Running head: THE FUTURE OF THE INTERACTIVE NEWSROOM 1

The Future of the Interactive Newsroom

Steve Earley
Elon University
THE FUTURE OF THE INTERACTIVE NEWSROOM 2

Purpose

To be a newspaper journalist in America today is at once terrifying and thrilling.

Technology is threatening journalists' professional existence while also arming them with
powerful tools their predecessors never could have imagined.
Interactive databases enlist the audience in computer-assisted reporting. Mobile
networks increase the reach and safety of journalists within authoritarian states. Social
media facilitate a real-time conversation with audiences.
For all journalists have accomplished without these tools — exposing corruption,
uncovering human rights abuses, moving citizens to act when their government or peers
will not — there is no telling what they will accomplish with them.
Arguing for public and philanthropic support for independent journalism, Leonard
Downie Jr. and Michael Schudson offered that digital technology empowers journalists to
"research much more widely, update their work repeatedly, follow it up more thoroughly,
verify it more easily, compare it with that of competitors, and have it enriched and fact-
checked by readers (Downie & Schudson, 2009, p. 3)."
Journalists rightfully observe that they are working in an "exciting,"
"extraordinary" era (Project for Excellence in Journalism, 2008, p. 3).
They are also on point when they say it is a "nerve-wracking," "tumultuous" one.
The race is on to find a new model before the old model implodes. Monetizing
Web and mobile content is a crucial part of this. So too is reorganizing human resources.
Reporters and editors have more to do: producing fresh content several times a
day instead of just once a day; publishing audio, video and interactive presentations
instead of just pictures and text; communicating with their audience across a range of
electronic platforms instead of just via phone, fax or snail mail.
And there are fewer of them around to do it: The number of editorial employees at
U.S. newspapers sank to 40,000 in 2009 (Downie & Schudson, 2009), about the same
number as 1971, when there were both about a third fewer residents and about a third
fewer newspapers (Newspaper Association of America, 2009b).
Reorganizing efficiently is essential to newspapers' economic and journalistic
health. Yet industry leaders lack clear direction. Only 5 percent of U.S. newspaper editors
surveyed in 2008 by the Project for Excellence in Journalism said they could confidently
predict their newsroom’s organizational structure five years hence (Project for Excellence
in Journalism, 2008).
This paper seeks to provide clarity to those editors and their peers by
summarizing and analyzing best practices identified by researchers and practitioners and
anticipating what may lie ahead. Best practices are organized into four areas:
organizational structure, physical newsroom layout, workflow and corporate culture.

Literature Review

New Models

As plummeting print advertising revenue — it has fallen more than a quarter since
2005 (Newspaper Association of America, 2009a) — leaves newspapers fighting for their
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survival, technically readership is at a record high. Sites of U.S. daily newspapers receive
75 million unique monthly visitors on top of the 51 million print copies they sell every
day. (Price, 2009)
The catch, of course, is that papers have yet to find a way to substantially
monetize the Web. One approach gaining currency among executives is the cable TV
model, in which the cost of gathering and delivering news would be built into Internet
access fees. (Price, 2009). More frequently mentioned are the freeminum approach, in
which basic content is made available for free and premium content is put behind a pay
wall, and micropayments, like those on Apple's wildly successful iTunes music store.
If newspapers find a way to sustain the traditional advertising model online,
technology may increase their bargaining power with advertisers as Web analytics help
them quantify what they have long been saying: that strong editorial content not only
attracts readers but also attracts the type of educated, engaged readers advertisers most
covet (Project for Excellence in Journalism, 2008).
On the editorial side, some of the nation's most competitive papers are learning to
get along so as to make more efficient use of their dwindling resources. Among them are
Ohio's eight largest newspapers, four south Florida dailies including the Miami Herald,
and The Baltimore Sun and The Washington Post (Price, 2009). Others are eyeing
nonprofit status or educational partnerships.
Meanwhile, innovative online competitors, some profitable, some not, are
constantly emerging. GlobalPost, whose experienced editors coordinate more than 60
freelance correspondents in more than 40 countries, is among those turning heads (Price,
2009). On a smaller scale, the Fort Myers, Fla., News-Press is one of the many local
papers supplementing professionals' work with that of citizen journalists.
Producing smaller publications is another way papers are trying to stay afloat.
Generally, both in terms of editorial space and newsroom positions, international and
national news is shrinking and local news is growing. Some two-thirds of both large- and
small-paper editors told the Project for Excellence in Journalism that they had increased
the space devoted to local news (Project for Excellence in Journalism, 2008).
Prognosticators see a future for watchdog and niche journalism, but worry true
general-interest publications may be dying.
The American Press Institute's four-step Newspaper Next approach contended
that attempts at reinventing newspapers have been too traditional. It suggested nurturing
core products while offering content that goes beyond news such as online communities;
tailoring new advertising models to non-traditional clients; and investing — both
financially and culturally — in innovation.
Though budgets are tight, paying more now can save money later, suggested the
print and online news veterans behind the 2007 book "News, Improved: How America's
Newsrooms Are Learning to Change (McLellan & Porter, 2007)."
The one third of newsrooms who recently increased training budgets in many
cases reported increased productivity and retention, the authors said, noting that
newspapers have historically under spent on training compared with other industries.
Newspapers spend about one half of one percent of their payrolls on training,
nearly two percentage points less than other industries, they said, citing an Inland Press
analysis. With the pace of change as quick as it is and the stakes as high as they are, if
newspapers are ever to commit to training, the authors argued, now is the time.
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New Attitudes

