By Cassy van Eeden
Editor-in-Chief of 24.com, Andrew
Trench, currently heads up the only digital-first newsroom in South Africa
that is entirely independent of any other media channels. In other words, it
has no tie to any print or broadcast title or brand.
“In the Media24 environment, 24.com has always existed
pretty much as a separate entity, whereas in other companies, digital has emerged
from a print landscape or tied to print brands,” says Trench. “For many companies,
that history and those existing relationships determine how they move forward.”
Trench explains that digital publications that have roots in
a print or broadcast title often battle to define an online identity. This is
as a result of a constant tension between which audience to service first.
The separate entity that is 24.com is the pioneer of the
first digital-first newsroom in South Africa: News24Wire.
On Thursday, 31 March, the
South African Press Association closed, leaving a massive gap in the media
industry for a wire news provider. Although it had been on the cards since
before Sapa announced that it would close, 24.com launched their own wire
service the very next day.
"We’ve moved quite dramatically from relying on external
content providers and aggregation to original reporting,” comments Trench. “For
us at News24 it’s always been digital
first. But what’s interesting about what we’ve done is [we have] created the
first digital-first newsroom in the country and in South African media history.”
A digital-first newsroom means that reporters are creating
original content that will be published solely on a digital platform, immediately.
“The reporters that we’ve hired, which are working across the country now,
their primary brief is to service a News24 audience. We’re not thinking about a
print product, we’re not thinking about any traditional publishing as being core
to the journalistic mandate,” explains Trench.
“There’s just no debate in our conversations about holding back
for print or any other platform,” says Trench. “For us, the big change is
actually having a reporting team covering the country nationally, and saying to
them that ‘your only consideration is: get the news first and get it out onto
our digital platform’.”
The advent of the digital-first newsroom will have several
ramifications for the South African media environment. First off, management
structures need to be adapted in order to align with the immediacy of the
digital-first medium. The nature of the newscycle will change dramatically. It also
means that there will be a renewed investment in hiring multi-skilled
journalists; a boost that the industry desperately needs.
“With the speed of the environment, you have to put in place
decision-making structures that are geared towards that. So, very
non-traditional,” Trench notes. “There’s a lot of flattening of the
decision-making processes and making judgement calls.” He compares this to
print “where things are a lot more hierarchical and deadlines are very defined
and you have a far more defined production cycle, whereas here it’s just always
on”.
Although News24Wire is in its infancy, it has moved fast to establish itself.
Already, the 16-strong national reporting team has produced a wide-variety of
premium content, including investigative pieces and multi-media centric
stories. “We are basically working an 18-hour day, minimum, seven days a week, with
no break. [It] is quite a challenge,” reveals Trench.
Trench’s main goal right now is to get News24Wire up and
running stably, “Which is quite an interesting challenge: dealing with the
servicing of a web audience and also providing a wire service.” Which is not
without complications, he adds.
Running the country’s first ever digital-first newsroom is
surely no easy feat. And it is going to take time and co-operation on the
industry’s part to adapt to this innovation. But despite the challenges that
may lie ahead, Trench is certain that the digital-newsroom is going to be
nothing but good for the South African media landscape.
For more information
about News24Wire, visit their website.
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