Mass Comm Week emphasizes need for multimedia skills

The future of media lies in newspapers’
increased attention to their
online publications, representatives
of Web sites Richmond.com and
InRich.com said Tuesday at a mass
communications workshop.

The speakers said “convergence”
is where the media industry is
headed. Convergence is when one
media outlet communicates the same
content through multiple avenues,
including audio, video, print and
the Internet.

“Today’s journalists have to do a heck of a lot more,”
said the editor of Richmond.com, David Hylton. “It’s
kind of exciting to go into a newsroom that used to
be a newspaper, and right here they have the Internet,
and here they have video.”

Second speaker Michael Fibison represented InRich.
com and is the general manager for Central Virginia
in Media General’s Interactive Division.

An example of convergence, Fibison said, is how the
Richmond Times-Dispatch, a Media General newspaper,
has begun posting streaming-video coverage of news
stories on its recently re-branded Web site, InRich.
com.

Previously branded Richmondtimesdispatch.com,
InRich.com is trying to increase awareness of its new
name through billboards and radio, Fibison said, but
it also is trying to reach younger adults by publishing
user-generated content.

“It’s certainly cool stuff that users contribute,”
Fibison said.

The speakers also addressed how their Web site
organizations plan to succeed, how they differ and
in what ways they compete.

InRich’s parent company, Media General, is publicly
owned and publishes 25 daily newspapers and nearly
100 weekly papers and other periodicals. Locally
owned-and-run Richmond.com primarily covers arts
and entertainment in Richmond.

Hylton said Richmond.com is scheduled to debut
a new look this weekend. The Web site will switch
to a faster server and a new design, he said.
“I think it’ll be a little easier to navigate,” Hylton
said.

Richmond.com’s staff is one tenth the size of InRich.
com’s staff, Hylton said.

“Yet there is a feeling of competition,” he said.

But with one news reporter, Hylton said, Richmond.
com cannot feasibly aspire to compete with InRich.
com’s news coverage.

However, Richmond.com does have an advantage
– its exclusive partnership with the Multiple Listing
Service, Fibison said. The MLS is a real-estate
database.

To compete with local and national newspapers,
InRich.com is buying keywords from search engine
Google.com, Fibison said. This tactic is called search
engine marketing. Buying a keyword ensures that after
the keyword is used in a search, the organization’s
online story tops the list of items presented.

“It’s very effective, all those ethical questions aside,”
Fibison said.

Tactics like these are meant to lure college-age
readers, Fibison said. Recruiting younger readers is
important to the newspaper industry because students
have disposable income, making them attractive to
advertisers, he said. Newspapers have to appeal to
readers at a younger age to ensure they, like past
generations, form a habit of reading the newspaper
regularly, he said.

More than 200 people attended the workshop,
which was open to the public and held as part of Mass
Comm Week. The workshop ended abruptly after
an audience member complained during a Q-and-A
session about the content produced by InRich.com’s
arts and entertainment writers.