Even when all the players in an organization agree on the end goals and they are
technically and intellectually equipped to meet them, whether they do still rests on the
attitudes that change is built around. Indeed, a 2008 study of four converging British
newsrooms stressed that cultural issues, as well as training and logistical challenges, can
impede change (Saltzis & Dickinson, 2008).
A common obstacle in competitive, time-sensitive news environments is
journalists' fear that by breaking news in a Web update, blog post or tweet they are
scooping their core product.
This issue concerns broadcast news organizations as well as print. TV news
managers told Broadcasting and Cable that overcoming this means going beyond
changing department names and job titles and "making the Web part of every staffer's
workday" and embracing that Web and traditional products "are feeding off each other,
instead of cannibalizing each other (Malone, 2008, p. 23)."
Increasingly workers are being brought in from outside the news business to fill
specialized technological roles, such as aggregating blog posts (Malone, 2008). Bringing
in non-news nativists, who are also often younger than traditional staff, can lead to
culture conflicts. That said, newcomers' lack of attachment to traditional models might be
considered healthy friction for organizations so dependent on change.
Younger, more tech-savvy staffs can be a double-edged sword in other ways.
They exude an infectious energy but lack the institutional memory of the veteran
journalists they replaced (Project for Excellence in Journalism, 2008).
The new newsroom is also forcing journalists from rival mediums into the same
space.
Mixing media cultures can be like mixing oil and water. Take print and broadcast.
Their narrative styles are inherently different. Print journalists do not reflexively view
images as driving a newspiece. And it is generally more acceptable for broadcast
journalists to let their personality into a story. (Singer, 2004)
Perhaps because their professional identity is so closely linked with a single
medium, journalists tend to believe skills are not readily transferable to other platforms
and may distrust colleagues rooted in other media (Saltzis & Dickinson, 2008).
Shattering this distrust can be as simple as allowing workers to interact with each
other, whether sitting them in the same area of the newsroom or promoting collaborative
workflow, case studies of four American print newsrooms suggested (Singer, 2004).
They added that managers pursuing convergence can mitigate journalists' resistance to
change in general and to the professional norms of specializations other than their own
through transparent decision making that makes clear the motivations behind changes and
explicitly identifies the desired end result.
If multiskilling wins out, tomorrow's journalists will have no native medium. The
approach has its champions and its critics.
Proponents say that re-learning the craft of journalism within an unfamiliar
medium makes one a better reporter on all platforms and that contributing to different
storytelling forms promotes a greater sense of ownership of the content being produced
(Saltzis & Dickinson, 2008). Opponents counter that while all media may belong to the
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same genus, they are different species.

A BBC experiment with convergence is thought to have failed in part because of a
consensus within the newsroom that "a good radio journalist is not necessarily a good
television journalist and vice versa (Saltzis & Dickinson, 2008, p. 221)." Video, whose
learning curve is steeper than other media, is especially linked to specialization.
Getting employees and management on the same page is also critical. To avoid a
disconnect between workers' and managers' attitudes, front-line employees should be
involved in the decision-making process and managers at least exposed to ground-level
production (L. Smith, Tanner & Duhe, 2007). Also, it is important for supervisors to
exert confidence during the reorganization process and to anticipate hiccups endemic to
sweeping workplace changes (Garcia, Alberto & Carvajal, 2008).
Managers would too be wise to practice what they preach. For all the hype that
journalists earnestly want to turn the old model on its head and fears they will be out of a
job if they do not, by certain measurements, change is coming slow. There is a significant
gap between the importance journalists assign to interactivity and the degree to which
they actually apply it.
The inertia of traditional journalism values, a study of online newsrooms in Spain
found, is impeding progress (Domingo, 2008). The emphasis on immediacy, for example,
can lead journalists to view interactivity as a distraction instead of an opportunity. And, a
majority of so-called interactive elements were designed not to give audiences
meaningful control but merely to get their attention.

