Do you know your new media staff members? Probably not.
How many of your colleagues know the names and locations of the new media/online journalism staff members at your paper?
And where are your new media people located? At many newspapers, if not most, they are off to the side somewhere — often out of sight, out of mind. Few newspapers integrate their Web producers, editors and developers into the newsroom. Many people tell me they don’t even know where their online staffers sit or their names.
Honestly, can you blame them if they are tucked away somewhere far from the rest of the editorial staff?
That’s not a good way to demonstrate the important of the Web to established print staffers. It creates a divide that ultimately hurts readers and papers. This divide often causes several issues.
- Having online staffers be apart of the newsroom sends a powerful message about the importance of the Web to a paper’s success. Don’t underestimate this.
- If your online team is off by itself, print staff members won’t be as apt to consider the Web when covering stories or producing features. Every big story package can benefit exponentially from having Web staffers in at the beginning.
- Online members often feel left out and looked down on by the print staffers. This perception is never helped when the online staff is stuck by the marketing or business staff or cleaning staff or some random closet.
- Without an integrated newsroom, a news organization will never, ever have a real continuous news desk, which is one of the biggest features users want.
The online team at my paper has never been in the newsroom with the print staffers. This has caused most staff members to think of our online presence as a mere after thought — if they think of it at all. It probably has even caused some to not consider us real members of the editorial team. This is set to change early next year, and should have a tremendous impact on our product and how we cover news.
Our readers will benefit tremendously from the increased collaboration, and it will send a strong message to the rest of the newsroom staff. Yes, some organizations like The Washington Post even have separate buildings for their print and online staffs, but they are an outlier. The Post is one of the best news organizations in the world, and WashingtonPost.com and Washington Post-Newsweek Interactive are filled with tremendously talented managers — albeit in Virginia instead of D.C. with the print staff.
Plus, the Post gets a lot of collaboration between it staffs, because it is a company that has been a big proponent of the Web for years. A much better example is the Post’s big northern rival, The New York Times. The Times just moved into a new building, with an integrated newsroom (watch this video that explains it). Editors say it has had a tremendous impact already, and having online staffers mixed with print staffers allows a much more organic process for creating news in the 21st century.
It’s just a lot easier for collaboration, which is the name of the game.
I’d like to get some feedback on how your paper’s or other paper’s you have seen do things.
December 21st, 2007 at 4:47 pm
Not too long ago at The Alligator, the online staff was in a room at the front of the building, closed off from the newsroom. When I started as a media staffer, we were using the photographer’s room, which is adjacent to the newsroom. When I took over as online managing editor, my staff and I worked in the newsroom with everyone else…though because of our limitations as a student paper, the only people who were there when online staff was were copyeditors and production.
In the Spring semester, the online staff will continue to work in the newsroom, but will adjust hours slightly to be more visible to writers. I’m continuing as m.e., and finally getting my own desk!
Slowly but surely, progress is being made.
December 21st, 2007 at 10:51 pm
We have producers here and there throughout the newsroom these days. There’s video editing being done on the metro desk, a producer sitting at the sports desk, TV, radio and assorted multimedia in an office in the middle of the newsroom. But most of the producers work down a long hallway, next to the staffs of our Spanish-language newspaper and weekly neighborhood news publications.
I was talking to someone about the workspace-affecting-mindset issue just the other day, and they wondered whether the entire copy desk, which is directly in the middle of the newsroom, could simply switch places with the bulk of the new media staff. It would certainly send a signal.
December 22nd, 2007 at 10:28 am
Megan, congrats on the Managing Editor position! I was the managing editor online before I was editor in chief. It’s better preparation for being EIC of a modern news organization than being managing editor of the print edition.
We struggled a bit with how to staff everything while I was in college. At one point, we had separate staffs for online and print writers. The online writers were focused on breaking news, quick event recaps, etc, while the print did the more analysis and preview pieces. But the problem with a lot of college newspapers is that when the talent and drive graduates, the operation suffers a lot.
Things we were doing while I was a junior in college are no longer done. We did some really cool stuff several years ago.
William, I think the new media staff makes more sense than the copy editors in the newsroom. I’m sure the copy editors wouldn’t be thrilled, but there job is not to report. They can either call, e-mail or walk out to the newsroom if they have a question about a story. New media and print people both do reporting. They need to collaborate.
It looks like the online team at my paper is bumping the features staff from the newsroom. Any of those non-core staffs could easily be bumped. But it’s all about newsroom politics, and some people’s egos may override doing the right thing for a company.
I think all newspapers need to at least send that signal that the new media staff is integral to the future of the organization. And it has to start now.
December 22nd, 2007 at 7:06 pm
Pat - Good post. You have to wonder though, if convergence is really the best answer? Just look at the most recent Borrell report which indicates that combined print and online sales staffs don’t work. Now granted editorial is different, but maybe the Washington Post is on to something and maybe they haven’t gone far enough. I guess time will tell.
December 24th, 2007 at 6:03 am
[...] Pat Thornton wrote a post on his blog discussing how newspaper companies integrate their print and online staffs. “And [...]