Last week I interviewed Mike Hill, Deputy Editor of the Lancashire Evening Post, for an article on changing tools and approaches in local newsrooms (due to appear on Journalism.co.uk). Mike has some interesting plans on using surveys beyond the simple reader poll (since reported here), and experiences of the weaknesses of geotagging, among other things. The interview can be heard here - it’s around 10 minutes.

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Guest Blogger Bas Timmers is Newsroom Editor at Dutch broadsheet de Volkskrant.

‘A newspaper is like an oil tanker,’ editors in chief call out in despair again and again. Changing the direction is often slow and difficult. But that of course just depends on whether you have the right rudder or not. Because the captain is still steering the ship. Yes, journalists can be quite nasty and stubborn, but mutiny is still a step too far for most of them.

Jeff Jarvis also used a metaphor from the shipping industry recently: “When you’re redesigning newsrooms, you need to redesign habits and brains and job descriptions and skills while moving the furniture — or else you’ll be moving the furniture on the Titanic.”

He touches a very sensitive spot with that. Of course it’s important and groundbreaking if you design a hypermodern newsroom. One that is physically in the heart of the newspaper, surrounded by the sports, economy, politics and other desks and completed by some nice videowalls. Like the Telegraph in London did, for instance. And much better by the way than the ‘zoo newsroom’ in the new office of the New York Times, which looks like a major step back in time. Transparency looks different, that’s for sure.

Multimedia

But ultimately of course it’s not about where the desks are. You have to change the work- and thinking-patterns of the editorial staff, and that’s much harder than moving furniture.

The entire concept behind an integrated newsroom is to start working as a multimedia company, to let the differences between print and online dissolve: convergence, as everyone now seems to call it. Which is quite necessary, because every editor in chief will see that the entire news process is still focused at the paper product. Editors write their article at the end of the day, hand it in to the subs and go home happily.
An integrated newsroom can’t change that all at once. Yes, very slowly there are editors emerging who are willing to produce several pieces for the web DURING the day. But the developments in the online news world are going so rapidly that publishers run the risk of changing too slow.

Alternatives

There are just too many things happening at the same time. A comparison between paper and online news content teaches us that the customer has so much choice nowadays that he really is the king of his own world. Because he has alternatives for every product he uses. The newspaper only has a dominant share in media consumption during the morning hours. Later this consumption shifts to internet, cell phones, television and radio. During that process, the customer makes personalised choices all of the time: through rss feeds, or by visiting sites that cover a certain field of interest. A page about cinema reviews for instance.

Nowadays the customer also wants to have his say about those movies himself, because the critics’ truth doesn’t necessarily have to be his truth. So he reacts to reviews through comments, or through his own weblog. The consumer becomes a producer and vice versa. And we’re not talking merely about the so-called early adopters, the relatively small group of geeks that just LOVES to use new technique. No, everyone born after 1985 is part of a new generation for which internet has always been there. Those consumers want to:

• get news for free, 24/7
• discuss and participate. Interactivity
• consume the news in many different ways: paper, pc, laptop, cell phone, iPod, tv, etc.
• be served tailor-made. Many many niche markets will be created
• be surprised. Read or watch something that is hard to get somewhere else

Third stream

Such a concept is not tenable in the current time-frame with the current, very generic newspaper product. When news has to become more interactive, personal and 24/7, the focus should therefore be on online production. The newsPAPER is the logical continuation of that, a snapshot at 7AM of the best stories and photos of the preceding 24 hours, complemented with (background) material that has been produced specifically for paper.

Creating for online and paper means making videos, pictures, graphics and fully integrated in this process. But the biggest difference is that editors will start to produce much more and per field of interest, inspired by the blogosphere and readers. That will become the third source of inspiration, after the feeds by news agencies and ideas/research of the staff itself. Welcome to third stream country.



What this means in everyday practice

So blogs have to be taken seriously, finally. Until now they were often perceived as uninteresting, badly-written personal diaries that we don’t need. That was the general opinion, not least among journalists. And for 95 percent of blogs this assumption is true. But those last five percent still represent a massive amount of blogs, a massive amount of knowledge and a massive amount of power. Bloggers just use a different approach, a different stage and a different definition of news than journalists.