Reorganization Case Studies

Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Frequently referenced in newsroom reorganization research is the Atlanta Journal-

Constitution's sweeping 2007 overhaul. Realizing that traditional print sections did not
reflect the Web's information architecture, nor, increasingly, that of the print edition
itself, the AJC started from scratch when building its newsroom of the future. Seeking a
model that exploited its competitive edge, knowledge of metro Atlanta, it organized its
newsroom into four autonomous but interdependent departments (McIntosh, 2007):
●News and Information, the largest, produces hard news, columns and
information content. It is staffed dawn to midnight seven days a week.
●The Digital department is News and Information's first client. Digital prepares
content for the Web and selects content for various channels such as sports and business.
Its main job is to keep the site fresh.
●Enterprise produces watchdog, investigative, explanatory, narrative, criticism
and other enterprise content.
●The Print department is Enterprise's first client. With the assistance of copy
editors and designers, Print's presentation specialists assemble the best sections they can
with the content produced by News and Information and Enterprise.
The AJC's model abandoned conventions print newsrooms have relied on for
decades. There is no metro editor, no sports editor, no features editor. No one person, in
fact, sees a single section through start to finish (Stepp, 2007). In a Web-first world, there
is no formal late-afternoon budget meeting.
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Even though his paper's model is frequently hailed as an exemplary approach,

Shawn McIntosh, the AJC's then-Director of Culture and Change, said he was "certain
that our newsroom won't continue to look the way we redesigned it. (McIntosh, 2007)."

Pocono Record.

Next to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's reorganization, the Stroudsburg, Pa.,

Pocono Record's is among the more radical mentioned in this report. Journalists from all
mediums and market sizes reliably complain that simultaneous technological growth and
revenue declines force them to do more with less. They have to do what they have always
done plus readapt it and add to it for the Web.
Well, managers at the Record argued, "we don't necessarily have to do everything
we've always done (American Press Institute, 2008, p. 62)."
Filling valuable print space with national and regional stories readers preferred to
get from other sources was out. As was devoting an exorbitant portion of reporters' work
weeks to attending public meetings. The Record upped local coverage by almost half and
entrusted stringers to alert editors to any important goings on at meetings, freeing up
reporters to focus less stenographic, more forward-looking pieces.
What really differentiates the Record's transformation is its shift away from
traditional reporting beats in favor of subject areas whose content reporters manage both
in print and online. Reporters choose what stories to focus on, produce multimedia
packages, monitor Web analytics, e-mail readers about new features and develop their
own mission statement.
Subject areas are determined through ongoing audience interviews, the first round
of which indicated high demand for education, outdoors, crime, growth and infrastructure
content.
The approach, managers said, promotes a sense of ownership and entrepreneurial
thinking, and creates opportunities to engage audiences who do not typically read
newspapers (American Press Institute, 2008). Essentially, instead of trying to be all
things to a core group of people, be a lot of little things to a lot of people.
One example of this is the Record's expansion of its commuter news and traffic
reports. And rather than just creating new sections in print or online, it is reaching
commuters where commuters are — in their cars — via mobile text alerts.

The Spokesman-Review.

A reorganization model developed by The Spokesman-Review of Spokane,

Wash., is remarkable less so for what it proposes than for who proposed it.
Figuring that 20- and 30-somethings had more familiarity with the new media he
was trying to rebuild his paper around than the veterans typically consulted about
restructuring, then-Editor Steven A. Smith empowered a group of mostly young
journalists — who internally came to be known as the "Gang of Eight" — to lay the
foundation for a new organizational model (S. Smith, 2008).
If that was not extraordinary enough, he scaled back the group's regular duties and
granted them "subpoena" power over anyone in the newsroom. The Gang of Eight both
reaffirmed veterans' thinking — stressing watchdog reporting — and challenged it —
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recommending a stronger copy editing system.

The structure that emerged, which shifted priorities to add five local reporters,
beef up the copy desk and establish a breaking news desk, was never tested, however, as
just before it was to be implemented the publisher announced additional layoffs (S.
Smith, 2008).
Among its recommended changes was streamlining workflow, namely by
adopting afternoon-paper style deadlines and creating a centralized editing desk
comprising representatives of all departments. These changes, the group's report said,
would allow fresh Web content to be posted throughout the day and promote higher
quality print and online products (The Spokesman-Review, 2008).
Moving away from traditional newspaper beats, the report divided labor
according to type of reporting, independent of geography or topic. For example, there are
reporting groups for breaking news, watchdog journalism and hyperlocal coverage. The
task force embraced generalization in parts — combining photography and videography
responsibilities — and specialization in others — keeping videography and other
alternative storytelling methods voluntary among reporters.

When Change Attempts Backfire.

Within a complex, constantly-moving system, well-intended actions can produce

negative results, either instead of or in addition to their stated goals. Occasionally, a
management initiative can completely backfire, producing the exact opposite behavior it
was intended to induce.
This happened to the editor of the mid-sized urban paper when he instructed his
reporters to produce more enterprise stories and less daily news, as detailed in a case
study by scholar David M. Ryfe (Ryfe, 2009). While a number of communication and
cultural issues were at play, the editor's biggest mistake, perhaps, was his assumption that
daily news and enterprise reporting are mutually exclusive.
Other research cited by Ryfe and his interviews with reporters from the
anonymous publication offer that the beat reporting routines they were instructed to avoid
are worth more than the immediate news they produce. They are where a reporter
nourishes the relationships that enable him to uncover and investigate engaging enterprise
topics. Furthermore, when reporters face uncertainty like that created by the editor's
mandate, they tend to fall back on these routines because they are what they know.
On a deeper level, the beat structure, on which decades of journalists have based
their career advancement and professional reputation, is closely linked with reporters'
personal identity. The editor, for his part, blamed the failure on reporters' inability "to
think in a sophisticated way about the news (Ryfe, 2009, p. 677)." To avoid new policies
from backfiring so severally, Ryfe suggested, managers should cultivate a sense of
belonging before initiating radical change.

