A look back at the 4M Mashreq experience

Julien Le Bot, one of the project's two educational coordinators, shares his thoughts on the experience.

#4M Mashreq: Journalism, Innovation and Collaboration

"Innovation: it's a funny concept. Faced with a situation where we just do not know what to do (panic stations, a stampede at the newsstands), we innovate. Innovation, if it exists at all, is actually, on closer examination, an ever-changing reality. With just days to go until the #4M forum in Beirut and, more to the point, with not long left until my last few days working alongside the people involved in the #4M Mashreq programme supported by CFI, I would like to share some thoughts, on journalism, innovation and the digital age.

The origins of #4M Mashreq (1)

#4M Mashreq is a cooperation programme the aim of which is to provide support for (small) online media start-ups (in the Middle East) as they take their first steps on the road to editorial independence with, it must be said, a particular view of journalism. This collective adventure was born, first and foremost, of a certain frustration. It is often said, by those in the know, that innovation is essentially a clear response to a clearly identified need. I agree. From this angle, the equation is both simple and obvious: times have changed. For everyone. However, the "traditional" media (with their old-fashioned "top-down" dissemination), whatever the type (funded by the State, subscriptions, advertising, etc.), often have great difficulty in moving with the times, being unable to transmit a clear message through their editorial line to their readers, who in the end mostly desert them… usually for online alternatives.

Moreover, contrary to popular belief, it is not always necessary to pull the digital devil by the tail to obtain a new lease of life. In a sense, it is simply a question of rethinking the business in terms of usage to start asking the right questions (unless you can solve in one fell swoop all the issues arising from the digital age). Journalism, which is more like a craft than a hard science, is no exception to the rule, even when times get tough. Understanding usage is the key to success.

Incidentally, "digital revolution" is just a label for a perpetual state of uncertainty. It is a lucky few who can say "that's where the future lies, absolutely, no doubt about it". There can be no (more) sitting back; from Paris to Beirut, Baghdad to New York, we need to continuously reinvent ourselves, getting to grips with this strange concept of knowledge driven by the people, taking ownership of, commenting on, sharing articles online. In other words, everything starts (anew) with the feeling that things are beginning to happen, here and now, and knowing how to play in the real world while shunning the tyranny of tautological prejudice (as a journalist, I am indispensable) or the illusions of the clean slate (let's erase everything and start again).

By devising the #4M Mashreq programme and then steering it for the best part of a year, I decided to start (again) by getting back to basics, with the task of taking a group of news media organisations yearning for independence, at crest of the digital wave, in a region in constant turmoil, and put them on the path to a sustainable future.

#Innovation #OuPas

Then there is the burning question that comes up time and again at international forums, conferences and other major get-togethers in the news media world: does the future (of the newsroom) not rely on making good use of the concept of innovation? It is not easy to take just one word and use it to shake up a whole world and validate all assumptions. But still…. Let's just take things literally and see what happens: little by little, step by step, we change, we challenge, we invent.

As a French (or should I say European) journalist, I have had the opportunity, especially with @Yakwala – to date, my first (but certainly not my last) entrepreneurial experience – to build myself a small raft. Why embark on such a circuitous voyage? For the freedom of sailing unchartered waters in a bid to shake off a niggling sense of frustration first felt in the newsrooms of France and Navarre. If you stick to the highways of the mainstream you might just find you are missing out. Or worse. As a journalist, it is probably better to take the digital bull by the horns yourself, to get to grips with the new and unknown. Of course, this is not always straightforward.

On closer examination, for a small-scale enterprise, when it comes to going it online, editorial innovation is a matter of precision mechanics (as always, there are examples to the contrary, but that does not change the heart of the matter). Whatever way you look at it, it is better not to be swept along by the current on huge editorial steamers that find it very difficult to change course ...

When circumstances dictate (for a variety of reasons that I will not go into here); when you want to try to live (off) your chosen career, even if it is in the throes of change. To avoid sinking into apathy (running after the flow, the phrase, the agenda).

And because you never bathe twice in the same waters, take the plunge in a bid to find your way, your voice. Of course it will not all be plain sailing: you think you are going from A to B with your project (and your wonderful roadmap) but by testing hypotheses, weaving your ecosystem, you quickly learn that it is more complicated than that.

When it goes well, that is to say, when you achieve something you did not quite expect, there is that strange joy: you are alive, really alive, because you have overcome the risks, swerved round the obstacles, and adapted your (business) plan. The beginning of the adventure, really. The online reader, who hops from link to link, who does not want to pay to read and who posts and shares furiously on social networks, he is there, right there, looking for information, always armed with a ready reply, with his needs and demands, these days at the heart of everything. No, journalism is not dead, because on the Internet, everyone is seeking their medium. And vice versa. There is so much to do, and invent, in the interests of editorial independence and the right to information.

