Neal Mann works at the Wall Street Journal as Multimedia Innovations Editor. He tells Interhacktives about what it takes to be a digital innovator.
What does your role involve?
I spend a lot of time in meetings about various things – whether it’s redesigns or different ways of doing content – and working on longer-term projects. I’m trying to change our idea of what a story is – and how we create an experience for people to engage with. Until now, journalism has been very linear and formulaic. So I think about how we use tools and create new storytelling techniques. We’ve worked on interactive video, non-linear maps, and video story projects. We’re trying to create experiences for users which are engaging, intuitive, and ultimately readable and shareable.
What have you found tends to work on mobile?
We’ve designed a couple of video series. One is video explainers. The videos are designed so that they have a long shelf life. They may go with a story about, for example, BitCoin prices. The last thing you want is a video explaining what you’ve just read. So we offer an innovative explainer. It can be reused on every BitCoin article, but the video itself is designed to work specifically on mobile, with changes that help retain viewers’ attention. The problem with web video is that people hit and leave. But you need to get people to the end, to get them to share.
What’s been your biggest success?
We’ve had a few successes. We did an interactive project on Obamacare, and that was proof of concept to see if it worked. One of the biggest problems in news is that we offer people short reports. We assume they have background knowledge. But we added a layer of interactivity, so if you want to go deeper, you can.
We have rolled out a platform called Spreecast, whereby in real-time, viewers can ask questions which can be answered by our journalists and panelists. It’s really simple stuff, really easy to produce, and we’ve had great success with that.
Also, Borderlands. Everyone’s written about the borderlands between Turkey and Syria – but we wanted to create an experience, while giving viewers a coherent explanation. When we were coming up with ideas, we realised we had layers upon layers of content, but you’ve got to think how you get around that – you can’t just present someone with a map.
Moving forward, I’m looking at how we engage readers across platforms. Even if we produce different content for each platform, we don’t move people across platforms. Vimeo is a great example of that. I’m a surfer, and if I see videos on my Facebook feed at work, I might watch, but sometimes it’s too long. So I’ll watch it later at home on my TV. Vimeo has transferred me across platforms, but still retained me. That’s something I want to do at the Journal.
What’s the single biggest challenge you’ve faced in your role?
The biggest challenge for anybody trying to innovate within journalism is that you’re dealing with an industry that’s been trained in a specific way – and you have to try and break out of that. When you come along saying, “tear up the rule book and start again”, that’s a difficult thing for people to understand, but it’s unbelievably important. This is a very different beat – different ways of consumption, screen sizes, and time pressures. Production has to fit with that.
Is it easier to innovate in the US?
In New York, you’re surrounded by start-ups – they’re constantly knocking on the door, telling us about a new piece of kit we can use. Everyone knows each other in the media world here, and I think that helps foster innovation.
News people often only read news content, and that doesn’t necessarily breed innovation, because the best is happening outside of news. If you look at the stuff that’s come out of the Creators Project at Vice – it’s all based around music. The 24 hours of Happy video that Pharrell did, that’s a really interesting piece of video too. It’s simple, but it’s an interesting way of looking at a story.
Where is a lot of innovation happening right now?
One of the things I’ve been looking at recently is the National Film Board of Canada. Their content has been missed, and hasn’t got the press it probably deserves. They are doing some fantastic work in collaboration with artists and creatives. There’s some people doing fascinating stuff on YouTube. What I do is take inspiration from other areas that people don’t look at.
What skills do you think young journalists need?
It’ll be very useful for young journalists to have an understanding of coding. If I’d had that background it would probably have been useful. Also a good understanding of data, analytics, and the science of content consumption. Online news content is more of a science, because I know why you’re engaging. I know where you’ve come from. I know why you’ve turned off. To retain attention, we can use science and data analysis to feedback and ensure we’re producing good content.
What are your three tips for someone who wants to be an innovator?
Get a good, solid background in journalism. You’re not going to come into an organisation and be the innovator as a young journalist. Even at a young company, you’ll still need a solid background – it goes a long way if you’ve been there and done it.
Secondly, when you work in a big organisation, you need people who are your sponsors. If you want to innovate, you need to spend time talking to people who are innovative and trying to change the industry. Then you’ve got sponsors who have weight behind them.
Finally, it’d be better for young journalists to understand the business of news. That doesn’t mean your standards or ethics are compromised – it just means you understand how news can be packaged and sold.