One of the differences is that they also write about less important news, that wouldn’t make it into the paper. Which is no problem, because a paper is a generic product, whereas a blog has a specific subject in which readers are interested above average. But the more important difference here of course is that bloggers open up to their audience. This can lead to a lot of cursing back-and-forth, yes, but also to great tips to explore a subject.

In the American election race for instance the blogosphere will have a major influence because of the authority of some commentators and because of the salient facts that will be discovered about candidates.
That’s why journalists should take blogs serious. They are important competitors, that threaten to undermine the role of newspapers as news- and opinion makers.

The news last week that Google is opening the attack on Facebook already leaked through to the blogosphere months before and was first officially confirmed by TechCrunch. That’s why reporters should find the bits, pieces and big chunks of news on the web and then publish them in a way that is attractive to the modern consumer of news: through blogs, indeed. That is the essence of the ‘three streams model’, where internet becomes the third source for stories (together with own research and the personal contacts of a reporter). But what does this model look like in the everyday newsroom?

Start early

Well, the days that the editorial floor fills up at around 10AM are over. The web staff starts at 7.00 sharp to put the most important news from the past night and the current paper online. The rest of the office will be organised in small clusters of, let’s say, five people that focus on subjects such as education, environmental issues, showbiz, movies, European Union, domestic news, football, internet, America, etc etc. Every cluster has at least one editor present at 7.45 to scan the latest news on their respective fields. Fifteen minutes later the online morning meeting starts. On which subjects do we focus? What are video and graphics going to do?

The coordinators of the clusters then start to produce items throughout the day, based on the news wires, blogs and their own research. Subjects that need more time and attention should be done by colleagues. They are also responsible for writing columns, editorial opinions, and so forth.

In the meantime the coordinator has a look at the feedback from readers and deals with it. When there is important news, he signals the head of the internet desk, who is functioning as a gatekeeper to the frontpage of the site. This gatekeeper is also responsible for determining whether breaking news should be published immediate through sms, e-mails and mobile platforms. Exactly as it was described by Paul Bradshaw in his Diamond Model Theory, which is really good for breaking news.

Big waves

Only by starting at this early hour can the editorial room produce sufficient materials before 9.00 AM. At that time, the first big wave of visitors hits the sites to keep on rolling until 11PM. So the journalists keep on rolling until that time as well, in two shifts. During the day the reporters shift their focus from news to opinion, background and video: these need more time to produce. Besides, visitors have more time for this kind of material in the evening.

The rest of the cluster can start at the normal time. The paper product will be discussed briefly and by only a small group of people in the morning (to evaluate and to generate new ideas). Editors will blog about this meeting, just as The Guardian does, so readers know why the paper made some choices and to show the internal debate.

In the early evening there is another meeting where the outline of next day’s paper will be determined AND the online products of the current day are being evaluated. Indeed, another reason for a blog post.

And yes, editors will have to work much harder, sometimes well into the evening. But the work also becomes faster, more challenging and personal. Those who don’t fancy this development have no future any more in journalism.

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UPDATE (April 2012): The BBC College of Journalism asked me to revisit the model 4 years on. You can now read the first part of the results on their blog - with further substantial parts to follow next week. Thoughts welcome.

UPDATE: I’ve slightly changed the original diagram (below) to emphasise the fact that the Alert and Draft stages should be as much about inviting information from users as about publishing it first; likewise Analysis should include user contributions gleaned from those stages; Interactivity has a slightly different dotted line as this may or may not be the case depending on the medium chosen.

A month ago, I used the Online Journalism Facebook Group to ask readers to suggest what areas they wanted covering, in an experiment with bottom-up editing (the forum for suggestions is still open by the way). Megan T suggested “Rethinking the production of newspapers”.

After researching, conceptualising and scribbling, I’ve come up with a number of models around the news process, newsgathering, interactivity and business models.

The following, then, is the first in a series of proposals for a ‘model for the 21st century newsroom’ (part two is now here). You can also read this in Russian and Spanish. This is a converged newsroom which may produce material for print or broadcast or both, but definitely includes an online element. Here’s the diagram. The model is explained further below it

Building on the strengths of the medium

The strengths of the online medium are essentially twofold, and contradictory: speed, and depth.

