newsosaur offline /on target
New Rules
for Mobile
Journalism
How newspapers can stand
out among digital natives
By Alan D. Mutter
A
lthough mobile pub-
lishing is quickly chang-
ing the rules of journal-
ism, newspapers have
been dangerously slow to adapt.
This has got to be fixed because
digital natives like BuzzFeed, Circa,
Mic, Upworthy, Vice, Vocative and
Vox are competing for—and in many
cases winning over—the youthful
readers coveted by publishers and
advertisers.
As discussed previously in these
columns, nearly half of the digital
page views at many newspapers are
occurring on mobile devices. But edi-
tors and publishers have been slow to
recognize that mobile publishing is as
different from print-to-web publishing
as television is from cave drawings.
Constrained screen real estate—like
the new 1.5-inch Apple Watch—isn’t
the only factor influencing the devel-
opment of content for mobile devices.
An even bigger issue is the limited
amount of time that publishers can
engage with readers.
Although consumers spend an aver-
age of 2.5 hours a day poking at their
smartphones, research shows that
22 | E & P | NOVEMBER 2014
the time typically is divided into 150
sessions per day. This makes for an
average session time of less than half
a minute to snag someone’s attention
amid a dynamically expanding list
of activities that includes, but is not
limited to, checking messages, making
phone calls, consulting calendars, surf-
ing the Web, managing stock portfo-
lios, monitoring the weather, playing
games, updating Facebook, swapping
selfies, shopping for shoes, buying
movie tickets, choosing music and, as
time permits, catching up on the news.
In other words, mobile publishing
is the antithesis of traditional journal-
ism, which favors deliberation and
depth over the speed and sass charac-
terizing the top mobile sites. So, yes,
mobile publishing poses a vexing array
of contradictions for journalists to
debate and resolve. In the interests of
encouraging newspapers to build com-
petitive mobile sites, here’s a listicle to
guide the way:
Reporting. Digital deadlines are
relentless, requiring journalists to
publish as fast as possible—even when
all the facts are not in. While some of
Web natives are notoriously slipshod
about confirming information, the
continuing credibility of newspapers
means they can’t publish first and
ask questions later. The new “Watch-
ing” feature on The New York Times
website helps solve the fast vs. fact
dilemma by letting the reader watch
the news unfold in real time with
continuously updated staff, eyewitness
and third-party reporting. Live feeds
(including video, where possible) work
equally well for both breaking stories
and such scheduled events as the State
of the Union address.
Presentation. The limited real
estate on mobile devices means stories
need to be conveyed as concisely as
possible, preferably with images,
charts, maps and other visual cues
enabling instant comprehension with
a minimum of words. BuzzFeed offers
a smorgasbord of carefully curated
teasers on every page. Circa breaks the
news into tersely written, bite-sized
text blocks that eschew lengthy back-
ground. Vice produced a chilling video
that showed more about the Islamic
State than all the billions of words that
have been written about it.
Analysis. Even though the terse
editorandpublisher.com
presentation required by mobile me-
dia leads to atomized info-bits, readers
also appreciate presentations that
connect the myriad dots in a story. To
explain complex events like the tur-
moil in the Middle East, Vocativ offers
graphic flashcards. Vox does the same
thing with richly annotated maps.
Voice. The snarky mien cultivated
by most of the digital new leaders
poses perhaps the biggest challenge
to traditional journalists trained in
“just the facts, ma’am” writing. While
proper journalism requires scrupulous
research, careful fact checking and
balanced presentation, the neutral
tone typically associated with tradi-
tional news writing suffers in com-
parison with the lively language widely
employed on the Web. The solution
is to add as much sizzle as possible
to the steak. In a classic example of
how to do this, Forbes.com wrote a
editorandpublisher.com
piece about a terrific New York Times
story titled “How Companies Learn
Your Secrets” but topped it with this
far-grabbier headline: “How Target
Figured Out a Teen Girl Was Preg-
nant Before Her Father Did.”
Sharing. Digital news is a par-
ticipatory sport especially when
consumed on mobile devices. Users
want to upload videos, participate
in polls, offer comments, author
reviews and more. Smart digital
publishers not only make it easy
to contribute to their sites but
also make it a snap to share links
via Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest,
email and other platforms. The re-
launched Los Angeles Times website
drops ready-made tweets in the body
of its stories, so visitors can point,
click and tweet. Bleacher Report not
only promotes comments but also
publishes metrics for each story, so
readers (and contributors) know
how popular they are.
None of the above is meant to
suggest that newspapers dumb down
their reporting. On the contrary,
serious journalists need to get serious
about making smarter decisions about
the stories they cover—and the way
they tell them—because the move to
mobile is too important to miss. 
Alan D. Mutter
is a former editor
and Silicon
Valley CEO who
today serves
as a strategic
adviser to media
and technology companies. He
blogs at Reflections of a Newsosaur
(newsosaur.blogspot.com).
NOVEMBER 2014 | E & P | 23
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