MediaBistro wrote this morning about an announcement from KQED, an National Public Radio member station in Northern California, detailing their launch of their a companion web property at KQED.org. According to the release, the launch is part of a larger initiative to transform KQED into a full-fledged media platform:

“Eight new staff members, including six journalists, have recently joined KQED to expand KQED’s local news coverage. The results will be immediate as KQED Public Radio, one of the Bay Area’s most popular stations and among the most-listened-to public stations in the country, expands its local newscasts from six to sixteen beginning July 19. The newscasts will span the entire day from 6am to 12:30am. In addition, KQED News plans to add additional radio news reports and Interactive features in late August.”

There’s been no shortage of philosophical musing about the prospect of the NPR model emerging as a way forward for local journalism outfits, but the KQED expansion is one of the first real-world examples to watch. NPR itself has done well to manage the online transition, providing listeners and readers alike with high-quality content that works well on the web. At a first glance, the KQED takes significant cues from the NPR homepage, offering visitors the ability to listen live, find individual programming for on-demand listening, and read original content that’s often related to the other audio and video content on the site:

The newly launched KQED.org

The NPR.org hompage.

While KQED is in a unique position of strength among its NPR affiliate brethren, its ability to create value for web visitors seems to point to an emergent truth: radio and television outlets seem to have had an easier time bridging the digital transition than their peers in print journalism. And this shouldn’t be entirely surprising. After all, the web is an inherently multi-dimensional medium. Written content can coexist alongside audio and video content on the web, and when it’s done right the results are engaging and impressive. Newspapers have begun to embrace this reality and many are beginning to find innovative new ways to get multimedia content that compliments their print stories.

The KQED and NPR are focused on the same task, but with one key exception: the written content is there to support and enhance their multimedia content, not the other way around. KQED is good at producing audio and video content. They’ve learned how to create the element of ‘story’ using these tools, and the experience translates well on the web. Creating written content to fill the gaps and augment these stories has seemed to come relatively easy to them. So what can newspapers learn from KQED, NPR, and the public radio ecosystem in general? In my  opinion, there are a few key takeaways:

• The internet rewards those who create rich media experiences. There’s something intrinsically delighting to human being about being able to watch videos right from inside a news article, or to hear the voice of someone else delivered seamlessly from a web page. When the web was born it was all about text. But now it’s about videos, games, streaming audio and rich interactions. Because of this, all written content, no matter how high-quality it may be, is at an inherent disadvantage on the internet. It’s no longer enough to slap an unrelated video somewhere in the sidebar. You need unit-level multimedia just to break even.
• Community matters. NPR stations have been forced to survive, in large part, on the backs of their members. They ask people to pay for content that’s important to them, and they’re able to do so because they take community seriously. They thank their communities on air. They maintain a physical presence in the community. And they often provide value for the community in the form of events, contests, and discounts.
• Real-time is real powerful. Radio has always been real time. Listeners can call into the station and engage with the programming directly, in far more personal manner than most methods we know of on the web. But because the channel for communication has always been open, radio has adopted the new models quickly and in stride, making quick use of email and Twitter to field additional inquiries and comments during broadcast. This ability to engage immediately on a deeper level is hugely valuable on the web, and the use of large ‘Listen Now’ buttons on every page of KQED and NPR’s properties makes it apparent that they understand this benefit. Finding ways for users to engage with reporters and each other in a more immediate way is something newspapers will have to get right in order to survive.

It’s hard to say if the NPR model itself will be the key for local journalism in the future, but it seems nearly certain that print publications need to adopt some of the radio spirit in order to deliver their content in a way that engages readers, creates community, and builds long-term support for their mission.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 19th, 2010 at 3:15 pm and is filed under Publishers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.