Original Interviews

Methodology

To obtain first-hand recommendations for organizing the newsroom of the future,

THE FUTURE OF THE INTERACTIVE NEWSROOM 8

I e-mailed managing editors, online editors or executive editors from 13 newspapers

seeking interviews with managers. At one of those papers, I asked to talk to front-line
staff as well. Of those 13, six responded, and of those six, three granted interviews with
themselves or other personnel.
I also e-mailed officials from four state or national newspaper associations
seeking suggestions on publications for me to contact. None replied.
In selecting the initial 13 papers, I aimed for a balance of newspaper market sizes
and sought out publications that were cited either in research, trade press or contests as
having innovative approaches. Of the 13, six are based in North Carolina, as I suspected
managers at in-state papers would be more likely to have familiarity with my university
and therefore more likely to grant me interviews.
Supporting this hunch, all three of the publications that granted me interviews are
North Carolina dailies. Still, they ended up representing a reasonable diversity of paper
sizes and organizational approaches.
I conducted 30-minute phone interviews with online news managers from the
176,000-circulation Raleigh News & Observer and 16,000-circulation The (Shelby) Star,
asking each seven questions aimed at eliciting best practices for organizational structure,
physical newsroom layout, workflow and corporate culture plus one question specific to
each paper.
I interviewed the Greensboro News & Record's Director of New Media content,
video producer, online editor and a reporter during a two-hour visit to the 78,000-
circulation paper, asking them similar but, given their diverse roles, more open-ended
questions than those I asked personnel at the other papers.

Paper Profiles

News & Record.

While its Web content is managed by its Interactive division, technically a

separate entity from the newsroom, the News & Record of Greensboro, N.C., encourages
all of its editorial employees to be proficient in new media, offering training seminars,
posting how-to videos on an internal blog, allowing reporters and editors to post their
own Web updates and inviting staff to try out tasks not part of their traditional duties such
as recording video voiceovers. But it does not force such skills upon workers.
"To be honest, I don't care about that person," Director of New Media Content
Mike Grossman said of any employee opposed to new tools. "Let's work with the people
who really want to learn (Grossman, interview, October 14, 2009)."
Resistance has been light, according to employees, who said that fear, not
opposition, explains most uneasiness.
While a few reporters may consider Web updates a burden, others see them as a
blessing.
"It kind of prompts us to follow the story as it happens instead of just kind of
waiting. It's a great tool" said Ryan Seals, a criminal justice reporter who previously
handled evening Web updates. "I know a lot of reporters don't like it. They'd rather have
all the details when they sit down to write. But in today's multimedia environment, you
got to get the information out there (Seals, interview, October 14, 2009)."
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In any case, without much prodding, reporters have made a habit of promptly
filing a Web version for breaking stories and events they covered in-person.
Journalists who take on more advanced Web-related duties, such as acquiring
video or audio or producing slideshows, learn to better conceptualize multimedia content,
Grossman said. They also free up his staff to focus on its core goal of generating Web
traffic, he added.
Even among employees who cross over between print and online, the distinct
orientations of the two realms are clear.
"It's a different mission statement, print versus online," said Online News Editor
Mike Fuchs, who in addition to writing early morning hard news items for the paper's
Web site authors a blog and print column about the retail industry (Fuchs, interview,
October 14, 2009).
Playing to their audiences, online assumes a regional focus, and print a local
focus. This was made plain in mid-October 2009 when a story one city over about the
death of a police officer wounded in the line of duty led the paper's homepage but ran
inside the print edition. Confusion among readers prompted an explanatory note on the
editor's blog (Robinson, 2009).

News & Observer.

Mapping out a Web strategy at the dawn of Web 2.0, two decisions at the Raleigh,
N.C., News & Observer went a long way toward winning the hearts and minds of
potentially reluctant print nativists: Hiring a 20-year print veteran as its online managing
editor and stating in no uncertain terms that online is important as the flagship product.
"It went remarkably smoothly," said the editor, Eric Frederick. "There was no
resistance other than the sort of back-of-the-corner grousing you get that you have to do
so much (Frederick, interview, October 19, 2009)."
Outside of reporters and editors writing Web updates and blog posts, cross-
platform work is rare, said Frederick, a former front page editor who got his start in
sports. His six-person Web team, which sits near the center of a newsroom organized
according to traditional print sections like metro, sports and features, is behind the vast
majority of other Web-only content. Virtually everything that runs in print also runs
online.
After merging photojournalists and two Web workers into a cross-platform team,
the paper has gravitated back to a more compartmentalized approach, Frederick said.
Still, the News & Observer has proved it can be flexible. Two successful Web
initiatives, a political blog and parenting microsite, were the brainchildren of staff
reporters.

