Sunday, February 8th, 2009...10:40 pm
Part One: What’s an online-first newsroom?
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about exactly what an online-first newsroom is. And I’ve come up with six points, although I don’t think that tells the whole story. So I sense another series coming on.
In today’s post, I’ll discuss six attributes that form the foundation of an online-first newsroom. Next post, I’ll get more detailed about the specifics.
And I’ll warn you that my sense of an online-first newsroom is evolving. This post is what I think at this very instant. Next week, next month, next year, my sense of an online-first newsroom likely will be different.
That’s not flip-flopping; that’s learning. I think we need to keep an open mind as newspapers reinvent themselves. So please share your ideas and help me evolve.
Six attributes of an online-first newsroom:
Immediate: Newspapers have struggled for decades with the idea that they have the story, but they can’t tell it until the next morning (or afternoon.) So now we have the Web. Use it. Don’t wait. Don’t post on your blog “after you write your story.” Don’t drive back to the newsroom even. Use Twitter to break news as it happens and follow up with an immediate blog post, streaming live video or audio.
On multiple platforms: Don’t have most of your staff just writing for print and a small pool of crazies blogging, social networking and using multi-media. Jackie Hai at Convergence Commons has a great list of what journalists-in-training need to know to be prepared for the job market. Do existing journalists need to know all of these, including how to podcast and edit a video and create a slide show. Someone or several people at the paper need to know, and eventually, perhaps, everyone. But don’t wait to use tools until everyone is trained. Start using them with the early innovators. Let them experiment and bring back what they learn to the rest.
Connected: Readers can’t be those annoying people who call us with dumb story ideas or to complain that they were misquoted. We need to adjust our attitude and see them not just as the customer, but as the keepers of the network we want to be part of. Instead of selling them a product, we should be selling relationships. Mikael Zackrisson at Natet puts it very well: “The readers want to be part of the meeting place we create for them under our brand, no matter if it´s in print, on the web or in a physical meeting. The advertisers want to be part of that relationship; they want a place by the fireside where the interesting stories get told.”
Interactive: Every print story should have a Web element that’s meaningful, not just thrown in because, “you, know, we need that Web thing.” Every reporter should be blogging, responding to comments on their blogs and commenting on other blogs in their niche. Every reporter should be engaged in social networking, sites such as Facebook. Every reporter should be tweeting. Journalists should be connecting with readers in every way they can think of, including e-newsletters, face-to-face chats, guest posts.
Curatorial: Our job is no longer reporting the news. It becomes aggregating, making meaningful, providing context, explaining, grouping together, updating, all the type of things that a museum curator does as Mindy McAdams explains on Teaching Online Journalism. Or, if you prefer, think of our job as a DJ, who selects from millions of tunes which ones to spin to keep the party-goers dancing. Jeff Jarvis at BuzzMachine used that term in a post last year, citing a French blogger’s idea.
Crowdsourced: What’s that? The Knight Digital Media Center defines it as the “use of a large group of readers to report a news story.” The center’s blog offers some informative examples, such as allowing a reader-driven database of theme park accidents people had witnessed. I’d extend the definition beyond that to include letting readers blog on newspaper Web sites and letting those bloggers cover certain types of stories. I also think crowdsourcing includes reporters culling tips from blog comments and following up on them. The concept of crowdsourcing rankles many a traditional journalist because “Oh, my, how will we know if it’s true?” Well, the way I see it, you use citizen journalists for projects that make sense, you train them and you present the story or compilation for what it is, culled by readers. Then you relax and realize that journalism really isn’t rocket science after all. Daniel Victor offers an insightful defense of crowdsourcing that includes noting that it saves reporters’ time, engages readers and creates a better product. Who can argue with that?
– Gina
I'm Gina Chen, a 20-year veteran newspaper journalist who is studying for a communications Ph.D. I want to see journalism survive. I believe news organizations need to embrace new media, change their thinking, improve their content and innovate. Read more about me 
17 Comments
February 9th, 2009 at 12:51 am
Great post. If there’s anything I miss about the newspaper world, it’s that I left when “Web thing” meant three quick sentences to tease the next day’s story on the Web. And that was only a year ago!
As you’ve outlined here, “Web thing” is much bigger than that.
February 9th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
[...] for an online newsroom By Anthony Salveggi At Save the Media, Gina Chen offers six attributes of an online first newsroom. Her list includes immediate blogging and Twittering, interactivity, getting journalists to work on [...]
February 9th, 2009 at 11:32 pm
Shane,
The sad thing is, in too many newsrooms, that “web thing” is still two sentences to tease the next day’s story.
I’m hoping it will get well beyond that — quickly.
Thanks for adding your two cents.
– Gina
February 10th, 2009 at 3:38 am
It’s sad how journalism is still stuck in the old model. We all know how to change, but it is so counterintuitive to the idea of the ‘elite press’ that many journalists look down their noses at the idea. One thing newspapers can use as models are some of the online magazines that have been popping up in the last few years. Many have the concept of establishing a ‘relationship’ with readers/advertisers down pat.
And I still love the idea of ‘curating’ the news. It also helps clarify the idea of branding, in which your name should link easily to your speciality in a reader’s mind. If each publication covers what it does well, readers will go there. Just like visitors wanting to see dinosaur bones will go to a natural history/science museum and not an art museum.
February 10th, 2009 at 11:05 pm
Beth,
Really like your analogy about the museum, relating to branding. Newspapers seem reluctant to “brand” their individual writers, although I think they should.
People resonate with a person.
– Gina
February 11th, 2009 at 2:31 am
[...] Contact me Part One: What’s an online-first newsroom? [...]
February 14th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
[...] day should/could be like in an online-first newsroom. (Be sure to read the rest of the series: Part one examines the over-arching ideas that form a f0undation of an online-first newsroom; part two examines the nitty [...]
February 18th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
[...] SÉRIE de três posts sobre como é trabalhar numa redacção que põe o online em primeiro lugar: Parte 1 , parte 2 e parte [...]
February 23rd, 2009 at 6:45 pm
[...] Part One: What’s an online-first newsroom? « Save the Media – First of three parts. A nice set of articles. [...]
February 27th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
[...] the Media’s Gina Chen has a very nice two-part look at the principles of an online-first newsroom; what strikes me is that in many [...]
March 4th, 2009 at 1:51 am
[...] points I mentioned in my tips for fostering an online-first newsroom is that journalists need to connect with readers by creating communities. I think it’s a point that requires more [...]
April 20th, 2009 at 10:30 am
[...] place I read over my coffee or (let’s be honest) in the bathroom. I want my newspaper to be online-first and summarize the latest on the Web quickly, but I also want to read actual [...]
July 4th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
[...] but another argument is rising up to compete with it. That argument says that we need curators to help us filter through the news noise that blares through the pipes every day, curators we trust to show [...]
July 9th, 2009 at 8:13 pm
[...] newsroom from scratch: I talk a lot on this blog about what an online-first newsroom might look like, but that talk is about converting an existing newsroom. What if you had the luxury [...]
July 27th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
[...] “Filling the page” doesn’t translate to quality, and it doesn’t lead to an online-first newsroom. Newspapers are generally great at covering major breaking news. Why? In a crisis, staffers rely [...]
October 18th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
[...] thoughtful post from Gina Chen, a 20 year veteran journalist, lays out clearly how mainstream media newsrooms should use social [...]
October 23rd, 2009 at 11:19 am
[...] Chen at Save The Media writes how the media should be using social media in its newsroom. Sally Falkow at The Proactive [...]
Leave a Reply