The Newspaper in Your Hand

06/16/2016 - 12h19

The page which is 22 inches high and 12½ inches wide is from a time when newspapers arrived at homes to fill in the blanks of information.

The screen on my cell phone is 4 inches by 2½ inches. Today news arrives in your hands at all hours. This difference gives dimension to the challenges which newspapers around the world face now.

The immediate future requires that smart newspapers be framed for the screens on smart phones.

How do you take quality journalism to a smaller physical space without belittling it? The responses to reductions in circulation of the print edition and advertising income vary from one newspaper to the next, from country to country.

Two of the main newspapers around the world, "The New York Times" in the United States and "El País" in Spain recently announced that their operations will give priority to digital versions.

In the words of Antonio Caño, the editor in chief, "El País" will convert itself into "an essentially digital newspaper; on a big platform generating content which will distribute, among other things, the best print newspaper in Spain."

Folha closely follows the habits of its readers, and this is reflected in its digital strategy, said Executive Editor Sérgio Dávila when I asked for comment on this scenario. He believes that the multiplicity of platforms to access the newspaper should continue for a long time and that even other new ones could arise.

"What is most important is to produce quality content on any platform within our reach. That said, it's worth remembering that the print version is responsible for the biggest share of advertising income which supports the independent journalism practiced by Folha." At "El País" digital advertising has already reached 40% of revenues.

The digital audience at Folha is the biggest in history and the biggest among Brazilian news websites, Dávila asserted. "The more specific numbers are considered strategic, but you could say that subscribers are divided into about 55% print and 45% digital."

Half of the digital readers access the newspaper on cell phones and tablets. Folha remains the biggest print newspaper in Brazil, with total circulation of about 300,000. It's clear that maintaining leadership requires new strategies.

The digital platform previously was synonymous with desktop or laptop computers. Recently that has also come to include tablets. Today it signifies access to news on cell phones.

Smart phones have already exceeded computers as the main form of access to the Internet in Brazilian homes, according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). The proportion of homes with Internet access through cell phones jumped from 53.6% in 2013 to 80.4% in 2014.

Is this newspaper prepared editorially and technologically for the change?

The ombudsman spent several days following Folha on a cell phone. It is a strange, difficult, weary, and sometimes frustrating, experience. It is a version that clearly needs a lot of technological investment and editorial discussion.

Some pointed observations: there are few options at the entry of the app, which often results in restrictions on the diversity of topics. In general, on the initial screen, there is only a headline and a photo. Navigability is slow and monotonous. There are still frequent technical problems, such as updates to news which is not received.

At various times, topics which interested me were not easily visible. One some occasions, readers who access Folha by cell phone before leaving home at the start of the morning were not alerted that they may face problems because of paralysis of buses and rain. Videos are scarce.

I even identified a problem of lack of transparency, which is not exclusive to "mobile," when the reader comes across a list of "recommended" topics, without knowing that they were ads, not editorial selections of Folha.

The newspaper is divided between two worlds: the traditional, faithful reader, who is older and basically reads the print version; and the reader who is on digital, who has a far different profile from the other one.

It is younger and more diversified in interests, education and earnings. It is only one newspaper but done for two publics who demand different languages, and neither can be undervalued

Dávila recognizes that the new digital journalism depends on investments in technology. "The opinion of the newspaper is that, while we are facing diverse aspects, there is still a long way to evolve," he asserted.

A study released by the Poynter Institute concluded that most of the news that we find on our cell phones is still an adaptation of other models. These items were conceived for paper or for desktop computers in media organizations that had their origin in print.

Journalistic experience is originally conceived for paper, adapted for the computer screen and readapted for the cell phone.

Most of journalism is still going in the wrong direction for new readers, created in a world that you can carry in the palm of your hand.

Translated by JOHN WRIGHT