The Star.

When it comes to breaking news, The Star of Shelby, N.C., has its foot on the
accelerator. Literally. Where big stories are happening and on its homepage banner, you
will find its Star Car. Developed and financed through a partnership with the University
of South Carolina, the four-wheel-drive newsroom has its own wireless signal, laptop,
Web cam and an extra battery for charging equipment.
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Perhaps because the paper covers a close-knit community where crime gets
people talking, breaking news fundamentals have long been a part of The Star's culture.
The Web, Online Editor Emily Killian said, merely lets them shine through (Killian,
interview, October 22, 2009).
Almost as soon as the paper's reporters know something big might be happening,
Web site visitors do.
"Say a reporter goes out to a [car crash], we go ahead and post what we know so
far, saying we've got a reporter on the way," said Killian, one of 11 full-time newsroom
employees. "We want to let people know we're following up on this — we're on the ball."
Once a reporter confirms the basic details, the paper e-mails an alert to breaking
news subscribers. Subsequent Web updates are serialized on a single page, blog style,
enabling readers to see the evolution of a story no matter when they pick it up.
If it is an especially big story, the paper will stream live video from the scene
using the Star Car's Web cam.
While such unpolished content may go against what print audiences typically
want, it is what online audiences crave, said Killian, noting that identifying content as
"raw" increases hits.

Research Questions

Research Question 1: What are best practices for the corporate culture of an
interactive newsroom?

●Firmly established in the News & Record's culture are that beyond filing mid-
cycle updates for time sensitive stories, Web-related tasks should be widely encouraged,
but not forced upon the print newsroom, and that print and online have two distinct
audiences.
Even in a newsroom that includes journalists who started their careers writing on
typewriters, resistance is low, according to Grossman.
That does not mean that burying the "gatekeeper mentality that we could
monopolize the news" did not take some time, Fuchs said.
At first "There were a lot of 'Aren't we scooping ourselves?' questions," he said.
"Now people get it. We're not seeing it as scooping ourselves if we get it to readers first."
●The News & Observer wanted to make clear that the Web was on equal footing
with print. It did so through actions — hiring a print veteran as online editor — and
words.
"There was a nice sort of a statement of mission — not a written statement but
sort of an emphasis made from the very top, from the executive editor on down that this
is now your job — it's as important as anything else you're doing," Frederick said.
●All of The Star's journalists, even feature reporters, who are unlikely to regularly
cover breaking news, are trained on how to use the Star Car's mobile newsroom, Killian
said. In such a climate, workers quickly grasp the importance of the Web without having
it shoved down their throats.
"We've never been all that formal about it," Killian said. "If a reporter is going to
a scene and I see they don't have a camera, I say, 'Hey, grab that camera.' It's just kind of
a shared effort. We've not had significant resistance."
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If employees want to learn a more advanced multimedia skill, someone will train
them; if they want to stick to the basics, that's accepted, too.

Research Question 2: What are best practices for the organizational structure of an
interactive newsroom?

●Even though the News & Record's five-person Web content team is stationed in
the newsroom adjacent to news reporters, on the organizational chart it is one group of
the paper's Interactive division, which also includes advertising and production teams.
Interactive staff will sit in on relevant print meetings, but there are no formal cross-
platform teams.
The Interactive division's ultimate mission is to generate Web traffic, and, to that
end, its editorial and advertising employees maintain a closer relationship than seen on
the pint side. For example, editorial might pull more business stories from the wires if
advertising thought it could generate sales. Advertising considerations would not
influence the subjects or placement of those stories, Grossman said.
●While the Raleigh News & Observer has encouraged print journalists interested
in taking on Web tasks and experimented with a cross-platform team, it maintains a
traditional print-section-based organizational structure supplemented by a six-person
Web desk (Frederick).
●With an 11-person newsroom, The Star can accommodate a flat organizational
structure easier than its larger counterparts.
"In terms of structure we're really quite flexible," Killian said (Killian, interview,
October 22, 2009).
Crosstraining is common. This ensures someone can pick up the duties of a co-
worker who's sick for a week and promotes camaraderie. The goal, Killian said, is to give
workers ownership of their domains but encourage them to get to know the domains of
others.

Research Question 3: What are best practices for the physical layout of an
interactive newsroom?

●Interactive content employees sit adjacent to reporters in the News & Record's
main newsroom, whose cubicles are arranged according to the print production process:
reporters are in the back, editors in front of reporters, the copy desk in front of editors and
production in front of the copy desk. Interactive’s video producer works down the hall,
next to the division's multimedia studio.
●Online workers sit near the center of the 125-employee News & Observer
newsroom, a prairie dog cubicle arrangement organized by print sections. Preferably the
Web staff would be directly in the center, Frederick said, as this best promotes
communication with other journalists.
Economic considerations can get in the way of what is ideal, however. As its
workforce shrinks, the News & Observer is consolidating workers into one building of its
downtown complex so that it can sell or lease the space it is not using, Frederick said.
"There's no philosophical concept behind the structure of the newsroom," he said.
"It's more of a necessity."
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●The Star's open newsroom encourages synergy between old and new media
projects, Killian said.
"We don't even have cubicles. We just have desks, and for me, that's important,"
she said. "We don't have much privacy, but I think that's something I would give up 100
times over just to holler out to the other side of the room."

