Although some analysts claim such innovative methods have already been used by other news websites in China, The Paper's is quite different. Other websites don't have a criterion for choosing reports; they just collect the latest news from other sites. But every piece of news that The Paper features reflects the website's own news value.
In fact, it is more like The Huffington Post and The Daily. It has the same genes as The Huffington Post, because it has attracted more readers to be writers by creating an open platform for users. It has also inherited the genes of The Daily, launched by News Corp as a trial online news website. Although The Daily didn't survive as a pioneer of traditional media's transformation into new media, it provided many elements that others have emulated.
Like The Daily, The Paper was created by team from a traditional newspaper and changed from a paper-and-ink product to a digital platform, and it pays great attention to original content. Also, both papers chose to operate independently as new brands without relying on their traditional resources and parent companies. But, of course, learning from The Daily's "mistakes", The Paper has made a wiser choice by providing an open platform rather than running a closed system.
As a new media product, The Paper has learned from network media worldwide, and achieved a breakthrough for the news industry in China. But it is still a small fish in the big online pond because it does not offer any innovative news production mode or technology. Whether such high quality news content can be offered sustainably to form the level of readership needed to run the website remains to be seen. It is also not certain whether it can create a successful profit model.
The need now is to observe how its innovations and limitations play out. After all, the window of transformation of traditional media has not closed yet; there is still time for more pioneers to make a successful transformation to new media.
The author is a researcher with the Journalism Institute of Xinhua News Agency.
(China Daily 08/09/2014 page5)
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