Russia Beyond the Headlines celebrates five years with international partners’ conference
On May, 23, Russia Beyond The Headlines (RBTH), an internationally recognized source of news about Russia, brought representatives from its international media partners, including the New York Times, the Daily Telegraph and the Washington Post, to its Moscow office to celebrate five successful years and announce plans for the future, including further geographic expansion, new products for mobile devices, and a Moscow-based TV studio.
Russia Beyond the Headlines is a platform for political, business and cultural news and analysis. It offers original, on-the-ground coverage of Russia from professional, independent journalists who are passionate and knowledgeable about the country. RBTH publishes monthly supplements about Russia in 19 leading global media outlets in 12 languages and maintains 12 websites. A truly multimedia project, RBTH is delivers news on mobile phones, iPads and e-readers.
During the meeting, RBTH celebrated its fifth year of working with the Washington Post (United States), the Daily Telegraph (UK) and the Economic Times (India). In the years since the project was founded in 2007, the number of partners has grown to include the New York Times group (U.S., France, Latin America), Sueddeutsche Zeitung (Germany), South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), China Business Daily, and Mainichi (Japan).
“We have seen fantastic results. Our readers are much more engaged with Russian issues, be that about politics, society, business or even travel. I think what we see in over five years is a great interest in Russian issues and I can see it getting better and better as times goes on,” said Toby Moore, a publisher with the UK’s Telegraph Media Group.
RBTH also announced the 2.0 release of its iPad application, which is planned for September 2012 and will introduce major improvements for the user experience. The initial launch of RBTH’s iPad application last year combined the feel of a newspaper with the flexibility of a tablet, delivering content from RBTH’s website and print editions along with additional unique material developed especially for the iPad through very simple and intuitive navigation. The app also features an interactive map and multimedia components.
Based on users' interest in deeper coverage of certain topics from Russia, RBTH announced the introduction of Special Interest Projects. These multimedia magazines for iPad and Android tablet target a niche group of people and provide behind-the-scenes information on a single subject. The first Special Interest Project is "Voices of Read Russia" a magazine about trends in contemporary Russian literature produced for the Read Russia literary exhibition taking place June 2-7 in New York.
RBTH also announced plans to launch a television division by the end of 2012. A mobile team of reporters with camera and editing stations in Moscow will create video features, interviews, reviews on events and places in Russia to enrich RBTH coverage. The Moscow Studio will invite newsmakers for in-depth interviews. All video packages will be streamed on current RBTH digital platforms rbth.ru, mobile.rbth.ru and RBTH for iPad, and additional channels will be created on iTunes, Vimeo and YouTube. RBTH TV will start production in English and will add other languages in the future.
“The approach is right on and RBTH is starting to look at specific niches and targets, utilizing digital media and staying on top of it with the iPad application. I think it is a tremendous product. They are integrating and reaching the audience no matter where they are with print, website and now with the iPad app,” said Cathy Cox, Global Accounts Manager at The Washington Post.
Contacts
Fedor Kilmkin, PR Director Tel: 7.965.243.9557Olga Ivanova, New Media Projects Director Tel: 7.965.250.3294
Russia Beyond the Headlines is an internationally recognized source of political, business and cultural news and analysis. It offers original, on-the-ground coverage of Russia from professional, independent journalists who are passionate and knowledgeable about the country, and opinion pieces from commentators who hold a wide range of views about Russia’s leadership and direction.
Since 2007, Russia Beyond the Headlines has published monthly supplements about modern Russia in leading global media. Currently, supplements are published in 19 of the world’s leading newspapers, including the “New York Times” (United States), the “Washington Post” (United States), the “Daily Telegraph” (UK), “Le Figaro” (France) and “Mainichi Shimbun” (Japan). In addition to print supplements, Russia Beyond the Headlines maintains a website rbth.ru, which features expanded content and resources, website for mobiles mobile.rbth.ru and RBTH for iPad.
Free iPad app can be downloaded here