Research Question 4: What are best practices for the workflow of an interactive
newsroom?

●Responsibility for a story might be passed among multiple News & Record
reporters, starting with online staff and shifting to print, over the course a work day. If
something big happens overnight, Fuchs is the first on it. He rises at 5 a.m., flips on the
morning shows and reads public safety press releases over breakfast and posts summaries
of anything newsworthy (Fuchs, interview, October 14, 2009).
Whatever Fuchs does not get to is inherited by the morning Web reporter, who
also checks the wire and makes cops calls when he arrives at 6:30 a.m. Updates ideally
are published by the 8 a.m. Web traffic rush that comes as readers arrive at work. The day
cops reporter and, if a story has especially long legs, the night cops reporter, may assume
guardianship from there (Seals, interview, October 14, 2009).
Throughout the day, reporters are encouraged to post their own Web updates as
soon as they learn of something significant. Sometimes updates are not copy edited until
after they are posted.
Web journalism is about more than just articles, of course. It is also about video,
audio and interactive presentations. Logistical or technical demands mean that a specialist
often produces multimedia content. A reporter may still conceive the story, however,
especially if the multimedia is supplementing a text piece.
Video Producer Michael McQueen said that an internal multimedia request form
the News & Record recently introduced has encouraged stronger content and increased
efficiency. It forces reporters to evaluate the likely value of the finished product and to
consider logistical issues like whether they have allotted enough time for a video to be
edited, he said. It also creates a paper trail, promoting accountability. Previously,
reporters would request multimedia content orally or through less formal written
communications.
●Reporters at the News & Observer aim to file a Web update anytime there is a
significant development to a timely story. The print version of the story is generally
expected to go beyond the five W's of what happened and explore the context or what is
likely to happen next (Frederick, interview, October 19, 2009).
Online staff handle the actual uploading of stories to the Web except for blogs,
which are published by their authors.
●At The Star, the process of updating breaking news for the Web is leveraged to
produce a current, complete version of the story for the next morning's paper, according
to Killian, who said that thanks to the newsroom's breaking news focus, updates are
usually frequent enough that little or no changes are made to the print version.
THE FUTURE OF THE INTERACTIVE NEWSROOM 13

Analysis

Reorganization Best Practices

Corporate Culture.

On the gridiron, a high octane offense or a stingy defense can get you to the Super
Bowl just the same. Indeed, recent title games have showcased some vastly different
styles.
Building the newspaper of the future is not any different. If it works, no one
approach is better than another. Every successful team, and every successful company,
however, shares at least one thing: a winning culture.
This was manifested throughout my research.
Get the culture right, and changes to organizational structure, newsroom layout
and workflow have a much better chance of succeeding. Get it wrong, and they are likely
to fail. The other variables are easy enough to change on the fly, culture much less so.
Crafting a culture means asking how process and personnel changes will
complement or contradict existing attitudes, then nurturing the connections and pacifying
the conflicts.
Process changes can include adding tasks to — mid-cycle Web updates — or
removing tasks from — gavel-to-gavel meeting coverage — workers’ routines. To
nurture connections, managers can portray the 24-7 news cycle as a means to more
aggressive reporting. To pacify conflicts, managers can insulate fundamental areas, like
investigative reporting, from cuts.
Personnel changes can include bringing in workers from rival media — hiring a
broadcast veteran to produce Web videos — or from outside of journalism — hiring a
Web developer with a background in e-commerce. To nurture connections, managers can
demonstrate that changes advance the public interest values common to all media
platforms. To pacify conflicts, managers can promote collaboration between journalistic
and technical workers and honor their contributions equally.
Once managers decide on a direction, they have to decide how aggressively to
pursue it. Do they force workers to reapply for their jobs and become multimedia
proficient? Or do they encourage workers to modernize their traditional roles at their own
pace? An organization with a relatively young staff whose short-term survival is
dependent upon finding a new model might choose the former; an organization with a
core of veteran journalists whose short-term survival is not under threat might choose the
latter.

Organizational Structure.