New media technologies are able to publish news faster than the previous kings of speed: TV and radio. Think mobile and email updates. Think moblogs. Think Twitter.

At the same time, the unlimited space and time of the web, and its hypertextual and ‘pull’ properties, make it potentially deeper and broader than the previous kings of context and analysis: newspapers and magazines. Think Wikipedia’s coverage of Hurricane Katrina. Think the Daily Kos. Think hyperlocal websites. Think Chicagocrime.org.

The process model above proposes how a large news story might pass through a converged newsroom, from speed to depth, in the following steps:

1. Alert: as soon as the journalist or editor is aware that a story is breaking, an alert is sent out. This might be from their mobile phone, Blackberry, or wifi laptop. Subscribers to text or email updates, a Twitter or Facebook feed, would be notified instantly. This shows you ‘own’ the story; it reinforces your reputation for being first with the big stories; and for the smaller stories, it can provide an opportunity to add personality to your coverage (the ‘what I’m doing now’ approach of Twitter). And it drives readers to your website, newspaper or broadcast.
2. Draft: too rough for print or broadcast, but perfect for blogs. Backing up the alert, the draft report – like a wire report – gives initial names, places and details – and sources. It is updated as fresh details come in. The draft performs the important role of keeping the ‘Alert’ readers on your site, but it also serves to spread word through the blogosphere, bringing in more readers and helping your search engine ranking. Ideally it will also attract commenters and pingbacks which can add or correct details, or even provide new leads. Frequent updates – for instance linking to other coverage – help to prevent it getting knocked off the top of Google News (which looks for the most recently updated, not the first posted).
3. Article/Package: in between the two extremes of speed and depth where online excels, traditional print and broadcast media have these strengths: their documentary nature, and the very limitations of their time and space. Their ability to document a ‘snapshot’ – an interim definitive account: the 300-word article or 3-minute package – is key to traditional news media’s appeal. The editorial decision that this story was worth a spot is important when compared to the internet’s infinity. At this stage, the draft turns into a package with higher production values, and which could be online, in print, broadcast, or all of those. The timing may be dictated by print or broadcast processes.
4. Context: back online, that infinite space has an important role to play in providing instant and extensive context: how many times has this happened? Where can I access previous reports? What does that concept mean? How does this scientific principle work? Where can I find more information about this person or organisation? Where can I go to for support or help? Hypertext is central here – the ability to link to a range of documents, organisations, and explanations – both from your own archive and from external providers – in a portal that provides an essential resource. The print or broadcast report may also draw on some of this context, but it should refer to the online resource for more.
5. Analysis/Reflection: after the report, comes the analysis. For online this may mean gathering the almost instant reaction taking place in the blogosphere in general, on your own blogs and forums, and proactively from the informed and the affected. The person covering the story may reflect on the whole experience on their blog, while podcasts are great for staging discussion and debate. At some point print and broadcast will take one or more snapshots for their production cycles.
6. Interactivity: interactivity requires investment and preparation, but can engage and inform the user in a way other media cannot, as well as providing a ‘long tail’ resource that generates repeat visits over a long timescale: a Flash interactive may take days to produce but can provide a compelling combination of hypertext, video, audio, animation and databases (they can also be dynamically updated); a forum can provide a place for people to gather and post experiences and information; a wiki can do the same but more effectively. Live chats can allow users direct access to newsmakers, journalists and experts.
7. Customisation: the final stage should be automatic: the ability for users to customise information to their own needs. At its most basic this might be to subscribe to email, text or RSS updates of that particular story. More advanced services might include social recommendation (‘Other people who read this story also read…‘) or database-driven journalism that allows users to drill down into the information: ‘What happened to that street?’; ‘How many cases were there in my postcode?’; ‘What does this tax mean for someone on my wage?’. This means production processes that integrate things like metatagging, and interfaces that can run off a database, and last but not least, a culture that thinks in terms of these possibilities.

