That morning Wroclaw, the fourth largest city in Poland, became a stronghold. Defenders were not soldiers, nor fire-fighters. They were people like us armed with their mobile phones.

• Michal: “Kozanow district is fighting. 9 lorries with soldiers, 4 diggers, hundreds of people try to make the river embankment higher.”
• Marta: “They told us to evacuate the sick and old. We are so worried and now we’ve run out of sand.”
• Pawel: “Is there anybody from Piesza street? I can’t contact my grandparents. What’s up there?”
• Kajetan: “I am back from Kozanow. Working all night. Neighbors brought us strawberries.”
• Gosia: “I can’t help you as I am in France now, but I am following you and wish good luck!”
• Kiepas: “Fog over the city. Temperature: 13 degrees. Humidity: 93 per cent. No rain at the moment.”
• Kasia: “In Kozanow water is pouring through the embankment.”
• Magda: “What’s the source of this information? Put here only checked info. Don’t repeat any media bullshit.”
• Ziomek: “Confirmed: water really broke the embankment. Kozanow in panic!”.

That morning — on May 22, 2010 – I was not there. I followed all this fight with the river on the Internet blog wroclawzwyboru.blox.pl.
Its editor, 29-year-old Pawel Andrzejczuk, a small company owner, estimated he cooperated with some 300 contributors who fed his blog with over 3000 news items and uploaded 4 GB of photos and videos.
One amateur video captured the river breaking the embankment in Kozanow district of Wroclaw. One could see the crowd running away and hear them swearing to God.

The floods and media: from 1997 to 2010

Watching streets under water I could not stop thinking about another flood that had hit the city in 1997. That time I was a young reporter at a local newsroom of my newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza.
Our editorial office was under water as well as the offices of the other three local newspapers. In the early days of the flood I lost my car driving through the water, so I could only sail across the city to collect information.
Fixed line phones were down. Mobile phones were big like handbags and very rare. Internet was still a toy for geeks.
The flood of 2010 was so different. It affected much smaller part of Wroclaw, destroyed many less houses and brought no casualties. But it was a bigger news event, as professional journalists were joined by amateurs who dared to provide independent 24-hour live news coverage on the Internet.
Everybody’s got a mobile phone with a camera now. Becoming an “accidental reporter” is just one click away.
Pawel’s blog directly competed with all the TV news channels, radio newscasts and newspaper portals. In just 5 days it attracted 157,000 unique users in a city of 630,000 inhabitants. It’s about one third of what our established local news portal of Gazeta for Wroclaw is attracting monthly.
50 per cent of users found Pawel’s blog when googling for “flood in Wroclaw” and similar keywords. They chose a link to an amateur news site instead of official sources, or professional media.
Official sources were in disgrace as it was a mayor who kept repeating Kozanow was safe. Professional media — a bit slower than a real-time web, more confident of the official version, cautious of the unconfirmed amateurs’ accounts — turned down some audiences.
An amateur news feed had also its flaws. Reading it I had to cut through the jungle of revealing witness-accounts and simple rumors, but at the same time I felt as a reader that I participated in something big. Such a rare feeling in our individualistic world of “Me”.
Pawel might not be a professional news editor, but over last 5 years he has built online a strong community: over 560 websites link to his blog, his Facebook profile got more than 2,600 fans and become almost as popular as our local Gazeta’s one. It all paid off during the flood.
Finally, Dan Gillmor’s “We the Media” manifesto reached its point in my part of the world.

So, how does it feel to be challenged by own readers?

Not so bad, as we have brought it in a way upon ourselves.
My newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza was founded in 1989 by anti-communist opposition to bring independent journalism to the country and support underground Solidarity’s bid for the first partly free elections in Poland.
Today Gazeta is the best read quality newspaper here with an average paid circulation of 347,000 and 4,2 mln readers reached in total every week in print. Our online portal Gazeta.pl, the fourth largest website here after Google, a Polish clone of Facebook and a TV-owned portal, attracts 11,8 mln users in a month. It’s 66% of all 17,8 mln Polish Internet users (Poland has 38 mln inhabitants in total.)
Gazeta’s publisher, Agora, is one of the most successful media groups in Central and Eastern Europe. Its offer includes magazines, books, record and movie productions, cinemas, radio stations and out-of-home advertising.
21 years later Gazeta still believes its mission is broader than just delivering honest news. Since its launch it has been a voice of “modern Poland” — supported democratic reforms, joining NATO and the European Union. It has been helping to build an open society by providing platforms for debates and inspiring people concerned with a common good.

