Rethinking Mobile Journalism Via Data and Technology

Arsenio Santos, CTO and co-founder of Cir.ca, spoke at the Big Data for Media conference on May 8 in London, sponsored by World Newsmedia Network and Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, about mobile journalism and using data for building a new kind of news service. Circa is a 2.5-year-old mobile app based in the United States, and soon to expand worldwide.

Cir.ca has focused its app on solving the problem with mobile news: Most people want basic information and not a long narrative on their mobile phones. The focus, then, of Cir.ca, was to develop atomized news "cards."

The mobile news stories are collections of news items written by journalists, and not generated by machines, as many news aggregators are now doing. The items are nuggets of news items and are interconnected by links for easy access to more information if the reader wants it. As the story develops, Cir.ca only pushes new information, not the background that has already been published. Big Data on registered Cir.ca users are employed to send users only information they have requested to follow, and only information they have not yet seen. 

Santos also explored a current debate on whether journalists should have access to metrics. His view is yes, give journalists access to everything (users, pages, sources, system and editorials).

The metrics collected my Cir.ca that "matter," according to Santos, are explicit user behavior and implicit user behavior. Explicit user behavior includes story reads (good), social sharing (better), story follows (best). Implicit user behavior includes: interest graph (decent), heat maps (problematic), card reads (awesome).

Santos also identified breaking news as an area of journalism to re-think, showing examples of failed breaking news attempts, particularly online and on TV. Santos said breaking news is 
an escalating arms race for urgency and attention" but that it is overused by media companies in order to earn traffic and audience. Instead of breaking news on mobile indiscriminately, Cir.ca breaks news on the mobile app sparingly. Users opt-in to the ongoing news feed on any particular topic, and Cir.ca doesn't want to turn off readers with meaningless breaking news alerts. 

As an example, the story of the missing Malaysian Air flight MH370 by numbers:

A narrative spanning 3 stories over 9 weeks (so far). Comparatively, other news outlets have reported breaking news about the missing plane's investigation without any real news about the plane's whereabouts.

Cir.ca's stories:

Malaysian Plane Loses Contact

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 Investigation

Malaysia Airlines MH370 Disappearance Aftermath

85 points, 7050 words.

Santos concluded that in order to publish news tailored for the mobile device, publishers mud:

* Redesign your content for the medium.

* Empower your editorial team with thoughtful transparency.

* Find your best implicit metrics.

* Watch your best explicit metrics.