on Reportercafe.de.
