Here’s Another New Buzzword To Hit Reporters Out In The Field – Mojo (Mobile Journalist)

Philip Stone June 5, 2008

When a news powerhouse like Reuters talks about giving special Nokia mobile phone fitted with keyboard, microphone and tripod with some 20 hours of video storage to all its reporters then maybe the time of the mojo (mobile journalist) has finally arrived. And judging from presentations made at an international editors convention this week that mobile phone may well become the standard tool that journalists can’t leave home or office without.

All one has to do is search the web to find video interviews taken at the World Editors Forum in Gothenburg, Sweden, this week by attendees, indeed they were even being used for video streaming live to websites. It’s one of those “it may not be the greatest quality, but it’s certainly good enough for the web.”  The current video quality will still keep the professional television cameraman’s job safe, but Nokia predicts it will have high definition video on handsets within 5 – 10 years.

Ilicco Elia, mobile and emerging media products manager at Reuters, told editors that Reuters would like to hand out a Nokia N95/N82 which includes a Bluetooth keyboard, a digital microphone and a phone adapted tripod to all its journalists. “And we would like to give this device out to other people who are not journalists. Being able to give a device to a famous footballer, for example, and say you interview someone you find interesting would make for a very different piece.”

But the main reason to use the device, Elia said, is to allow journalists to file their stories faster – and that means text, stills audio and video.

A mobile phone for such purposes may sound easy to use, but Reuters, and the UK’s Daily Telegraph that also has started using the phone say there are definitely training issues. Elia said it is harder than it looks to capture quality journalism on such small devices, a point confirmed by Paul Cheesbrough, chief information officer for the Telegraph’s Media Group.

He said that about 15 of the newspaper’s 550 journalists have already received training to use the video phone and he sees there will probably be three distinct types of users – those who are enthusiastic, those who will need extra support, and those who are reluctant to be converted.

But while there was great enthusiasm for the mobile phone as a journalist’s tool, the mood was more sober when the subject got around to how newspapers can  overcome obstacles out of their control  that prevent them from making money on their mobile news services.

Oscar Westlund, a doctoral student at the University of Gothenburg has done extensive research on how Swedes use their mobile phones  and given that 86% of Swedes make mobile calls every week and many own phones with Internet access and news functions then the country is a good a testing ground to study mobile user habits.

And the bad news is that only 6% of Swedes use their phones for news at least once a week compared to 13% in Japan who say they use their mobiles to connect to news at least once a week.

Westlund’s studies confirms a major finding found elsewhere – for all the gadgetry found on mobile phones what people really want from their mobiles is the possibility of connecting with one another – to speak, to text, to send stills and video. They don’t consider it a news seeking, or television-watching device.

And there is one other element to why news may not be popular on the mobile – we all complain that most news is bad, so why add to our daily stress by making bad news available to ourselves more often?

His basic conclusion is that news doesn’t have a great future ahead on mobile phones.

Cheesbrough of The Telegraph says that now mobile producers are embedding a browser it’s easier for users to read and view video on their mobiles. He believes broadband will become more widespread and the cost will come down, too, which will tempt users to look at more news services on their phone.

He also agrees it is currently “very difficult” for publishers to make money today off mobile and it may be some time before news organizations make real money from mobile news services. He noted one key task still uncompleted is to convince advertising agencies that the small mobile screen makes for a good display  platform.

But he points out that it won’t take a large percentage of mobile users to catch onto news for mobile services to make money. “You should never forget the volume of devices out there. A small percentage of that market is a high volume of people.”

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