May 22, 2008
In Tampa, a continuous news desk
translates into online traffic growth
Does your newsroom structure reflect a new news environment?
The traditional newsroom model—with its compartmentalized teams or departments and assembly-line production for end-of-day deadlines—has proven ill suited to a 24/7 news environment that requires speed, creativity, collaboration and the ability to turn on a dime. The structure, systems and processes of the newsroom drive both culture and results. That’s not to say moving desks around a few times a year will change the newsroom. But smart newsroom leaders are finding reorganization—some sweeping, some in small steps—really helps.
The continuous news desk (which now even has the acronym of CND) has come to symbolize digital transformation in many newsrooms, especially larger ones where cross-disciplinary communication tends to be diffuse. I described that change at the Miami Herald here.
This week, I talked with the editor of another Florida newspaper, about a similar change that yielded striking results.
Janet Coats, Executive Editor of The Tampa Tribune, said the organization in the past year:
- Combined online and print newsrooms under the one editor (Coats). (I confess, I was a little surprised that Tampa, a poster child for media convergence, had separate print and online newsrooms as late as 2007.)
- Reorganized into “deep” and “now” teams in an effort to balance getting the story of the moment with investigative and explanatory journalism.
- Moved a significant number of print staff to a new continuous news desk.
“The results,” Coats said, “were immediate and gratifying - a 60 percent increase in (local) page views year over year.” Breaking news page views were about 11 percent of total before the change, Coats said. “Since continuous news desk, that share has grown to about 30 percent.”
Those results in turn pushed culture change in the newsroom, buoyed the staff, and convinced even Web-resistant staff members. “The launch of continuous news desk was the best thing that happened culturally in the time I’ve been here,” Coats said. “It was one of those wonderful moments when we actually launched the continuous news desk we saw immediate results. That was a glorious thing for people who were demoralized. ... We saw that pop, a dramatic pop, in Web traffic. The only thing that had changed was the journalism. That was powerful.”
I bet other newsrooms have similar stories of change. I’d like to hear yours. Please share them in the comments to this blog.
April 14, 2008
Journalists tend to see mutually exclusive alternatives
An Either/Or mentality limits choices and impedes creativity
How do you challenge this attitude?
One common newsroom approach that blocks change is Either/Or framing.
John Robinson pointed to (and challenged) a classic example of journalism Either/Or think: The notion that journalists sacrifice credibility to meet the expectations of their online audiences.
I’m not here to revive that shopworn premise. Thankfully, many news organizations have moved on. But I think it stands as a clear example of the way Either/Or thinking holds back journalists and news organizations.
The workforce culture gurus call this “oppositional’’ thinking. It’s the tendency to see two ideas as being in conflict or mutually exclusive rather than approaching them as being potentially compatible.
So it’s EITHER credibility OR satisfying readers but never BOTH. It’s EITHER an offensive, anonymous free-for-all in reader comments OR it’s no comments allowed at all. It’s EITHER “Do it the way we’ve always done it” OR “Get complaints from readers.” EITHER journalists OR bloggers. That the last one raged long after journalists were blogging and bloggers were creating journalism is testament to the power of oppositional thinking.
The problem is that this way of thinking swiftly closes the door on alternative possibilities just when journalists and their newsrooms need to be more open to them.
As I said in a comment to Robinson: As long as journalists think they have to sacrifice credibility to meet reader expectations, they will not embrace abundant opportunities to do both.
Even worse, in the Either/Or universe, one of the two alternatives usually feels more familiar and comfortable to the journalists (Be credible. Keep offensive comments out.). The old is always going to feel more familiar than the new, so the decision between two alternatives usually favors the tried and true.
How do you encourage your colleagues to move smartly from Either/Or to Both?
I’d start by borrowing from Bob Steele at Poynter, who advises journalists to avoid making important ethical decisions when they’ve only considered two alternatives. Editors who consistently ask for and offer multiple alternatives can change Either/Or mindsets that are limiting their newsrooms.
What Either/Or examples have you seen? What alternatives have you found? I would love to see comments that explore other newsroom examples of this mindset and tips how you’ve led your staff past it.
By Michele McLellan, 04/14/08 at 9:04 am
Posted in
Culture |
Innovation |
Leadership
Comments (2) •
Permalink •
Tell-a-Friend
April 13, 2008
One editor’s advice: Focus on early adopters and watch the crowd follow
Who are the early adopters in your newsroom and how are you cultivating them?
