Newsroom With A View

(Originally posted on May 10, 2011)
Initially, the post “The Story So Far by J-Lab’s Jan Schaffer kind of ticked me off. She makes suggestions for news organizations to deal with their permanently diminished resources, and at least a few at first come off as quite glib. Example: “Identify the gaps in news coverage and find ways to fill them.” Oh. THAT’s all. Why didn’t I think of that? Just find a way to fill those gaps.

So just so you know, if you have/had that reaction to her post, I had it too, and I would guess it’s a pretty common one. On further reflection, however, I’m going to knock her instead for her phrasing and approach, not her ideas. The problem with her post is she is already over firmly in the territory of having gotten over the shock of what journalism has lost — staff, beats, travel budgets, the whole enchilada — and she’s writing as someone who has moved on to attempt confront the new reality. Many of us are not there yet, even if we think we are. I must not be, judging by my reaction. I think she was tone deaf to how her phrasing would strike this large segment of journalists. Or maybe she was aware of it but decided not to expend the energy to try to add some psychic cushions in her suggestions.

Put a few of those cushions in place yourself, if need be, and then read her suggestions. The premise of her post is that we will never get back the beats and jobs we have lost so far. Given that, how do her suggestions stack up, in your estimation?

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(Originally posted on Dec. 21, 2010)
About a month ago, Michele McLellan of the Knight Digital Media Center wrote about three signs your newsroom isn’t ready to cross the digital divide. A great many new-media and journalism-innovation types heaped praise on it. I wanted to post something here about it but struggled to figure out what to say. Thankfully, there is now a followup that helps: a Q and A with John Robinson, the editor of the News & Record in Greensboro, about changes that Michele’s original post prompted him to make. The Greensboro paper’s weekday circulation is under 65,000, so reading about changes in that newsroom is not at all like reading about structural changes in a place like Orlando, Atlanta or Dallas.

Read the whole thing, but here’s what seems to me the biggest change: Starting Jan. 1, the News & Record’s digital editor essentially becomes the No. 2 editor in the room, answering to John and carrying “the authority to direct anyone in news to do what is needed digitally. … He also is charged with knowing what the reporters are working on and making sure that they file online reports when we need them to versus when they get to it.”

In his own blog post about why he decided to make the changes, John wrote that when he read McLellan’s post, “I realized that our newsroom isn’t ready. That embarrassed me and inspired me.”

On a related note, not quite three weeks ago the new CEO of the Journal Register Co. made a much-discussed presentation about efforts to get that company transformed to a digital-first news operation, and his remarks share a key element with what John is trying: If you truly want to make a change like that, the people in charge have to be primarily digital, not rooted in the traditional platform.

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