Embracing new media

We have embraced new media as they make our efforts easier and more effective.
Our online boards (Forum.Gazeta.pl) let people discuss over 5,900 different topics ranging from politics to education and health-care to hobbies and over years our users shared there over 113 mln posts and 2 mln photos.
Our blogging platform (Blox.pl) became the biggest in Poland as it hosts over 184,000 individual blogs. Pawel’s blog on the flood in Wroclaw is one of them. When water broke embankments of that city, it became the best read blog on the platform. So in fact we have been sharing all his traffic successes.
We’ve been even ready to share some revenues! Pawel’s blog is a member of our online advertising network (AdTaily.com). This network helps to turn visitors of blogs and niche sites into advertisers and provides funding to independent voices in the society. Until today it has attracted in Poland over 13,000 amateur and professional online publishers.
(Recently, AdTaily.com was named by CNBC as one of the Europe’s 25 most creative companies. If you want to learn more, please come and listen to their story at the INMA/OPA Europe Newsmedia Conference in Kraków, Poland, on September 29-October 1, 2010.)

This post is a chapter of an article I wrote for the upcoming report on the future of journalism to be published by the International Press Institute in September 2010.

Forum4Editors: What is “Redaktionen” (please describe)? How long is it on the market?

Louise Abildgaard Grøn: Danish tabloid “Ekstra Bladet” created “Redaktionen” (The Newsdesk), an internet-based editorial platform where schools (students in school, age between 13 and 17 years) produce their own newspaper. Today most schools produce newspapers as part of the education — using a variety of standard graphical software. With this revolutionizing platform from Ekstra Bladet, the students follow a process and produce their own newspaper with online support and help from editors, journalists, photographers, layout etc. The aim is to get the student to understand both how to write and edit a newspaper but also understand how photos and layout works. 2–3 days after deadline “Ekstra Bladet” delivers 1,000 colour prints of the paper — directly at the school. This award-winning campaign has built intense loyalty with young people. The project is two years old and was launched october 2007.

How many newspapers have been produced since the start of Redaktionen? How many copies have been distributed?

Since launch, October 2007, more than 400.000 papers has been distributed.

Did Redaktionen help Ekstra Bladet with its recognition from the readers?  Has it influenced the sales level of Ekstra Bladet?

„Redaktionen” is a product of a long term strategy to involve youngsters in our brand. The point is to get them involved in our brand much before they actually become potential customers. Therefore we do not expect the launch of ‘Redaktionen’ to have direct influnece on our sales just yet. This is a long term investment to build strong relations to our brand.  But we have seen an increased traffic on ekstrabladet.dk in this target group.

Do you have any other ideas for establishing the connection with young readers?

We have two other succesful products for our future and young reader:
1. The Front Page (FP) can be seen close related to “Redaktionen”. FP is an internet-based interactive game where students in high schools produce their own Front Page through a series of dilemmas. It can be accessed anywhere and is free of charge. During FP students realistically experience the necessary role that Ekstra Bladet plays in a modern democracy. In FP students are exposed to some of the same dilemmas, time constraints, adrenaline rushes and the ups and downs experienced by journalists, photographers and editors during a normal (or maybe an exceptionally exciting) working day. The FP is a case-based interactive dilemma game in which the students deal with four different fictional cases all based on real life cases from Ekstra Bladet’s front page. This gives FP its authenticity by transforming something abstract into something concrete which the students can relate to. This form of storytelling involves experience and scenario based learning to reinforce the learning process.
2. The worlds largest football-tournament for schools is the biggest in the whole world. The tournament was established in 1961 by Ekstra Bladet. It’s a big success with 1,000 (out of 1,500 total High Schools in Denmark) participating schools and more than 1,700 school teams. Finals are played in the Danish national stadium – Parken – and are broadcasted live on national TV.