Ryan Sholin has terrific advice for pushing change in the newsroom: Don’t waste your time trying to change the whole newsroom at once. Cultivate the early adopters.
I’ve seen this approach work in newsroom after newsroom, as Tim Porter and I described in “News, Improved.” Once the early adopters go to work, the discussion can move from the abstract (and fear-inducing) notions of change to concrete examples of new forms of journalism. Conversely, I have been in many newsrooms where executives thought that merely telling their staffs en masse to change meant they would. That’s a formula for frustration.
As Sholin says: “.. you can’t mandate mindset. But you can grow culture.”
What approach has worked for your newsroom? Do you have a way to identify and foster early adopters?
April 10, 2008
- Changing news environment raises the bar for newsroom leadership
- The Des Moines Register responds with a Leadership Institute
Are top editors in your newsroom meeting today’s leadership challenges? How can you help them?
In my work advising newsrooms over the past few years, I’ve been struck by the need for significant changes in leadership attitudes and styles of top news executives and newsroom managers. Amid the challenges and excitement of making sure their staffs learn new skills and new ways of thinking about their mission and their audiences, newsroom leaders often have to learn new skills and attitudes as well.
In the assembly-line world of the daily newspaper, the traditional top-down organizational model for the newsroom worked pretty well. But in a digital environment that requires collaboration and seeks constant adaptation and innovation, the cohesiveness of the top editors and their ability to communicate a shared vision consistently becomes a force in pushing the organization forward.
Jill Geisler at the Poynter Institute says a key role of a leader is to “Communicate a unifying vision for the team, but also deliver it personally to individuals, framed so they can clearly see and feel it. Use every opportunity to reinforce your message so it becomes part of the daily language and life of the organization.”
To do that most effectively, the leadership team has to be on message, not walking and talking in lock step, but showing how all the parts of the newsroom fit into a whole that shares values and wants to move in the same direction.
Carolyn Washburn, editor of the The Des Moines Register, is addressing the need for her editors to become change leaders with a Leadership Institute.
The Register was one of the first newspapers to convert to the Gannett Information Center model, which means everyone has print and online responsibilities. By early 2007, the newsroom had been reorganized.
“We had put new structure, new staff and lots of new tools in place - video gear, databases, etc. I decided that the next step was to more fully develop the editors as leaders. We would only be successful with new tools and structure if our editors fully engaged as continuous learners, as innovators, as strong managers and as leaders. We needed their leadership and smarts and creativity to DO something with all of that new stuff. Some of them already got that; others were good assembly line editors but not stepping up as leaders.”
With $25,000 from her publisher and the help of a consulting professor from nearby Drake University, Washburn put together a six-month training program that she describes as “a wonderful balance of practical and inspiring.” Washburn enrolled 18 people—about a dozen top editors from the newsroom and colleagues from other departments who work closely with the newsroom.
The program addressed topics including leadership and management (and the difference between the two), when to draw on different leadership styles, negotiating and holding staff accountable, dealing with conflict. You can read a summary of the curriculum, created by Dr. Tom Westbrook, of Learn Associates and a professor at Drake University, here.
The program wrapped up in March, and Washburn is seeing results.
“It has been excellent, giving everyone common vocabulary, prompting discussions about our personal and organizational values, learning to identify how “ready” our folks are to take on different kinds of work and how to manage to their level of readiness, how to lead for accountability,’’ Washburn said in an e-mail.
What a great list of competencies for today’s newsroom leaders (whatever their formal rank). I especially like the idea of instruction in how to assess and manage the readiness of the staff.
Of course, it doesn’t all end with one training program, even one as ambitious as Washburn’s. Washburn is already planning a similar program for the next tier of editors in her newsroom and looking for ways to keep the recently trained leadership group talking - and learning.
Are your expectations changing for your newsroom leaders? How? And how are you helping them learn to change?
Resources: Poynter’s Geisler effectively summarizes the role of the leader in a change environment in the handout “Rules of Change.” If you are thinking about new ways to understand the dynamic role of leadership in your newsroom, it’s a good place to start.
By Michele McLellan, 04/10/08 at 1:00 am
Posted in
Culture |
Leadership |
Training
Comments (3) •
Permalink •
Tell-a-Friend
Exploring innovation, transformation and leadership in a new ecosystem of news, by journalist and change advocate 
RSS Feed
