An astonishing piece of amateur video obtained by the Guardian shows just how much the world has changed for big media players. The footage shows Ian Tomlinson, the man who died at last week’s G20 protests in London, being struck by a police officer and falling to the ground minutes before suffering a fatal heart attack.
You can view the film and make up your own mind about the incident, now the subject of an investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission. My focus here is to discuss how the footage and surrounding story has played out across old and new media in an exceptionally powerful and converged way.
The Guardian has scored a major coup, not just in getting hold of what is an extraordinary news exclusive, but for how it has successfully delivered the story via its traditional print product, its own web site, and across social media too. (I have to declare an interest as my husband David Taylor works on the Guardian’s home news desk and has been pivotal in developing this story over the last few days.)
Consider this: The Guardian had an exclusive, yet it chose to share its content before it appeared in print, running the video and a first break on the story on its web site yesterday evening. In the ‘old’ days of print journalism this would have been inconceivable, to the point that the red top tabloids would regularly run weak front page stories in their early editions, revealing their big exclusives only in final 3am print run.
As soon as the video appeared other newspapers’ sites were linking to it and capturing the footage or still images to use themselves, and crediting the Guardian. Meanwhile broadcasters including the BBC, Sky and Channel 4 featured it extensively on their news bulletins, again promoting the Guardian name.
At the same time, social media was fuelling the story, with Guardian journalists using Twitter to share the video URL. Mass retweets followed and within hours, “Ian Tomlinson” was trending on Twitter as one of the 10 most written about topics.
Today the Guardian’s print edition has extensive and detailed analysis of the film by reporter Paul Lewis to augment his online story, while the web site is offering bloggers the footage to embed. And rival media from the agenda-setting Today programme to competitor broadsheets are still crediting the Guardian as the source.
So what does this tell us? Firstly that high-quality content is crucial - without an exceptional story none of this would have happened. Second, strategic use of the right media channels – print, social media, web site – can have a multiplying audience effect not a minimising one. Third, that media businesses now are not “papers” or “web sites” but brands, regardless of how we consume their content. The Guardian’s liberal stance helped it secure the story, and its brand has been strengthened by the extensive cross-promotion it has since received.
Tags: David Taylor, death, G20, Guardian, Ian Tomlinson, Paul Lewis, Video
Very interesting post and excellent analysis of how The Guardian have tackled this. One thing I’d query though:
“while the web site is offering bloggers the footage to embed”
One of the thing that drives me mad with The Guardian’s video footage is that they don’t seem to enable embedding. They provide a link to the video for people to share, but not embed code (unless I’m being blind). I actually went to YouTube to find a ripped version of the coverage.
I can sort of understand why they do it, but also feel that they could benefit from making the content more shareable.
So, the million dollar question is – how much more money did the Guardian make? Has the increase in its brand awareness sold any extra papers this morning? Will they sell more in the long term?
Has all the traffic to their site given them a spike in advertising revenue?
I don’t want to reduce an incredibly important political story to crude numbers – but if newspapers don’t see a return on this new media journalism, will they abandon it?
Sorry, but “news exclusives” are as boring as Tesco versus Asda. Just my thought. It would’ve been far better for the masses if this amateur footage had appeared on a social video site, but then I guess whoever shot the footage wouldn’t have been paid then.
Why would it have been better? Because then ‘the man’ wouldn’t have got the credit? I may well be very naive, but do The Guardian even pay for this sort of thing?
I’d assumed that the guy gave it to The Guardian as they are the paper that’s beenmaking the biggest noise about this issue, rather shamefully considering the fact that he worked for the Standard, and wanted to make sure that it got into the dossier that is going to the police complaints board.
didn’t notice The Guardian attributing to source.
not sure how the ‘media landscape’ is changed in any fundamental way here. seems like more of the same “exclusivity” TV scoop nonsense. or worse, turned a – at best – mildly interesting if sad story into commodified badge of wanton corporate egotism, or at least that led by some amateur new media cheerleader.
high quality content? it’s (looks like) a cell phone video. very low quality.
oh, you mean the story is high quality content? uh, no. grasping at straws here. the guardian put its eggs in the social media basket, looking for news, from the ground up, and found next to nothing. which was the real change. the real story of the g20 protests, a different view than that told by “TV” or the more trad print. the “Guardian’s Ian Tomlinson” vid (even that claim is dubious) is to the Guardian what finding a half ounce bag of dope is to cops busting a so-called major grow op.
the guardian’s “liberal stance” helped it secure the story? the “brand” has been strengthened?
that’s just whack and only serves to diminish the already and ever-decreasing value of journo (investigation/storytelling and core competency, no?) to that of media whore, human misery parasite, and general eye-ball catcher.
if i worked at the guardian i would be distancing myself from this sort of post facto social media engineering.
To me this is a very good example of print journalism that has become more about analysis than the purveryor of breaking news. The Guardian made the right choice to use the Internet to satisfy the need for speed, and then to subsequently cover the story in paper with detailed analysis.
With the speed at which information spreads on the Internet, daily newspapers working on paper need to create content that could still be read 1 day or even a week after the publication date. In this sense, the role expected from printed dailies seem to be converging with weekly publications.
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