Our stories are consumed many times and people know our brand. We are a relatively big company in South Korea. We realised that just numbers aren’t enough. We talked about our long-term future and produced an internal report on the challenges we face. The start of the hero programme coincided with the 100th anniversary of The Dong-A Ilbo. We also have a mission to find future digital revenue for the company. We care about our digital reputation, what we produce and the kind of content we write. I spoke to Saemmool Lee, The Dong-A Ilbo’s Head of Digital Innovation about the challenges she faced when implementing the programme and shifting newsroom culture. The so-called hero content programme recently completed its fifth story. ![]() According to its website, it has a daily print circulation of around one million. The general news broadsheet published its first edition in 1920. Only 10% of the South Koreans in our survey used The Dong-A Ilbo online on a weekly basis. ![]() The country’s newspaper sector has struggled to adapt to digital change, according to the Digital News Report 2022. Platforms, aggregators and algorithms dominate digital news consumption in South Korea. The goal is to help the paper innovate its storytelling for digital platforms, challenge received ideas of how to report, and shift newsroom culture away from print. In 2020 South Korean daily newspaper The Dong-A Ilbo removed reporters from their daily beats and teamed them with developers and designers as part of what they call “the hero content programme.” This team pitches and produces digital investigations with extended deadlines. What if newsroom leaders would adopt a similar idea? In 2018 Google CEO Eric Schmidt explained how the company encouraged its staff to work on “20% time”: spend 80% of their time on regular projects and keep the other 20% free to work on personal projects.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |