Global tech giants Apple, Facebook and Twitter are hiring experienced reporters to strengthen their news services while traditional media outlets are reducing their head count due to low profits.
American multinational tech company Apple has already signed article supply deals with global newspapers including Financial Times, New York Times, The Guardian and The Economist, according to Financial Times last week.
In its latest job opening, the firm is seeking experienced reporters who can identify global, national and regional news and distribute them. The candidates are required to have more than five years of experiences in the editing division and to be able to find creative and interesting news which algorithm cannot search.
Apple News is expected to replace its existing Apple Newsstand and to compete with other social media giant including Facebook’s news service Instant Articles.
Facebook also signed partnerships with nine media outlets including New York Times, BBC, National Geographic and Buzzfeed to directly deliver some contents rather than just simply posting the articles.
An online social networking service Twitter is also hiring a number of reporters. According to the latest report by Financial Times, Twitter would soon announce its news delivery service “Project Lightening” and hire experienced reporters for the service. This will allow users to read news gathered in news editing section instead of following each media outlets reflect its willingness to take a step forward media company rather than just staying as a tech company.
Other tech companies are also showing similar forays in recent years. Search giants Google and Yahoo are already providing news editing services while Snapchat has hired reporters from CNN and The Verge.
With the IT companies fast making forays into media fields, traditional media companies are downsizing mainly due to slowing profit growth. Instead, they are strengthening their digital news service system to catch up with the fast changing media environment.
Dow Jones & Company, an American publishing and financial information firm, which publishes Wall Street Journal said recently it would cut their head count in the Asian region and close its branches in Prague and Helsinki. The downsizing is expected to be carried out this month.
Gerard Baker, the editor in chief of the Wall Street Journal, said it would change its organization suitable for the digital activity. He said, “This means a streamlining of our operations. We will be consolidating some areas of coverage, merging some bureaus and teams and discontinuing completely some of what we do.”
“So today I am announcing a number of closures. The burden of these reductions is shared worldwide. Overseas, we will be closing the Bahasa Indonesia website and a number of our bureaus in Europe and Asia will be reduced in size. The bureaus in Prague and Helsinki will be closed,” he added.
Market watchers are expecting that there will be massive lay-off from the American media mogul within this year.
The U.K. news media outlet BBC also slashed its employees by 415 last July and has strengthened its digital news service. The media company has expanded its investment in digital journalism and innovated its news service system.
With the digital paradigm again shifing from computers to mobile, media firms are again reviewing their future strategies.
At the International News Media Association held in May, media outlets have agreed that they need to shift their strategy from “digital first” into “mobile first.” New York Times said its mobile users surged to 55 percent this year from 22 percent in 2010. It plans to expand its news article distribution from the current mobile devices into Apple Watch, by developing a system to provide one sentence news in a small screen. The firm is also analyzing users’ behavior to know when to provide articles.
