Product, information architecture, and the state of innovation in European newsrooms

Credit: Photo by Kvalifik on Unsplash

Digital news consumers today face a constant deluge of information and according to the latest report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, news avoidance is also on the rise. In that context, the role of the information architect or information architecture for journalism is especially important.  

"The beauty of the web is that you can have all kinds of different ways of arranging information," says Paul Rissen, Reach Plc's senior product manager, speaking at a recent NPA community event with Fabienne Meijer. Rissen is a 16-year industry pro, spending time at Siemens, BBC and Springer Nature working across product development projects. He spoke about the state of innovation in European newsrooms, information architecture, and news product thinking.

"That freedom of expression is good but also makes it easy to get lost. Information architecture can help people understand the world around them and the digital environment."

Information architecture refers to the act of arranging and organising different parts of information to make it easy for a user or news consumer to understand and contextualize it. Or, as Rissen puts it - it is about how people find what they’re looking for and how they navigate through the web to find it.

Storytelling, both traditionally and in a news context, involved the revelation of connected information over time. The whole purpose of a narrator, according to Rissen, is to take you through that web of connections, help you understand each aspect of it and put it in context. Previously, there were linear stories in journalism that catered to this type of storytelling. Now, however, we have everything from hyperlinks that link out to different subjects, to people sharing different perspectives in the comments section of an article. It is a web of potentially valuable information that offers differing perspectives all in a single story. 

According to Rissen, taking the linear approach, where the journalist is your only guide to understanding a story, could make you fall into the trap of a “patrician'' way. "It's important to be able to share perspectives, bolstered by evidence and to be able to reflect on it," he said. 

To better understand how information architecture can deliver value to journalism, Rissen referred to a diagram by Jesse James Garrett in 'The Elements of User Experience'.

Credit: Jesse James Garrett’s ‘The Elements of User Experience’

"Although the digital product environment has grown exponentially in the past 30 years, the vast majority of publicity has been around products and services that make use of the Web as an application delivery platform, rather than as an information space," said Rissen

"Jesse James Garrett's diagram shows how both approaches to product design can inspire vastly different experiences, and I believe that despite Wikipedia being a prime example of a wildly successful product based around the Web as an information space, little attention is paid to how we might innovate more in this arena."

For all the merits that information architecture holds for journalism, there are special challenges when working with it in newsrooms. For one thing, it is hard to move beyond the traditional sections in newspapers. For example, as opposed to applying tags to different content pieces, Rissen said the process needs to be flipped. Newsrooms need to first focus on what's in the audience's mind first.  

For information architecture to work well, you need to prioritise and serve audiences with what they are interested in and looking for. 

"There is no one-size-fits-all approach. We need to move away from this model, we need to be more representative and ultimately, yes, come up with a consistent way to organize content."

So which digital spaces are doing well when it comes to information architecture, then?

Rissen takes inspiration from the Fanlore community. While he admits that it does have a vitriolic side, it is the collaborative side that he focuses on. 

"There’s a huge amount of pioneering work fans have done with what they call a "plural point of view”. It's representative and sharing their points of view and being able to compare them. It's something journalists can learn from," he added. 

An opportunity for collaboration amongst journalists in Europe and the world 

A common thread throughout the conversation with Meijer was Rissen's emphasis on collaboration both at a micro, newsroom level as well as a macro, industry-wide level. 

One of the main challenges that he sees in instilling news product thinking in newsrooms occurs during collaboration between teams. Specifically, there is still quite a separation between newsroom and tech teams which deters collaboration. Bridge roles, or as the speaker called them, 'Platypus' roles (a term originally coined by Hannah Birch), are not so widely distributed. According to Rissen, most newsrooms are still working in silos with a separation between editorial and technical departments.

At a macro, industry-wide level, a key difference and barrier to innovation if you consider just European and American newsrooms is also in enthusiasm around collaborating. Smaller news organisations and non-profits in the US industry do not shy away from doing this. On the European side, while things are picking up on collaborations, he sees it happening at a slower pace. A lot of their attention is on commercial models and how to fund journalism. 

"There's a lot of scope for European news product thinkers to learn from the community in America, and spin in their own way - from the collaboration and openness to learn from each other, to the way in which different audiences, cultures and languages can be catered for and represented within journalism products," he said.

Another area that Rissen would like newsrooms in Europe to focus on is to see more discussion around different formats and kinds of journalism. “We are stuck in the ways of articles, videos, data visualizations etc. It would be good to return to the spirit of investigating and trying newer formats to do it as well," he expressed.   

Embracing a culture of experimentation 

In his book about experiment-driven product development, Rissen advocated for organisations to embrace a culture of experimentation. At the community event, he shared how to get started with it.

"The best first step is to start with a small product or experimentation team. That's just the first step. Getting a team to own and hone their discipline and slowly seeding that out to other places is the next step. It's a tactical and strategic journey," he said.

It's also important to not lose focus on designing the experiment itself. You need to ask yourself what question you are trying to answer, how much information you need, and to do that as a team. "The other side is to not be afraid of the heavy statistical side of it," he added.

You’re new to news product, where do you go from here?

Rissen himself began his journey to news product unconventionally. While he studied history, he had a longstanding interest in journalism that led him to the field. His work around information architecture was influenced by his time working for the BBC where he worked on different forms of storytelling. At the BBC he worked on the BBC programs platform which taught him core aspects of the web and how to use it as a medium of storytelling.

Following this, he worked on a recommendations product at Springer Nature working on 'Nature Briefing', a newsletter on science news, opinion, and analysis which started out as a collaboration between product, tech, and editorial teams. He considered his work with Springer Nature and Nature briefing a success owing to the "small but good team" that he worked with.

His advice for those just starting out in news product is to embrace the spirit of collaboration and learn from other teams in a newsroom. It's also about removing the view that lack of in-depth knowledge about technology is a barrier to progress and collaboration. The focus, he said, needs to remain on what you are trying to do and how to work together to achieve the specific outcome. 

He also suggests a focus on the subject matter or domain that you're really interested in and passionate about - be it sports, politics, health, environment etc. Be open to the connections between all of these, and most important, to be open to gaining a conceptual understanding of how technology is built and functions. 

"You don't need to be an expert in coding, but being able to have a picture in your mind about what's happening, and how it all fits together, is hugely useful when working with technical colleagues," he added.

From our community

During the conversation, NPA community members weighed in on the chat to share resources with each other. Here is a recap of them: 

• GIST framework vs Roadmap
• Non-Bullshit Innovation: Radical Ideas from the World’s Smartest Minds 
• Experiment-Driven Product Development: How to Use a Data-Informed Approach to Learn, Iterate, and Succeed Faster
• The Elements of User Experience  

Special thanks to Dmitry Shishkin, and Susannah Locke for your generous additions. 

This article was first published on the News Product Alliance. It has been lightly edited and republished with the author's permission.

Lakshmi Sivadas is the communications & engagement manager for the News Product Alliance, and the program manager and engagement lead at JournalismAI at POLIS LSE, representing the project in the Asia-Pacific. She started her career as an assistant producer for CNBC-TV18 in India, helping produce two primetime, award-winning daily business news shows. She later reported on real estate and the environment for NDTV - India’s leading national news channel, and is a graduate of the engagement journalism program at CUNY’s Newmark J-School.

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