#4M Mashreq, d'où ça sort (2) ?

My second source of frustration: having set sail with this small business, @Yakwala, I was able to freelance on a whole host of online media projects identified by CFI, the media cooperation agency which has since 2011 been particularly active around the Mediterranean, an area I myself have been roaming for some years now. And on these "worksites", as I like to call them, especially when it comes to cooperation (or "development"), I learned a lot and shared a lot, but above all I met many people working locally in the industry who wanted to revitalise their news format (especially in countries affected by the Arab Spring). I saw journalists from a variety of backgrounds complaining of newsrooms that had lost their way, brave bloggers unveiling the truth behind the official releases, well-meaning hacktivists bringing information into the open. I also did the rounds of meet-ups, workshops for sharing experiences on "good practices", sessions for learning about a whole range of "new tools". In the end, however, I rarely felt that I had had the opportunity to work on (long-term) constructive programmes that would make a difference and, working together, invent new ways forward.

It was as if I would leave Tunisia, Egypt, Mauritania or Lebanon with the nagging feeling that there was still so much to do . Do (journalism), produce (ideas, formats, surveys), develop (digital newsrooms): embark on the adventure, nurture the metamorphosis, test hypotheses… again and again that expectation. There were specific questions, clearly identified needs to be addressed, grey areas to be clarified, volunteers to be mobilised, collective and/or collaborative solutions to be crafted.

This is the heart of the issue, for everyone. Indeed, and this is undoubtedly one of the advantages of such a wandering existence, as I roamed (far from Silicon Valley and ecosystems bulked up on ROI), it dawned on me that in the face of the digital age, we journalists are all equal. We are aware of it, but we certainly do not repeat it enough.

While we do not always have the same problems, and we do not necessarily have the same ways of asking questions, we can try to build solutions together. And who knows, the experiments, failures and findings of some, in no particular order of priority other than that imposed by need, will no doubt be of use to others. Between Paris, Beirut and Baghdad, there was (finally) a place for "cooperation" in the proper sense (horizontal, iterative and, yes, innovative) in search of a new type of newsroom. Maybe even with the opportunity to change things a little.

So how did #4M Mashreq come about?

Autumn 2013: CFI, who wanted to get working on some new projects in Lebanon, agreed to support the idea of a structural programme for independent online media, working closely with people on the ground, capable of operating as a one-time incubator for news media start-ups (with all the necessary component parts: editorial idea, website development, proof of concept, roadmap, business model, etc.), and drawing on a wide range of experience in an effort to pin down that elusive concept: innovation.

So the recipe was (co)developed as follows: take a group of project managers, that is, enthusiastic people with a project in mind (not institutional partners), add a regional approach (to create common ground in a context where borders are often impenetrable) and blend with a collective roadmap to move forward, in a little over eight months' work, with:

• five 6-day work sessions in Beirut (approximately every 8 weeks);

• progress reports along the way with, if possible, between the lines, the creation of an informal, supportive group with a willingness to try (new practices).

Three partners (CFI, AltCity and Skeyes), a conference in Beirut (on 6 December 2013 with guest appearances by Ziad Maalouf, Damien Van Achter, and Kayser-Bril Nicolas) and a call for applications launched a few days later, and we were off. Ten candidates were selected (six in Lebanon, one in Syria, two in Palestine, one in Iraq) in February 2014, after meetings at the media start-ups with a view to working with them, for a few months, on the adaptation of their staff, the structuring and implementation of their projects, and the search for sources of income to consolidate their independence.

#4M Mashreq, mode d'emploi

The first problem, as you can imagine, was to work out how to define, in a regional context that I will not mention again, a working method that could actively support project managers whose needs were at times very different. Indeed, what do an online newspaper denouncing corruption in Iraq, a slow-moving media agency meandering through all the major cities of the Mediterranean, an NGO creating an archive of artistic practices and actions for peace within civil society in Syria, a community photography platform in Lebanon, a website specialising in investigative journalism or a transmedia storytelling agency, have in common?

Without going into the ambitions and expectations of each of the 10 projects selected in detail (the list is here), it is more interesting to dwell on what the project managers actually had in common:

• A very specific state of mind: journalism is a business like no other. In other words, it was less a question of working within the framework of a training plan, but rather taking the time to build an independent news media adventure (if possible one that would stand the test of time);

• A shot of enthusiasm: bringing an editorial project to fruition also means dealing with all that a small business or an NGO involves: sourcing revenue, devising a work plan, mobilising your staff, leading your community, assessing your needs, approaching partners, customers or suppliers;

• Somewhat patchy knowledge of the technical issues, but a clear desire to try to change their online offering, often gradually, whilst getting to grips with the (flexible) project approach.