That news process in action

Let’s take a typical mid-range news story: ‘public figure makes controversial statement’ to illustrate the process specifically:

1. Alert: ‘Lord Smith: “stop ‘Mickey Mouse’ degrees”‘ – link to…
2. Draft: gives more detail, and is open to comments and discussion, linking to other blogs. One commenter points out that Lord Smith studied English Literature. Journalist seeks ‘official’ comment to put in the…
3. Article: two blog post comments incorporated into a version that goes in the printed newspaper.
4. Context: best links taken from blog post comments, as well as full transcript of speech, audio and some mobile phone video taken by one attendee. Tags (‘LordSmith’) used to link to ongoing coverage and provide an instant ‘portal’.
5. Analysis: one particularly well informed blogger who linked to the Draft post is paid to write a longer piece for the paper. A commenter – an academic – is invited to a podcast discussion with Lord Smith.
6. Interactivity: website visitors are invited to ‘attempt an essay question’ from a ‘Mickey Mouse’ degree, giving a real first-hand understanding of what is involved in the subject.
7. Customisation: an RSS feed or email alert is available for any stories tagged ‘LordSmith’

The news diamond

This model can also be represented as an alternative to the inverted pyramid: a ‘news diamond’, if you like.

Just as the inverted pyramid was partly a result of the increasing role of the telegraph in the news industry, and dominant cultural ideas of empiricism and science, this news diamond attempts to illustrate the change from a 19th century product (the article) to a 21st century process: the iterative journalism of new media; the story that is forever ‘unfinished’. More than anything, it’s designed to challenge the dominance of the inverted pyramid, to illustrate its origins in the industrial era, and its shortcomings. And in the spirit of the ‘unfinished’, none of these models are final: please post a comment with your own contributions.

UPDATE: Part two of the model for the 21st century newsroom is now live.

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I’ve been at it again. Last night I presented a speech to editors and ad directors at Trinity Mirror Midlands (Birmingham Mail and Post, Coventry Telegraph, Sunday Mercury and various weeklies throughout the region). Given that they’d been exploring digital ideas all day I tried to keep it light to begin with – so the linked Powerpoint below begins with a mock awards, with the more hard hitting stuff coming after.

The hard-hitting stuff consists of lots of pithy phrases – the headlines were:

• It’s no longer about content, it’s about services
• It’s no longer about publishing, it’s about communication

I talked about how the news industry is having to shift from a 19th century production-based system to a 21st century service-based industry, and how online advertising alone is not going to plug the gap left by dropping print revenues (a number of new business models are covered that may provide other sources of revenue).

And I tackled this common phrase that the newspaper is now ‘one of many channels’. I think that’s still a ‘broadcaster’ mindset, and that instead we should think of print as ‘one way of helping people communicate’.

And I revisited some of the elements from my Vienna speech about the strengths that journalism needs to play to: investigative journalism, database-driven journalism, interactive journalism, and multimedia journalism; and reader-driven forms such as wikis and crowdsourcing.

Here’s the PowerPoint. Comments welcome.

Speech to Trinity Mirror Midlands

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Editors Weblog reports on Telegraph editor Will Lewis’ strategy for ‘integrating’ the newspaper:

“Perhaps the hardest thing to do in the run up to the Daily Telegraph’s radical integration was to convince the paper’s staff. Lewis explained how in meetings his suggestions would constantly be voiced but most would be politely blown off. So he put all of his efforts into convincing his colleagues. He embarked on a worldwide tour, visiting the United States, Latin America, Japan, and Europe to learn about the best practices and initiatives in each place. He returned to London with some fantastic ideas.”Then he set out to convince the staff. He found the newsroom’s “angriest” employees, people that had realized the need for change in the past or had had other complaints ignored. When he got these people on his side, the rest of the staff paid closer attention and management eventually decided to heed Lewis’ advice.”

And in the same article Gannett’s Michael Maness talks about the processes of “media shifting” and “size shifting” “that are scaring traditional publishers.”:

“Media shifting is key with lean forward [engaged consumers] types; it means that they’re using various technologies to consume media the way they want, when they want. He used the example of Tivo, a digital video recorder which can be easily programmed to record any number of television shows that can then be watched at the convenience of the viewer. The major problem with Tivo is that it allows viewers to skip through the show’s advertisements.

““Size shifting” means that people are actually changing media to fit a smaller time frame. For instance, people will record a television program, take out the parts that most interest them, edit them together and then post them on YouTube. An hour long program can thus be summed up in 10 minutes if need be.”

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