A presentation to the World Editor Forum in Berlin in October 2013 on one of themes of the author's book (Out of Print: Newspapers, Journalism and the Business of News in the Digital Age) looking at the difference between innovation and experiment

1. Experiments in
newsrooms
George Brock
Professor and Head of Journalism
City University London
World Editors Forum
Berlin| October 2013

2. Out of Print: Newspapers, Journalism and the
Business of News in the Digital Age

3. Throwing spaghetti at the wall

4. Words that scare people
• “Innovation”
• “Experiment”
• “Think outside the box”
• Most people can’t – and don’t want – to do
that to order.
• People who love the idea are rare.

5. Why?
• “No institution wants to dissolve itself. Getting
that old mindset to accept that everything that it
has done as a business and editorial model is now
over, pffft, gone is very hard.” Andrew Sullivan, The Dish, 2012
• Fear
• Habit
• The peculiar conditions of journalism is the
second half of the 20th century
• Media businesses became operations companies

6. Conquering fear of flying
• Look back at history
• Focus on experiment
• Worry about quality of
experiment
• Drive up quantity of experiment

7. Journalism is always being disrupted
• When did more papers die in New York City
than any other time?
• British “national” papers – when was their
circulation peak?
• Tension between what people want to know
and what they should know always unstable
• Even universities get it: “teaching hospital”
projects and EJ courses.

8. Quantity
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•
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Imagine a media “launch” process
Now imagine an array of experiments
Split the money into 10
Do enough to make lots of mistakes
“Error is useful” (Buzzfeed)
Long, repeated cycles of change (so keep
doing it)

9. Quality
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
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Speed
Ruthlessness
Measure of success/failure
Adaptability + agility
Measure of value
Learn from other experiments
Unleash your inner anthropologists
Watch out for consultants and cosmetics
salesmen

10. For instance…paywalls
• Dogma has no place in experiment: ideas are
stress-tested:
– “Information wants to be free”
– “People ought to pay for our news”
• Set up as many experiments as possible
• What did Andrew Miller say here on Monday?
• = there is no single answer

11. Disrupters wear disguise
• SE1
• Wannabehacks
• Gothamist
• Curbed

12. Did I mention the book?

13. • www.georgebrock.net
• @georgeprof
• www.city.ac.uk/journalism