Newsroom With A View

(Originally posted May 20, 2010)

I can’t MAKE you read it, but a Poynter.org post about the early lessons of the reformed Journal Register’s “digital first, print last” approach ought to be required reading. Why:

“When we started out, we said, ‘We’re going to do what? How are we going to do this?'” said Laura Kessel, managing editor of the Willoughby News-Herald. “Now we’re showing ourselves that we can operate in a world that, even six months ago, used to be foreign to us.” 

The lessons are useful for both newspapers and television stations because many of them deal with audience-interaction and moving news online first. From Perkasie News-Herald Managing Editor Emily Morris:

“It’s been such an interesting experience to find out what residents are concerned about and then incorporate that into our coverage. We still have to get out there and cover stories, but I think all the reporters are thinking a lot differently now about what tools we can use to do that.”