Covid-19 crisis assists transition from traditional forms of information dissemination to digital

Address to the leaders of 105 journalists' unions from Latin America, Asia, Oceania, Africa and Europe at the Belt and Road Journalists Forum.

First of all, I would like to thank the Belt and Road Journalists Network and the All-China Journalists Association for finding in such difficult times the possibility to continue maintaining a platform that is an effective means for Latin American, African, European and Asian journalists to share their experiences, express their views on global and regional issues and seek common solutions.

The fact that in such forums we can learn from the mistakes and successes of other countries helps each of us to find future development directions at a lower cost.

The main topic I would like to draw to the attention of all the participants in the conference forum is the transition from the traditional - paper-based newspaper - to digital format. At the previous forum in 2019, we talked about the transition from paper to digital format specifically as one of the biggest challenges for both journalism and the information business these days.

In 2020, one of Latvia's largest newspapers - Neatkariga Rita Avize - successfully implemented the transition from paper to digital format.

At the beginning of 2020, the publishers of Neatkariga Rita Avize decided to change the format of the newspaper from publishing a paper newspaper to digital, moreover, offering the digital edition to all readers free of charge. It was planned to cover the expenses for the digital newspaper only from the advertising revenues.

The decision had already been made at the beginning of the year, without yet being aware of the changes that took place in 2020. The transition from paper to digital was scheduled to take place in early May 2020. At a time when preparations were under way to abandon the paper-based newspaper and switch to digital only, the Covid-19 pandemic began. Epidemiological restrictions were imposed in many countries around the world, including Latvia. From March 2020, the activities of companies related to transportation, entertainment, tourism and the provision of various services were suspended in Latvia. Restrictions on gatherings were set and residents were advised to reduce their mobility activities and work from home as much as possible.

As a result, many service sectors came to a complete halt and, at the same time, the advertising activities of the companies and sectors that had ceased operations came to an end. In April, May and also in June 2020 for the entire Latvian printed press as a whole, advertising revenue was at least 40% lower than a year ago. Advertisers representing the entertainment industry, tourism, as well as many service providers, completely stopped advertising activities. Postal deliveries took place as usual, but as people changed their daily habits en masse as a result of the epidemic, retail sales of newspapers and magazines also fell sharply, causing significant losses to all media companies.

The consequences of the pandemic for the entire press business coincided with the moment when Neatkariga Rita Avize switched from paper format to digital format. The time when a large number of people significantly reduced their mobility was the best time, as the demand for supply on various Internet platforms increased.

Neatkariga Rita Avize, moving from a traditional newspaper to a digital format, abandoned those thematic blocks that were no longer feasible in the digital environment, such as crossword puzzles, etc., as well as those thematic blocks for which widely used digital platforms had already been created in the digital environment (weather, sports news, etc.). The abandonment of many topics meant a significant reduction (around 50%) in staff numbers. On the other hand, the scope of topics related to social, economic and political issues of public importance was even increased. During the transition, two digital products were separated - a news portal and a high-quality digital newspaper. The high-quality digital newspaper has maintained the first page layout of the traditional newspaper and also the fact that the newspaper's articles become available to readers early in the morning and are not changed during the day. Information about current news that changes during the day is provided on the news portal.

The biggest challenge was to get readers of the paper edition to move to the digital edition. In all honesty, it must be admitted that such a transition did not happen immediately. It took about three months for most paper readers to become regular readers of the digital newspaper.

In addition, the habits of paper newspaper readers did not change in the transition to digital formats. While most readers of news portals constantly follow the flow of news, a large proportion of digital format newspaper readers read the newspaper only at noon and after business hours. In turn, the majority of readers go through all digital issues of the respective week and read the interesting articles only on weekends and holidays. Unlike various types of news portals, where the majority of views are in the first few hours after publishing, a high-quality digital daily newspaper has the main influx of readers within one week of publishing the article, rather than first hours.

Changes in the structure of income and expenditure in the transition from paper to digital.

Since in the transition from paper to digital Neatkariga Rita Avize managed to keep most of the advertisers of the paper edition, it was possible to balance the income and expenditure structure without reducing the salaries of journalists who remained in the digital newspaper, even when reducing the price of advertising. Costs decreased significantly due to a decrease in expenses related to the production and distribution of the paper newspaper, as well as a significant decrease in labor costs. At the same time, as most of the advertising customers managed to be retained, the financial situation for such a product improved significantly.

The improvement of the financial situation allowed us to start developing the newspaper's digital platform in other directions. From October 2020, Neatkarīgā has been publishing a newspaper in English, which has already achieved success in the English-speaking Latvian audience.

What are all the biggest challenges and the biggest obstacles facing a quality newspaper that will move to digital format?

Unfortunately, the biggest challenge and the biggest problem in promoting this type of digital product is the censorship in social networks owned by international conglomerates. This is especially true of Facebook, as local and international social networks are one of the most important tools for increasing the readership.

And, of course, like all other informative publications, Neatkarīgā also created its own Facebook page, which already has a significant number of followers on a Latvian scale. Unfortunately, according to the Facebook algorithm, only a small part (2-3 percent) of our followers are shown the news posted on the newspaper's Facebook website.

Such a system is practiced by the global giant to stimulate the purchase of paid services, so that companies purchase paid advertising services from Facebook for their page. Unfortunately, the attempt to promote the digital newspaper using Facebook paid services comes with simply incredible censorship restrictions. Facebook rejected Neatkariga's request to distribute materials published in the English version of the newspaper even for a fee. Facebook censorship restrictions were applied even to the interview with the President of Latvia Egils Levits, which was dedicated to the 102^nd anniversary of Latvia's independence.

As a result, censorship from global social networks in other parts of the world is likely to be the biggest barrier to the transition from paper to digital.

I wish all the participants of the forum to find their way to overcome the difficulties that await us in the near future and I hope that the Latvian experience will help those who will have to make the transition from the traditional format of information dissemination to digital in the near future.

Facts