Leadership and digital strategy for news organizations were at the center of Knight Digital Media Center’s training programs from 2007 to 2012, and the center then launched its work as a consultancy with individual newsrooms and other organizations.

While many other journalism training programs in the early days of digital focused on imparting new digital skills, the center sought to help newsroom leaders and their business counterparts develop digital strategies and tactics for implementing them in their organizations, often providing a framework in which skills training could be most effective.

Between 2007 and 2011, the center’s signature leadership program conducted four classes with a total of more than 100 participating news leaders. The program, funded primarily by the Knight Foundation, served top editors from local newspaper organizations and their digital deputies, as well as representatives of the revenue side. In 2010, the program expanded to include leaders of public broadcasting organizations and nonprofit online news startups.

Newspaper participants included major metros such as The Seattle Times, The Boston Globe, The Miami Herald, and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution as well as smaller organizations including The Wichita Eagle and the Waco Tribune-Herald. Participating startups included the St. Louis Beacon, Investigate West, and the New Haven Independent, and broadcasters included NPR, PBS, Public Radio International and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

The strategic leadership curriculum evolved each year based on feedback from participants as well as the changing landscape of the industry.  For example, in 2007 and 2008, leadership training was a multi-day lineup of topical discussions and presentations, designed primarily to raise the digital literacy of participants and discuss potential applications with expert faculty.

Key topics included: Identifying and understanding digital audiences, new technologies transforming the news, reporting and storytelling practices for digital platforms, change management and creating new models for "digital first" newsrooms.

Initially, the center faced several challenges. First, it had to convince top editors to leave newsrooms in crisis for intensive multi-day training. Second, at least in the early years, it had to overcome their skepticism about the web as a delivery platform for news. Finally, the center had to raise their digital literacy and give them tools for advancing their work on digital and social platforms.

By 2009, the program was highly customized based on advance surveys and interviews with participants and focused on guiding fellows through development and implementation of social media strategies for their organizations. To maximize the potential for impact, the program included online training and coaching that culminated in a convening during which participants finalized and presented their plans.

In 2010, KDMC customized the leadership curriculum for a six-month program. Using surveys and personal interviews with the participants, the program sought to help participants define what they wanted to accomplish with their organization over the life of the program and figure out how to achieve their goals.

The 2010-11 program included in-person sessions, webinars, online discussions and individual coaching – all with the aim of helping participants develop digital strategies and move their organizations toward implementation.

Key themes included: the imperative to engage readers across platforms and through social media; the growing importance of mobile; that "web first" meant more than just news updates, and key metrics. The training also addressed ways to drive organizational change with multi-platform strategies, the importance of training targeted to organizational strategies, culture change, the value of risk-taking and emerging models of revenue generation.

In the early programs, news organizations sent teams of two participants – the top editor and typically either the managing editor or digital director. As the program evolved, it became clear that involving the business side of the organization would help maximize impact on the organization. Starting in 2009, top editors typically partnered with their publisher or another executive responsible for revenue development.

Leadership participants reported making significant operational and product changes that were informed by their participation in the KDMC program.  For example:
 

• David Boardman, then editor of The Seattle Times, participated with then Managing Editor Kathy Best in the 2008 program.  Two years later, Boardman called the program "a landmark event in the evolution of the newsroom of The Seattle Times."

  “It is difficult to overstate the impact those five days have had on our organization. I am confident in saying this: We won both a Pulitzer Prize and the Associated Press Managing Editors Innovator of the Year award this year, and I have doubts we would have won either had Kathy and I not attended the KDMC workshop in 2008.”

  Boardman (now Dean of Temple University’s School of Media and Communication) and Best used the program as a springboard to establish a digital-first attitude toward breaking news, to increase engagement through social media, to use metrics to measure impact, and to develop a collaborative network of local online community news sites.

• Sherry Chisenhall, editor of The Wichita Eagle and a fellow in several leadership programs, including the intensive in 2010-11, used her participation to restructure her newsroom with a digital-first focus, establish an in-house training program that enabled and required all staff to take part in 30 hours of training annually, and develop and implement a social media strategy for the organization.

  “These {KDMC} programs, the instructors and ideas I’ve had access to literally helped me build a vision and strategy from the ground up," Chisenhall said. "We went from near-panic (an urgent sense of needing to do something – but what?) to a focus on the right metrics, a social media strategy, a mobile plan and an understanding of the new role of partnerships and relationships."

  “KDMC leaders helped us learn how to think differently – how to focus to three or four priorities at a time, succeed at them, and move on to the next priorities. They exposed us to tools, resources and ideas that we wouldn’t have found on our own."

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