Redaktionen is a great learning tool about journalism and newspaper production. Forgive me this strange question, but what’s really a point to teach readers how the newspaper is being made? Nobody who wants to drive a car needs to learn how the car is being produced.

I think there is a small misunderstanding here. ‘Redaktionen’ teaches students about why we have newspapers, journalism and secondly how to create a newspaper. On the other hand we believe that if you understand the newspaper, what it can do for the society and how it’s been made students may be much more likely to develop a life long tradition using newspapers. You can say that we intend to trigger an interest for reading newspapers, that the students otherwise would not have developed. Also this gives us a chance to interact with students in a way, much more relevant  to them. The target group for “Redaktionen” are students (pupils) in the age 14 to 17 years. That’s why they need both to learn how to drive a car and also need to learn how it is produced.

Thank you very much for this interview.

Beata Jaworowska (left) and Katarzyna Kolanowska (middle) receive the prize from WAN's Dr. Aralynn McMane

The Prize was received by Beata Jaworowska, the Deputy Marketing Director in Gazeta Wyborcza (published by Agora media group), Poland, and Katarzyna Kolanowska, the Marketing Director of Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland during WAN’s Readership Conference in Amsterdam in October 16-17, 2008.

The reason for jury’s verdict was:

“This newspaper clearly engages its young readers on many fronts — from sport to education to human rights — in creative and effective ways that are sure to build loyalty. This commitment was proven again with the paper’s two entries this year that won jury commendations”

How do they win young readers? Read an article written by Ewa Tomaszewicz, head of educational content at Gazeta Wyborcza and its online services.

”Many young people don’t have newspapers at home, so they cannot read them even if they want. That’s why we deliver our newspaper for free to schools and universities,” explained Mr. Barbot working for the largest regional daily newspaper in France.

Ouest-France has a circulation of nearly 800,000 copies – twice as much as the best selling nation-wide title Le Monde.

”After two years of delivering free copies of newspapers to school, we see that there is no copies left. So they take it, they read it,” continued Mr. Barbot.

But does he really believe that after having Ouest-France for free will these young readers start to buy the newspaper?

”It’s another thing. Young people are used to free information. But we had some tests with subscription for young people and had good results,” answered Mr. Barbot.

Ouest-France offered readers aged 18-24 to subscribe one issue per week for free for a year and after that period they could continue their subscription, but they had to pay.

”We had very good 15-per cent transformation rate. It is a good result for a direct marketing campaign,” answered Mr. Barbot.

Watch full interview with Herbe Barbot, made at the INMA Outlook 2009: European conference in Vienna, October 1-3, 2008.

Video brought to you by Artur Karda and Agnieszka Mazus, multimedia reporters at Media Regionalne, Polish part of Mecom Group. Read more about Mecom here.

More videos like these in Video section of forum4editors.com.

Learn more information about the International Newsmedia Marketing Association here.

Eight weeks ago we have launched the School of Photography Masters at Gazeta. All the readers have become its students and the best photo reporters have been telling them how to take better photos, sharing their tips and tricks.

Readers have got eight different tasks and have been submitting photos to Gazeta’s website. Gazeta’s photo editors have been reviewing their works and making comments on the school’s internet blog.

Readers’ engagement has been tremendous. We have collected in total 141,665 photos. They have been submitted by 25 thousand individuals. Most of the school’s students are aged 15-30.

The best photos are published on Monday, Sept. 22nd, 2008, in a printed edition of Gazeta’s feature supplement “Duzy Format” (Large Format). The best citizen reporters are awarded with professional Nikon D60 photo cameras (the main sponsor for this school is Nikon).

