By Oh Young-jin
The Korea Times has just launched its digital newsroom, separate from the traditional one for print news.
The reasons are many, with the most conspicuous being news consumers' mass migration to digital platforms such as smartphones.
Technical challenges that come with this digital transformation are for the Times' to deal with as a news provider.
But the changes and direction will affect our readers in many ways. Naturally, our readers should have a say and we invite them to speak.
Our primary goal of the operational expansion is, of course, to make readers' digital experience with The Korea Times exciting, not boring; easy, not difficult; fruitful, not barren. Simply put, we want our readers to come back again and again and invite others to join them and experience what our website is offering.
We will try new and interesting experiments while being open to ideas and suggestions from our readers. Our aim is to act and react constantly. To give flesh and bones to this abstract sounding promise, we are embracing two approaches: citizen journalism and personalized news.
Citizen journalism is a form of participatory journalism and an inevitable trend.
The time when newspapers and broadcasters decided what news people should read is comparable to the bygone era of monarchy. The internet (it is now lower case) has made the news more democratic _ increasing the volume of news many times over and allowing free access to it.
So we are opening our door wider for people without a journalistic background to share their expertise and opinions with readers. We will put in place a minimum of basic "gate-keeping" rules under which people can write their thoughts and share their experiences with readers.
If there are subjects or situations about which readers would like to know more, we invite these readers to contact us and use us as their investigators. We have recognized the interactive age of news generation, provision and consumption.
Our effort to personalize news is a two-way street. We will invite people in the know to share their experiences through blogs on our website.
For now, we are interested in opening such blogs in such areas as street fashion, North Korean defectors, global peace movements, food, legal, Itaewon, partying, etc.
True, digital news outlets already run an army of bloggers, but what makes our project different is the greater say that we will give to bloggers in content and exposure they get on our website. In other words, the story may have a good chance of being used as a lead article or being placed prominently.
We recently had two "outside" writers' columns lead our web page ― "Prepare for North Korean terror in Gangnam" by culture and political critic Emanuel Pastreich on Dec. 3 and "Cass still sucks" by our columnist Andrew Salmon on Dec.4. Both articles were well received in terms of clicks and triggered debate among interested people.
Our intention is clear: we pay less attention to who writes than to what he or she writes about. If the content is worthy, virtually any writer can get his or her story to lead our website.
Although it depends on how these trial bloggers will turn out, we want more people to become Korea Times bloggers to share their expertise and address people's ever-changing interests.
We want our website and reach out to our readers face to face. Although the web is often blamed for killing person-to-person interactions, it can serve as an unrivaled tool to get people organized. We want to put this strength to better use and provide an opening for people with similar interests to get together or enjoy their differences.
Although it is still on the drawing board, we are considering launching language and cultural exchanges between Koreans and visitors or sponsoring ethnic communities' activities, among other things.
Of course, making the range of our website broader runs the risk of being taken advantage of by the "fifth columns" such as spreaders of fake news. But we believe in the "ability of the marketplace" to decide the fair price of goods and services ― in our case news ― and to sort out the good from the bad. We think the risk is worth taking to enrich your digital experience with The Korea Times.
Oh Young-jin (foolsdie5@ktimes.com and foolsdie@gmail.com) is managing editor of The Korea Times digital content newsroom.
The Korea Times has just launched its digital newsroom, separate from the traditional one for print news.
The reasons are many, with the most conspicuous being news consumers' mass migration to digital platforms such as smartphones.
Technical challenges that come with this digital transformation are for the Times' to deal with as a news provider.
But the changes and direction will affect our readers in many ways. Naturally, our readers should have a say and we invite them to speak.
Our primary goal of the operational expansion is, of course, to make readers' digital experience with The Korea Times exciting, not boring; easy, not difficult; fruitful, not barren. Simply put, we want our readers to come back again and again and invite others to join them and experience what our website is offering.
We will try new and interesting experiments while being open to ideas and suggestions from our readers. Our aim is to act and react constantly. To give flesh and bones to this abstract sounding promise, we are embracing two approaches: citizen journalism and personalized news.
Citizen journalism is a form of participatory journalism and an inevitable trend.
The time when newspapers and broadcasters decided what news people should read is comparable to the bygone era of monarchy. The internet (it is now lower case) has made the news more democratic _ increasing the volume of news many times over and allowing free access to it.
So we are opening our door wider for people without a journalistic background to share their expertise and opinions with readers. We will put in place a minimum of basic "gate-keeping" rules under which people can write their thoughts and share their experiences with readers.
If there are subjects or situations about which readers would like to know more, we invite these readers to contact us and use us as their investigators. We have recognized the interactive age of news generation, provision and consumption.
Our effort to personalize news is a two-way street. We will invite people in the know to share their experiences through blogs on our website.
For now, we are interested in opening such blogs in such areas as street fashion, North Korean defectors, global peace movements, food, legal, Itaewon, partying, etc.
True, digital news outlets already run an army of bloggers, but what makes our project different is the greater say that we will give to bloggers in content and exposure they get on our website. In other words, the story may have a good chance of being used as a lead article or being placed prominently.
We recently had two "outside" writers' columns lead our web page ― "Prepare for North Korean terror in Gangnam" by culture and political critic Emanuel Pastreich on Dec. 3 and "Cass still sucks" by our columnist Andrew Salmon on Dec.4. Both articles were well received in terms of clicks and triggered debate among interested people.
Our intention is clear: we pay less attention to who writes than to what he or she writes about. If the content is worthy, virtually any writer can get his or her story to lead our website.
Although it depends on how these trial bloggers will turn out, we want more people to become Korea Times bloggers to share their expertise and address people's ever-changing interests.
We want our website and reach out to our readers face to face. Although the web is often blamed for killing person-to-person interactions, it can serve as an unrivaled tool to get people organized. We want to put this strength to better use and provide an opening for people with similar interests to get together or enjoy their differences.
Although it is still on the drawing board, we are considering launching language and cultural exchanges between Koreans and visitors or sponsoring ethnic communities' activities, among other things.
Of course, making the range of our website broader runs the risk of being taken advantage of by the "fifth columns" such as spreaders of fake news. But we believe in the "ability of the marketplace" to decide the fair price of goods and services ― in our case news ― and to sort out the good from the bad. We think the risk is worth taking to enrich your digital experience with The Korea Times.
Oh Young-jin (foolsdie5@ktimes.com and foolsdie@gmail.com) is managing editor of The Korea Times digital content newsroom.