That no single best organizational structure emerged from my research

underscores the need to be flexible. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution put a lot of thought
and effort into its 2007 reorganization and received its share of praise for it, yet one of the
model's principal architects readily admitted it is likely to be replaced sooner rather than
later.
These are experimental times and managers should accept them as such. Perhaps
THE FUTURE OF THE INTERACTIVE NEWSROOM 14

the only inherently wrong organizational structure is that which is overly rigid.
The News & Observer, on its face, has a very traditional structure. Yet, it has bent
it when it saw innovation opportunities. When a political reporter's blog took off, the
reporter was moved to that platform full time. A metro reporter was freed from some of
her regular duties for a year to run a parenting Web community.
Likewise, on paper, the News & Record's Web staff form a distinct division. But
they interact regularly with the print newsroom, attending many of the same meetings.
Opportunities for print journalists to test the Web waters are virtually limitless. They are
not only allowed to but encouraged to post their own Web updates, shoot video and even
record voiceovers.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution manager's admission, and The Spokesman-
Review's experience, in which it invested considerable resources in a reorganization plan
only to see further staffing cuts render it inoperable, should give managers pause. In this
light, though none of the papers I studied made extensive use of them, less permanent
team models seem worth considering.

Physical Newsroom Layout.

To the extent that a newsroom has specialized Web employees, they should be
interspersed among the general newsroom population or situated near the center of the
newsroom. Subjects in both my original interviews and literature review could not have
spoken highly enough about the value of informal, face-to-face conversation.
Proximity encourages employees to ask questions they otherwise would not and
enables them to overhear information they never would have thought to ask about. It also
gets employees interacting socially, essential to overcoming distrust between new and old
media workers or workers from rival media.
This area may not be worth obsessing over, however. Several indicators suggest
that tomorrow's journalists may spend little of their time inside a newsroom.
The Star's Star Car shows what is already possible in the realm of mobile
journalism. As mobile technology becomes more reliable and less expensive, entire fleets
of mobile journalism cars, or kits journalists use in their own cars, may become
commonplace. A mobile journalism push is already well under way at Gannett, America's
largest newspaper chain, where "mojos" continuously upload stories and videos via car-
based laptops and audio and video equipment (Birckner & Reddig, 2009).
Furthermore, outsourcing traditional tasks to non-newsroom employees — as the
Pocono Record did when delegating meeting coverage to stringers — is becoming
increasingly attractive as newspapers' resources and roles evolve.
And, as the News & Observer's consolidation of its multi-building complex
highlights, capital overhead is, ask any brick-and-mortar business, an enormous drain on
revenue, and one that many of newspapers' new media competitors don't have.

Workflow.

There is ample of opportunity for synergy between old and new media workflows.
Continuously updating stories for the Web encourages more aggressive reporting that can
form or inform the next day's print piece. Learning, or least being exposed to, a new
THE FUTURE OF THE INTERACTIVE NEWSROOM 15

medium can make one a better storyteller across all platforms. Print stories can be
adapted into multimedia pieces. Multimedia pieces can be adapted into print stories.
Maximizing opportunities for such efficiencies can go a long way toward
addressing probably the mostly common complaint among journalists about these
transitional times: that they are being asked to do more with less.
A crucial realization, however, is that papers do not necessarily have to do more,
or at least not as much as they think. Yes, there are innumerable new Web-related tasks a
paper has little choice but to take on. But, it doesn't have to — and in many cases would
be better off not doing — everything else it has always done.
The Pocono Record embraced this in its reorganization, thumbing its nose at some
of print journalism's most entrenched practices. National and regional news, it decided,
were taking up too much space in its local newspaper. News beats developed decades
ago, it ruled, were not producing the types of content readers were interested in.
Amid such rapid change, newspapers must not lose sight of their core strengths.
The best technology, the best organizational structure, the best business model, are only
as strong as the reporting they are built on.
"In this media age, in this age of the iPhone, it's still blood, sweat and tears,
getting sources, checking paper trails," the News & Record's Fuchs said. "You still have
to do all that tedious investigative journalism to get to the bottom of something (Fuchs,
interview, October 14, 2009)."

Looking Ahead

Forecasting the future means purposely getting ahead of oneself. Before doing
that, consider that the Web is less than 20 years old. Everyone is new at this. Beware of
anyone overly assured of what is going to happen next. Also consider that the reports of
newspapers' death have been greatly exaggerated. Yes there will be fewer newspapers.
Yes they will play a diminished role. But they are not going to vanish overnight.
The newspapers that survive, and yes, even proposer, will be the ones that best
figure out not just what to do, but what they can afford not to do.
Driving these decisions will be technology, social media, the mobile Web and
electronic paper in particular.
While social media enable news organizations to spread information quickly, their
greatest value to news organizations is their ability to collect feedback from audiences.
Recognizing this, the News & Record is considering hiring a social media
ombudsman.
"I think that will be a focal point," Grossman said (Grossman, interview, October
14, 2009).
If social media is Web 2.0, the fast-growing mobile Web is Web 3.0. It is only a
matter of time before always-connected, all-in-one mobile devices — whose worldwide
penetration grew 400 percent the first eight years this decade (Birckner & Reddig, 2009)
— become as ubiquitous as traditional cell phones.
The opportunities this creates for media companies are enormous. Mobile devices
will be, and for many already are, a users' alarm, train ticket, banking client, concierge
service, games console, TV, mp3 player, and, yes, newspaper. Because they depend on
them for so much, users develop an intimate relationship with their mobile devices.
THE FUTURE OF THE INTERACTIVE NEWSROOM 16