It was important not to get carried away. The quest for innovation never became an industrial-scale "disruptively technocentred" beast. Nobody has (or had) the resources, skills or pretensions for such a thing; rather, we tried to think globally while working within the digital realm from start to finish. The issues tackled covered, for example:

• How to change your offering with little resources so as to make it to the proof of concept stage?

• How to find sources of revenue in an unstable political environment?

• Can any aspects be duplicated so as to develop the model and pass it on?

• Are there any opportunities for synergy with other media, NGOs or partners?

• Would an open-source-type development approach be feasible?

• On a more mundane level, how can simple data be used to enrich a daring investigation?

• Ways to develop a new website when technical skills are scarce

• How can video, mobile applications or crowdfunding be incorporated when it is difficult to access PayPal or when the Internet is constantly on the blink?

• What grants, international donors or potential customers can be accessed for this or that particular aspect of expertise?

With each of the project managers ready and willing, we used the dossiers submitted at the beginning of 2014 as a basis and set to work together, the aim being to build an "enhanced" roadmap enriched by the contributions of experts, on the one hand, and the journalists at the incubator sessions, on the other.

#4M Mashreq: the programme

From there, the task for me and all the partners involved was to work towards the consolidation of the group while adopting a strictly open-plan approach, in rhythm with the projects, needs, feedback and local realities. The programme was deliberately designed to be open, collaborative and revisable, while making use, whenever possible, of contributors from all over the Mediterranean basin.

The programme was also conceived as a form of "cooperation" in the strict sense, hence the emphasis on working closely with project managers themselves, and it involved:

• professionals, some who had followed an unconventional path (freelance journalists, project leaders from digital agencies, engineers specialising in open data, web designers, etc.);

• constantly interweaving paths (based on a point/counterpoint approach) to maintain the critical alertness necessary to identify risks, weak points and gaps

In other words, and to twist the terminology sometimes used in cooperation agencies, it was less a question of using "experts", executives from leading news media organisations (somewhat remote, less hands-on) who could drone on for hours, but rather individuals who were prepared to get their hands dirty. An approach that was less top-down, more exchange-based. A little less conversation, a little more action, as it were. And for each 6-day session, the rule of the game was simple: one theme explored, one outcome.

Everyone kept to the rules of the game. Better still, we took the time, whenever circumstances required, to break them, to make adjustments (to the programme), enhance (the hands-on support), share (documents or templates online) or invite people who were in the area to discuss the changing face of journalism, business models or technology (correspondents working in Lebanon, entrepreneurs co-working at AltCity, designers or developers working in the region).

In terms of timetable, and to get to the core of the programme, we divided up the topics into the following areas:

• Session 1 (21 to 26 April 2014): "News media and the digital age, making it work"

With Anne-Laure Chaplain, from La Netscouade, we held workshops to cultivate a global approach to the digital newsroom. Goal: redefinition of the news media project for the months to follow.

• Session 2 (16 to 21 June 2014): "Online Project Management (1): technical aspects, UX"

With Rémi Rousseau from La Netscouade and Charles Ruelle, former CTO of Etalab, we turned the main hall at AltCity into a huge open worksite to allow us to produce all the working documents needed to redo the websites and to move as quickly as possible into beta mode.

• Session 3 (4 to 9 August 2014): "Online Project Management (2), beta testing and feedback"

Rémi Rousseau (La Netscouade), Loguy (Bot42) and Malek Khradraoui (co-founder of InkyFada) took the opportunity, half way through, to consolidate, guide, advise on, and support the ongoing transformation of each of project.

• Session 4 (4 to 9 September 2014): "Business Models, etc."

Jazem Halioui (CEO of Innova Tunisia and Open Gov advocate) and Thomas Plessis (producer and entrepreneur) helped me lay the (economic) foundations for independence while continuing to question the relevance of the approaches selected; or, when do you know it is time to identify a model to construct and/or consolidate your project?

• Session 5 (before the #4M forum, from October 13 to October 16): "The launch pad"

Philippe Couve (Samsa) and Olivier Lambert (Lumento) are invited to complete this wide-ranging programme by supporting project managers in the last push before the end of the programme: finalising their working documents and their roadmap, and consolidating their project to have the best chance of taking it further.

This final work sequence, centred on giving the project managers their wings, probably does not mean the end of the road for #4M Mashreq: links have been forged between each of these news media start-ups, in some cases partnerships have been established (between them or with international news media), skills have been acquired and cultivated (relentlessly challenged as they have been put into practice) and three project managers have already benefitted from a European call for applications to fund all or part of their development.

