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Do it: The new ideal newsroom: Part 2
Published on 08/07/08
by Zac Echola
I apologize for the gap between posts. It’s been a busy summer for me.
In my last post I shared many tools newsrooms can use to keep track of each other out in the field. The point of the list is to show you how you can communicate away from your desk with lots of sources and many editors. There’s absolutely no reason a reporter or editor can’t work exclusively in the field today.
Today I want to discuss workflow. Specifically integrating news workflow into an online ecosystem.
The Internet is an ecosystem. Like all ecosystems, the more diversity the more healthy the entire ecosystem.
The same is true of stock portfolios. Diversity is a good thing. A truly diverse portfolio will better weather disaster if one stock takes a dive.
Ecosystems rely on symbiotic relationships amongst fauna and flora, creepies and crawlies. The Web, too, relies on the generosity of others. A single Web site is only as strong as its network.
If I were to build a news center from scratch, this is how it would happen. There is not necessarily a need for a clearinghouse of information. Readers have many ways to discover your content. Mixing relevant content with content that is highly likely to be irrelevant to a reader is bad news. Eggs in one basket and all that.
The Internet is my platform. Not a Web site. Not twitter. Not mobile devices. The entire Internet.
- All reporters, columnists, editors and photographers would blog their beat(s). No exceptions. The blogs would be hosted on their own domains and the bloggers would be responsible for the growth of the sites. These bloggers should use as many services as possible to grow their communities.
- Editors should cull the best and most interesting content from the beat blogs into niche sites. Let’s say we have five features reporters (Faith, Nightlife, Arts, Columns and Gardening) and one feature photographer. You then have a recipe for a local life Web site. They should be content hubs by also aggregating related information from around the Web. Attach paid items like Obits and personals with other forms of advertising and you have a site with low overhead, possibly high returns. Editors are responsible for the growth of these sites.
- ‘Brand’ sites (The general news place where still too many newspapers are posting today’s newspaper) should gauge which stories from the niche sites and blogs require follow ups and more in-depth coverage. From there the blogs and niche sites link back and we can begin to see how the Internet feeds on itself.
- A media group would be wise to further aggregate content. If a group has 30 newspapers and a TV station, chances are there’s much overlap in types of content. Further aggregation would mean a wider community to tap.
- Meta data is required of all content. At the very least this means properly tagging content.
- Advertising should sell the network. (Example: I could buy an general run of network ad, a run of site ad on a specific site, or I could buy impressions based on certain meta-data across multiple sites)
I’ve created an information ecosystem.
- The essential production of news hardly changed. Information still flows from source to reporter to editor to audience, but the audience and advertisers are given multiple access points. These access points allow for editors and the community to put a check on bad coverage, but it also creates a situation where a media company has complete ownership of the news online from start to finish.
- Multiple sites means lots of diversity. Diversity means lots of links which ensure the health of the entire system. The community at a politics niche site would benefit from an environmental issues blogger where the two subjects intersect.
- Diversity also means that if one product doesn’t meet expectations, it doesn’t bring the rest of the system down with it. If a gardening blog fails, it only affects the few readers of that gardening blog. The only advertisers affected would be advertisers looking to buy ads on that specific blog, but they still have options if they’re willing to take impressions solely from the blogs archives and the niche site archives. But if they buy ads based on the gardening meta data, other blogs that feature that content type still keep the impressions rolling.
- Plenty of room for growth. The advertising network can easily expand to accommodate other sites (presumably discovered via the beat bloggers) through revenue sharing. Much of the aggregation could be automated or built into push button solutions.
To me, this is what a newsroom should look like today. It should be many small pieces loosely joined via links. It should have granular relevance and it should be mass at the same time. Give your newsroom the tools and they will create the links.
The end. Or is it?
Please leave a comment so I know what you think about this post. After that, check out It's randomonium! Or, if you're so inclined, take a gander at what I'm reading and my del.icio.us links.
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Comments on The new ideal newsroom: Part 2
11 Responses
Standalones » Invisible Inkling
08/07/08
[...] Zac Echola, on his vision of a distributed and loosely joined newsroom: [...]
WFL
08/07/08
Interesting idea, but how do you apply this to small markets, and how do you coax the readership to visit (let alone understand it all)?
-WFL
Zac Echola
08/07/08
I think it still applies to small markets. You just have fewer areas to write about usually. One person working several beats can also maintain multiple blogs with fewer posts. That’s reasonable.
The niche component may not be feasible for super small weeklies, but the blogging part certainly applies.
I’m not sure there’s anything the readership needs to understand, either. I think we sometimes don’t give individuals enough credit. Most people can discern the differences of a blog post from a matter of fact news story. We also shouldn’t expect the vast majority of people to compare notes across sites.
Zac Echola
08/07/08
Also, there’s also something to be said about company wide aggregation, too.
Most of the newspaper properties in Forum Communications are in towns well under 10,000 people. But sites like Northland Outdoors and Northland Ag (which aren’t necessarily the best implementations of the ideas I’ve outlined above, I know) work very well by benefiting the individual properties and the company as a whole.
Suzanne
08/07/08
Sounds like an interesting experiment. One immediate thought: Would readers really be bothered to visit yet another handful of sites or add even more RSS feeds to their already crowded reader? Say someone likes gardening and wants to get local news — would there be a way for that user to get the info without having to visit both sites every day?
You also somewhat implied that editors would market the web sites, which should really be left up to marketing. Let the editors’ main job be editing.
Otherwise, I like the idea of having features carve out their niche sites, work on them full time, then monitor traffic to see what can be developed for the brand site.
Tim Burden
09/07/08
You just described the blogosphere.
Zac Echola
09/07/08
@Suzanne - Check your Web history. Chances are you visit thousands of sites per day. Links just teleport you from one site to the next. There’s hardly any bother.
I do think that editors and reporters should take ownership of their sites. They are the content creators and they should be the ones figuring out how they can get their information in front of the right people. To have marketers market the news to other sites, to me, sounds dirty.
@Tim - That’s the point. Blogs, and specifically blog networks, are Web native entities. Newspaper.coms are not. Web native groups will do what works best on the Web, because that’s the environment they came of age; Newspapers online have consistently tried to be just that–Newspapers online. The linked network is a better fit for the Web, I think.
Tim Burden
09/07/08
OK, but then, why do we need MSM orgs to organize this? It’s self-organizing. All kinds of people blog on topics that interest them. They are already responsible for the growth and well-being of their community. Niche sites pull all that together - like editorsweblog for example for those who blog about j-stuff. What is the SPECIFIC role of and need for the MSM here?
Zac Echola
09/07/08
First, I’m only suggesting that news organizations adapt to a linked form of content creation, rather than ignore it or do it half-assed.
Secondly, does there need to be a specific role?
I’m not asking to be flip. I think that the assumption that every creator fill a new and unique need is unnecessary. A Starbucks opening across the street from the local coffee shop tends to increase the awareness of both businesses and both generally see increases in sales.
The same goes for creating these types of networks. If you build a community around a topic, the net result is usually that all parties share and overlap audience. They grow together.
Sure these things tend to be self organizing, but if media businesses already ingrained in a community don’t build or at least actively participate these networks, they’re missing out.
Beyond that I don’t know what else to say about the matter.
› Daily Links 07/09/2008
09/07/08
[...] The new ideal newsroom: Part 2 | Zac Echola [...]
Jason Kintzler
10/07/08
I like the concept, it’s critical we engage and use social media tools to connect the newsroom and the community.
I though I should share this related post:
Newspapers Missing the Benefits of Social media http://tinyurl.com/6yljzn (hope you don’t mind!)
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