Devices become extensions of their users. Users feel naked without them.
For a newspaper's content to be part of this? Talk about access. Media companies
users let in to this space will be those whose content complements the devices' other
functions. One-size-fits-all content is out. Contextual content based on users' location,
purchases, interests and mood is in.
Taking advantage of the mobile Web are electronic readers, like Amazon's
Kindle, that enable users to view content in a more efficient, easier-on-the-eyes format
than a desktop, laptop, or traditional mobile device. Kindle and its contemporaries
resemble lightweight tablets, but Massachusetts-based E Ink, among other developers, is
working on bringing flexible, more paper-like displays to market (Casatelli, 2009).
E-readers offer newspapers several advantages over traditional print and
electronic displays. They eliminate ink and paper expenses, accommodate instant
updates, enable natural print-style navigation, and, instead of being backlit like customary
monitors, they reflect light, reducing eye strain.
And, by isolating publishers' content from the Web at large, they decrease
opportunities for readers to surf away (Mcginn, 2008).
Of course, the most sophisticated technology is only as good as the humans
running it. And technology, which alternately displaces jobs by automating tasks and
creates jobs by requiring someone to manage it, can force some tricky human resources
decisions. Surprisingly often, the News & Observer's Eric Frederick said, managers flip
who — humans or machines — should perform a given task.
"Don't make machines do what people are supposed to do and don't make people
do what machines are supposed to do," Frederick said. "Machines are built to do
repetitive tasks quickly. People are supposed to do the creative thinking, the editing, to
make the decision as far as what makes sense when you're presenting news to people."
He illustrated his point with two examples from his own paper. In the first, relying
on print edition positioning, it automated story placement on its home page. In the
second, after a staffer who tagged stories for instant Web posting was laid off, it had
other workers manually post stories — a two-hour process.
As technology gets more advanced, managers also must decide, Do I hire
someone grounded in journalism and teach her the technology? Or do I hire someone
grounded in technology and teach her the journalism?
Editors will generally choose the former.
"It really does help to have people on your staff — and they're rare — who have
good news sense but also know how the back-end systems work — people who can think
creatively in both realms," Frederick said. "If you can find those people — and I have a
couple of them — you really need to cultivate those people."
Making a case for the latter, McQueen, the News & Record's video producer,
warned not to underestimate his medium's learning curve.
"Hire someone — even if it's a freelancer or a part-timer — that knows video," he
stressed.

Suggestions for Further Research

My literature review and interviews with six newspaper professionals provided a

illuminating snapshot of the state of the industry, where it may be headed and how it all
THE FUTURE OF THE INTERACTIVE NEWSROOM 17

informs newsroom organization. Subjects' responses both confirmed and challenged the
conclusions of my literature review case studies, revealing patterns but also identifying
alternative approaches worth exploring.
For newcomers to this topic, this paper can help them quickly get up to speed. For
insiders, it is more of a device to frame their thinking. What is worth paying attention to?
What is not?
To this end, it provides a number of jumping off points for additional research.
The groundwork I've laid out here could be leveraged into interviews of a larger,
more diverse sample of newspaper journalists. And, even though my most open-ended
questions drew some of my most valuable responses, a scientific survey of this larger
sample may be instructive, as it could reveal trends more subjective analyses like my own
might overlook.
In hindsight, my focus may have been too broad. Any one of my four research
questions would have been more than enough to support a complete paper.
For each research question topic — culture, organizational structure, physical
newsroom layout, and workflow — subtopics leaped out at me as worthy of further study.
For culture, other researchers might want to examine successful methods of
communicating the culture of change. If culture is a prerequisite for the other three areas,
communicating that culture is a perquisite for it all. For the most focused, most
compatible culture does an organization no good if it is not communicated properly.
For organizational structure, other researchers might want to examine new media
organizations founded since the emergence of Web 2.0. Legacy media companies like the
ones like the ones I studied, and even dotcom-era Web companies, did not have the
luxury of designing an organizational model from scratch to serve this new era. They
were forced to adapt a model born in a different environment. Pure inertia and the
disruption of changing structures on the fly, particularly in a 24-7 news environment, in
many cases prevent systems from being as innovative as even the designers themselves
would prefer.
For physical newsroom layout, other researchers might want to examine the
strengths and weaknesses of current and predicted mobile journalism technologies and
weigh what is gained — money otherwise spent on overhead — against what is lost —
face-to-face collaboration — as newsrooms become increasingly virtual.
For workflow, other researchers might want to examine copy editing's role in the
era of Web journalism. Amid shrinking staffs and a push to report news in real time, copy
editing appears to be losing currency. But as legacy media organizations recruit new
audiences, often differentiating themselves from new media competitors based on the
dependability of their brands, it stands to reason that quality control should be as
important as ever.
THE FUTURE OF THE INTERACTIVE NEWSROOM 18

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Flash presentation online at http://student.elon.edu/searley/presentation