As a send-off (or springboard), each project manager is given the opportunity, at the end of the fifth week of work:

• to present their project (in the form of a pitch, because this is the online world) to an audience of potential backers (investors, specialised development funds, diplomats, etc.);

• to participate or even network, actively, at all the events held in the wake of this session during the #4M Forum at the French Institute in Beirut from 17 to 19 October 2014.So, what have we learned about innovation in the media (while keeping it small-scale, specific, committed)?In short, this whole experience has enabled me to confirm – or not – some of the things I have learned and discovered over the course of the various collaborations I have been involved in over the past decade. It is not possible to go into each and every one in detail, so I will just touch on the highlights as I look back over what the emergence of the digital world means for news media, wherever they are in the world. Incidentally, all of this only serves to confirm everything that the programme L'Atelier des médias broadcast on RFI has been telling us for years: the North, as we call it, does not have a monopoly over innovation, if indeed it ever did. Good news, in fact.It is obvious, but it has to be said: everyone has access to more or less the same information sources. In other words, when the Guardian, the NYT or I-don't-know-what international media supertanker brings out a web app costing 200 000 euro, everyone can see it, dream of it, test it, comment on it. But when you go back to where you are from you realise that "here, in fact, it makes no sense, it is not sustainable and it's actually unthinkable". Art for art's sake – yes, why not, it is good for scientific progress. But we must try to go further. Or rather, get closer to the reality of usage.Despite the "wow factor", the business model of Le Monde or the NYT is of course not going to suit everyone. Let alone the small fry. Paywall and crowdfunding have their advantages but, again, what works well in Paris is not always feasible in Beirut or Baghdad. That said, we are all in the same boat. As David Munir, CEO of @AltCity, once remarked, launching oneself into a media start-up is a "highly risky business"! In other words, whether or not we consider the business model as the philosopher's stone or, more mundanely, as the crux of the issue, it is always a huge puzzle for journalists. But all is not lost!
• What is more interesting is that this horizontal structure dictated by the (architecture of) the Internet confirms an intuition that is basic, but radically changes the situation. Wherever you are, and given the fact that access to available knowledge and tools is becoming easier, small entities who are motivated, understand usage, and have a real project in mind are entirely capable of developing flexible, open, progressive solutions. I will not go into all the merits of those that I have seen here, but I think I can say that there are many news media organisations in Paris who could learn a thing or two from this programme. Quite frankly, "experts" can now be found anywhere and everywhere. And that is a good thing.

• What is more, you do not innovate just by talking about it or using the services of such or such a consultant in Paris; that is not where the path to innovation lies. Nor does it lie in keeping the bank happy or maintaining good relationships with institutional partners. And, contrary to the narrow view taken by some, you do not innovate simply because there is no choice or because circulation figures are down. You innovate because, as a journalist (online or otherwise), you want to somehow change the world, and because, as a writer (at the crossroads of narrative, development and design), you believe that information should be free, shared and now a little more "engaging". Against the propaganda machines and on-tap releases, stories that are woven online may take a different view, an alternative stance.

• Finally, this type of programme induces the breaking down of barriers. And innovation, as we know, is now transcending the walls of newsrooms and the conventional boundaries of our world. The news media that are now emerging are not bound by borders, but are a sort of "meta-news media" bringing together journalists who, more than anything, have the same needs and subscribe to a shared editorial charter. The boundaries are ultimately those imposed by usage.

#4M Mashreq, looking to the future

To wrap up this long post, I feel the following points are worth making:

• Whatever the fate of each of the projects incubated, this programme will leave its mark, of that I am sure. No newsroom has ever created the Holy Grail of online news with a "disruptive" and "scalable" cash machine strapped to its back. But everyone has had the opportunity to acquire new skills, which they can now go on to share. Broadcast. Evaluate. All in the name of online flexibility and editorial independence.

• As the programme has taken a "project" approach, the changes made are permanent, with a view to maximising the impact of the support provided. It is an experiment that can easily be extended or duplicated, in this region or elsewhere, through the medium of MOOCs, to expand, transmit, disseminate. Conversely, one of the key lessons of this programme is that journalism, especially online journalism, is indisputably a matter of collaboration (rather than "community"), know-how and technology. But above all it is a matter for individuals and personalities. And in journalism, innovation can never exist without people.

• Last but not least, innovation, in this case, took the form of "cooperation" in the strict sense: North/South, South/South, South/North. The compass was in a spin, that's all it took. The French photographer Anita Conti (1899-1997), who scoured the continents and the seas, was therefore right: journalism, whatever one thinks, no matter what anyone says, is primarily a matter of "generosity". The main innovation and the "proof of concept", as it were, of the #4M Mashreq programme that we have painstakingly developed online and in our shared garden in AltCity, are undoubtedly so."

By Julien Le Bot
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Photo credit: Julien Le Bot