Here are some pages featuring the best photos submitted by readers (the front page of the supplement and the first two-page spread of the results):

Introduction to the photo school

Piotr Wojcik, a photo desk editor at Gazeta, officially opened the school on July 18th:

“During the next eight weeks eight great photo reporters will tell you how to take photos, how to look through camera’s lens to see more. We invite you to this unique school of watching and discovering the world that surrounds us.

Our masters of photography covered main political and sports events. Portrayed actors, writers, philosophers, wars and the beauty of nature. They got many prestigious awards. Today every reader and photo amateur can use their experience.

In the next eight weeks we will learn a story behind their best photos. We will learn how to embolden people to make them show in front of the camera their most interesting sides. We will learn how to make light show and not hide what we want. How to make an unique photo on the beach, in the garden, during lazy holidays and even at boring aunt’s birthday.”

Gazeta’s eight masters of photography were Krzysztof Miller, Kuba Atys, Adam Kozak, Adam Wajrak, Piotr Wojcik himself, Anna Bedynska, Jerzy Gumowski and Michal Mutor.

On the school’s first day they told stories behind the photos they are most proud of:

Lessons with masters

Articles related to the school were published on Fridays and Mondays in the printed edition of Gazeta. They were edited by Lukasz Ramlau, an editor working at Gazeta’s “Duzy Format” supplement.

Each lesson at this in-paper school consisted of three elements:

1. An interview with a master about his practice and tips he can share with readers.

Examples: how to learn about a person to make a good portrait? How to be parient enough to take a good photo of wild animals? How to avoid typical photos from holidays and how to show nudity without porn-style shots?

All the interviews were conducted by Magdalena Grzebalkowska, one of Gazeta’s best feature writers.

Her interviews were accompanied by showcases of masters’ works and stories behind their photos.

2. A story about a master of Gazeta’s masters. We were publishing works of the best photographers in the world that inspired Gazeta’s photo reporters and editors.

These galleries became main photo features of our Monday supplement “Duzy Format”.

3. Practical advice how to take better photos.

Examples: how to make a good portrait? How to take photos of kids? How to look at a landscape?

These practical tips were often presented in a simple Does-and-Don’ts way:

Tips and tricks section quickly started to use readers’ photos as examples:

Home works for readers

This unique guide to photography was accompanied by a contest for readers. We asked them to take and submit photos on eight topics:

• Love. Readers had to illustrate a poem written by K.J. Galczynski.
• Poland in color. The most colorful places, people and things around us.
• Scarecrows. What place in your city would not you show to any tourist?
• Disappearing world. House with a grass-made roof, wooden bridge, wild landscape…
• Meetings. People you met in your journey.
• Moves. Holiday sports activities: football, chess, swimming, bike riding.
• The strong man. In your family, in your city, in your building… Somebody whom you respect and admire.
• Paradise. Places and moments that you have been happy at.

To submit photos and enter the contest readers simply had to log in to our web portal or to the photo sharing site PhotoBlog.pl that cooperates with Gazeta:

Below is an example of the photo submitted by a reader. Other readers could make comments and often did. So the school’s students cooperated like in a real school.

Gazeta’s photo editors were browsing all the submitted photos and making comments on some of them on their official blog.

In-paper promotion

Gazeta used many formats of in-paper ads to invite readers to start learning at our school. Here are some examples:

What’s next?

We were thinking about this photo school as about an interactive feature for holiday season. But as readers liked it very much and we got over 140,000 thousand photos, we changed our plans and decided to extend the lessons and provide new services online and in print.

On Monday, Sept. 21st, we also launch a video school in association with TVN, a commercial Polish TV channel, and Lipton, a tea brand of Unilever.

Our video master is Slawomir Idziak, one of the best Polish cinematographers working in Hollywood, who was nominated for an Oscar award for “Black Hawk Down” (2001) and directed a photography also for “Proof of life” (2000), “King Arthur” (2004) and “Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix” (2007).

Mr. Idziak will teach readers how to shoot videos with a mobile phone!

The lessons by Mr. Idziak will be accompanied by a competition. The winners will get 3,000 euros and watch their movies presented on a big screen at the OffCamera independent movie festival in Cracow in early October.