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» www.iframagazine.com In early 2003, many journalists at the news and information agency RIA Novosti were still using typewriters. Today, RIA Novosti has a state-of- the-art newsroom, and the company is aiming to make the most of it. Svetlana Mironyuk, editor in chief of RIA Novosti, the state-owned Russian News & Information Agency, now oversees a very different business from the one she took over: “In January 2003, when I was ap- pointed head of this agency, I felt like I was in the Stone Age. There was no computer network, and hundreds of journalists were still working on Optima typewriters. Sales were at zero level, while RIA Novosti had a reputation of being slow and a not particu- larly reliable source of news.” By January 2008, RIA Novosti had integrated all its traditional editorial and online departments into a single modern hub-and-spoke newsroom and launched a new multimedia wire service, which in ad- dition to news, commentary and analysis in text format, offers audio, video, infograph- ics and cartoons. This and a range of other products and services are now offered to corporate clients, and via their website, to a general audience. According to Medialogia, a Russian media monitoring service, during 2007 RIA Novosti was quoted in the media far more often than its competitors ITAR-TASS and Interfax. Also in 2007, RIA Novosti’s web- site was in the top five Russian news sourc- es and first among the three agencies. RIA Novosti’s history dates to 1941. It was transformed into Press Agency Novosti (APN) in 1961 with a primary aim to reach an international audience with the help of newspapers and magazines published all over the world. During the chaotic 1990s, the agency went through several reorgani- sations. By the time of Mironyuk’s arrival in 2003, it had no paying clients, a news- wire distributed for free, and a poor reputa- tion. “It was the reputation that held back all my reformist plans,” she recalls. “About two years passed after I took over the agen- cy before the market noticed RIA Novosti had caught up with our main competitors, ITAR-TASS and Interfax, in terms of expe- diency and reliability. Only then could we start thinking strategically.” Enthusiasm and drive for change By that time, Mironyuk had assem- bled a strong team of professionals whose backgrounds included the most reputable national dailies, Reuters and non-media companies. At this stage the movement to- wards becoming a multimedia agency be- gan. All changes were planned and imple- mented by an informal group of people chosen not according to their place in the RIA Novosti’s hierarchy but rather on the basis of enthusiasm and drive for change. Says Valery Levchenko, RIA Novosti deputy director general: “During the 2006 WAN Congress in Moscow, we got a general understanding that the direction of change should be towards multimedia. This under- standing was strengthened in the following year, and it was then we formulated an am- bitious goal to become a leading player on the domestic media market within three to five years and reach the top positions on the world media market within five to seven years. Subsequent close cooperation with IFRA and other consultancies gave us the know-how and courage to go ahead.” In the leadup to the full integration of the newsroom, all the agency’s editorial and commercial departments went through re- organisations aimed at providing better service to clients while securing existing revenue streams and developing new ones. New standards for news were formulated, and the editorial workflow was reformed to ensure better coordination between depart- ments. In the near future, RIA Novosti plans to integrate technological platforms for production of different formats, and expand training. “We believe 80 percent of our journalists should be able to work profes- sionally with video and audio. Investment in training is going to exceed what we have spent on office reconstruction, hard- and software,” Mironyuk says. Alexei Pankin New era for RIA Novosti Opportunity Russia June 2008 IFRA Magazine Svetlana Mironyuk be- came editor in chief of RIA Novosti in 2003 after working for a major PR consultancy. IFRA: Who are your clients? Mironyuk: By introducing a multimedia offer, we have expanded the range of our clients. Previously, our main clients were traditional print and broad- cast outlets; now we see a growing im- portance of newspapers’ and magazines’ websites. IFRA: Which of your multimedia services has the highest demand? Mironyuk: To our surprise, this turned out to be the product that we initially devel- oped for our internal use. We wanted to synchronise the calendars of future events that each department was produc- ing. We developed a unified database of future news events from one day to a year ahead. And then we realised that this was a market product. We began selling it several months ago and already have dozens of clients ... Expanded interview online (6182) ‘We have expanded our range of clients’ RIA Novosti’s new newsroom in Moscow. S. Mironyuk Moscow 26
