‘Normalise the idea of giving your content multiple windows, and providing multiple entries into your content: an article can be a podcast, a video, a photograph, a graphic; it can be anything…’
Award-winning journalist, documentary filmmaker, podcaster and educator, Yasir Khan credits the Thomson Reuters Foundation (TRF) as instrumental in establishing his career – and recalls how, as a young reporter at the CBC in Canada, he “blagged” his way into covering the war in Sri Lanka.
He got the nod, the funding, and a camera kit – then realised: “I don’t know how to do this.”
He found a course in writing and producing television news at TRF – “and talked my way onto that one.”
A broadcast veteran, Khan’s career spans global newsrooms CNN, CBC, Al Jazeera and Euronews. He has also taught multimedia journalism and documentary film production at the American University in Cairo, Northwestern University and the Jordan Media Institute.
Now, as Editor in Chief of TRF’s news platform Context News, he runs a small philanthropically funded newsroom with big impact.
Context comprises about 40 operational staff across the globe, 100 freelancers on roster – “from Manila to Mexico City” – readership figures that are practically inestimable: “about 2 and a half million page views, on the website alone” – and a newswire distribution that ultimately reaches about a billion readers daily.
Can you put Context into context for me, because it’s new; TRF news is not. What is the background to this relaunch?
We went from being AlertNet to the Thomson Reuters Foundation News. That website featured the Foundation’s fantastic journalism but it had some challenges.
1: Focus: We did a lot of grant-funded journalism, which we still do, but the grants were so wide ranging in their topic areas that it was difficult to gauge what it was offering – from land and property rights, to women’s health, labour rights and humanitarian issues.
2: Audience growth and retention: when a grant for covering a topic ended, we stopped covering it. This meant that we would build readership on a topic then basically abandon it when the money ran out. So developing a loyal, engaged and returning readership was a challenge. For example, we reported on modern slavery for years, then the grant ended and so did our coverage. What happened to those people who were coming to us to read about modern slavery?
We launched Context to give the Foundation’s journalism a brand and an identity by focusing on three key areas: climate, socioeconomic inequality and the impact of tech on societies – and bringing digital-first, audience data-led thinking to how we do our journalism.
Our thinking is that if we give our readership consistent, quality coverage on relevant topics, we will see that loyal and engaged readership grow.
This one is a very focused offering.
What’s new or different, other than your focus?
When I first came in, our readership was global north-western readership – and we were an English language website that wasn’t being read by English speakers in Africa or Asia.
There were a whole bunch of levers to pull, like hiring locally, for instance; hiring local journalists who would tell local stories of global relevance.
As a result, for the first time, we have a truly global audience, with growing readership in the Philippines, South Africa, India – we even have one guy reading us in Antarctica.
We also have a growing returning audience – at a 19 to 25% return rate – and an engagement rate on our articles of between about 60 to 69%.
The reasoning behind building Context is to focus our content, have a state-of-the-art website with a strong back end to give readers a constant offering – and finally, to serve a very particular audience.
Who is Context aimed at, and who reads it?
We aim our content at what we call purpose-driven professionals; people who are in government, governance, academia, policy making, think tanks – people who can take our journalism and use it in their work.
That is the goal.
‘My ambition is that, with every story, people print it out, take it into a boardroom, and say: “What can we do about this?” Hence our motto: Know Better, Do Better.’
It’s a lifestyle philosophy, from a Maya Angelou quote: “Do the best you can until you know better; and then when you know better, do better.”
And it happens.
For instance, last year, we did a story about women judges in Afghanistan facing a disproportionate threat from the new Taliban government. And when that story came out, MP Joanna Cherry of the Scottish National Party printed the article out and took it to 10 Downing Street to Rishi Sunak.
That’s the kind of stuff that makes me come to work in the mornings.
Collaboration is considered by many as a key solution in discussions on the future of journalism. Share your views on this?
As a small newsroom that’s philanthropically funded, one of our tools for surviving and thriving is partnering with other credible, small, independent newsrooms who may or may not be funded – because investigations cost a lot to undertake, and a video series costs a lot to produce.
We can’t go it alone; we have to share the cost.
For instance, we did a four-part series on gig workers across the world with Rest of World. Neither of us would have been able to finance that on our own. By splitting the cost and collaborating on this, we got four mini-documentaries that we a) wouldn’t have been able to afford, and b) wouldn’t be able to pull off – and boosted reach with our combined correspondents.
We are currently in negotiations with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.
What we offer, besides splitting the cost and the risk, is a global newsroom; what they offer is their credibility and their investigative chops – because we are historically a wire-driven newsroom.
‘Our partnerships and collaborations are mechanisms of audience building, cost-sharing… essentially, a mechanism of survival. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to make the big noises that we are trying to make.’
It has results.
These collaborations get viewed; they win awards – and we can share these for newsroom impact planning. Collaboration is a win-win.
With so many unique, interesting stories to tell, on so many different platforms, what advice to newsrooms in transition on what to focus on?
I’d say there are two prime directives: One, listen to your audience. Figure out who your audience is or which audience you want to serve, and what they want – then deliver.
Secondary to that is that you are a business making a product – even if you are a non-profit newsroom. Even if you’re not asking people for their money, you’re asking for their time – which is even more precious because it’s something they’re never getting back.
And our audiences are content rich and time poor. They have so much content available at their fingertips, and they still only have 24 hours in the day. And they have about 50,000 things to do.
‘Listen to what your audiences want. Deliver that and think of your newsroom as a business where you need to sell a product; the product is your journalism – in all its formats.’
What skills will be most valuable for journalists and editors in future newsrooms?
A few years ago, I was interviewed for a job, and asked: ‘What’s the next big thing in journalism?’
I said: ‘It’s journalism.’
It’s important to remember that the job hasn’t changed; we are to still go out and find stories and gather information and report it with accuracy and fairness, in a compelling way.
Now, journalists are expected to know and do more than we did 10 years ago. We’ve had to have crash courses in learning about what brings people to a website; how to write articles with a long-tail, how to write headlines for search engine optimisation…
For newsrooms to make the kind of impact that I think they need to make, there are a few things that I think journalists should be equipped with now.
- Digital literacy, and basic multimedia skills; producing audio, video, photography content with your phone – one of the most powerful devices ever invented, in the palm of your hand – for your website, socials and YouTube channel. That’s number one.
- Audience literacy – to be able to listen to audiences and understand what they are asking for; gather and analyse audience data
- Basic data-led reporting skills; these will be crucial because a lot of stories are easily available, yet buried in the data.
- Also, I think one very important skill, which is still quite absent, is to treat content like content. Normalise the idea of giving your content multiple windows, and providing multiple entries into your content: an article can be a podcast, a video, a photograph, an infographic; it can be anything…
‘The point is in getting to audiences where they are rather than worrying about getting them where it’s convenient for you.’
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