Streamline your newsroom workflow through better story planning

Until recently, newsrooms had workflows that focused exclusively on print and were optimised for a once-a-day publication schedule. The newsroom routine was often based on a 24 hour rhythm, where every morning the “counters were reset to 0”. In many cases the result was that there was very little focus on planning beyond the next scheduled edition, as stories were often perceived and treated as “breaking news.” In addition, everyone involved in the workflow process frequently had to wait until late in the day for pages to be closed or other decisions to be made leading to bottlenecks in the editorial workflow.

However, if you pick up almost any newspaper in the world and flip through the pages, you’ll find that the vast majority of the stories are actually not “breaking news,” such as plane crashes, or natural disasters. The same misconception happens around “exclusives,” such as a major investigative article or series or the famous “scoops.” In reality, those special story are the exception and without being overly scientific, but based on dozens of conversations with news executives around the world, in many cases stories in both categories combined occur less than 5 percent of the time.

If we put those two thoughts together, we get two key dimensions – one, “Is something really breaking news or not?” and, two, is “Is a story exclusive or not?” Real breaking news is when nobody could possible foresee or expect that event. Real exclusivity only exists if it is 100 percent certain that nobody else has access to a story or can publish it earlier.

If we take these two dimensions – exclusivity and breaking news – we can begin to create a simple story matrix where we have four different types of stories, and all articles in a publication fall into one of these four types (see fig. 1).

Figure 1: Story matrix

The first type would be “breaking news and exclusive,” . This is something that is obviously very rare because, taking a plane crash as an example, not even this kind of occurrence is rarely exclusive. This category is really for those rare scoops that happen for many news organisations perhaps only a few times in a year such as the MP expenses scandal in the UK that was revealed by the Daily Telegraph a few years ago.

The second sector would be “breaking news – but non-exclusive,” which would be for events such as natural catastrophes, high-profile resignations, murders acts of terrorism, and so on.

The third cluster would be “exclusive but non-breaking news,” and this category would be for investigative pieces where we can plan and decide when to publish it as well as political scandals and exposures

And the fourth category is non-exclusive and non-breaking news, and this covers the vast majority of stories.

If we look at these four categories and try to get a feeling for percentages, we could say that breaking, exclusive news would account for about one to five out of 1000 of all the stories that are published every month.

Investigative pieces in relation to all the stories that are published are maybe one to two out of 100. The same is true for breaking, non-exclusive stories, which are also roughly ten to two out of 100. That leaves for the last sector non-breaking, non-exclusive stories. Between 96 and 98 per cent of all stories published in a daily newspaper are in this category.

We have seen that many news organizations are that are built around the exceptional three categories, which concern two to five percent of the stories. Decision-making is done very late and planning is very often not done because too many stories are being treated as breaking news and/or exclusive articles.

Since the vast majority of stories are not in these categories, editorial should look to optimising the workflows and structures in order to distribute those stories faster and more efficiently, allowing more time to deal with the truly major stories on all platforms and breaking news when they occur.

The majority of non-exclusive, non-breaking stories can be planned in advance to a certain degree. Not everything of course, there can always be surprises or last minute changes, but these are usually the exception. We know roughly what is going on when press conferences, sports events, elections or other events come up.

Take something like a football game, which has been scheduled for weeks or months, and is often treated as breaking news, in regards to planning and decision making for particularly for cross platform coverage. It is mainly the score and a key moments in the match that really qualify as breaking news. Much of the surrounding (background) story, such as why the game is important, how a positive or negative result will effect the team’s standings and so on, could be contemplated and planned at least in some degree in advance. The same is true for many press conferences or court cases. We usually know much of the story in advance.

If there is a surprise, then we can always change it, but certain decisions can be made very early in the day or the week and therefore, the whole process can be made smoother, generating more time and mental space for the newsroom for more structured and creative planning processes.

With this type of matrix in mind, it is also easier to decide what is going to go online, or digital, because what is going online is still very often held back. But for many reasons, everything that is non-exclusive, should find its way to the fast channels as soon as possible because if it’s non-exclusive, then someone else will publish it, and we’ve lost potential audience.

On the other hand, if a story is something that is exclusive, then we now have more time to make this decisions about when to break it or and through which channels. But again, in the majority of the cases (perhaps more than 80 percent of the time), it makes sense to put articles on the digital channel first, in order to be first and alert the reader. Spending more time on thinking through and preparing content for print for the next day could then offer a different angle and greater depth and colour to the piece.

With the story matrix in hand, newsroom managers should then consider the next level, which is planning further in advance. Many editorial meetings today are still primarily focused on “What stories are we working on for the upcoming edition?” and involve discussions about how to treat those stories often only for print.

Ideally, editorial meetings should cover what stories are being worked on for at least the next three days and include making decisions about how to treat these articles and where as early as possible. Once a newsroom gets in this kind of the rhythm of planning for at least two days past tomorrow, stories can be carved out in better ways, research can be started earlier and the quality of the coverage on all media can improve.

Traditional newsroom workflows rarely offer the flexibility that is needed today to distribute news and information on a variety of platforms throughout the day. Accepting that most of the stories are not actually breaking news and / or exclusive might be difficult for any newsroom, but it is reality after all. We can use this fact to improve the quality and the efficiency in the editorial operation by streamlining the “standard cases,” put more energy into the “exclusive” stories, handling planned stories more creatively and cover breaking news even better.

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A new tool for a quick newsroom convergence check-up and benchmarking

Often when we ask newsroom executives around the world “Is your newsroom operation working in an integrated way and are your journalists telling stories across platforms,” the reply is “Yes, of course. We are fully integrated, and everyone is working across media.”

However, after asking a few additional questions, we find out the reality is often more along the lines of “We want to be integrated,” or that “Our print journalists don’t write for online, but they all sit in the same room.” So it seems that a lot of publishers want to be modern, embracing the digital world and think and work in an integrated way, but in truth most newsrooms still have a ways to go before they really are.

Pit Gottschalk, former editor-in-chief of the German newspaper “SportBild”, and now Head of CEO’s Newspaper Office at Axel Springer AG, developed an evaluation and measurement concept that uses the Newsplex’s “three types of newsrooms” (please see this blog entry for more information about newsroom 1.0 to 3.0) to describe the convergence and integration level of an editorial operation.

The concept is based on an analysis of the cross-referencing strategy between the different channels and the analysis of the newsroom organisation. The analysis of the cross-referencing strategy deals with the “front-end,” or the “audience flow,” of the editorial operation. How good is cross-referencing between the different platforms and cross promoting? What kind of cross promotion is done? There are more than 20 different categories of cross-references and the analysis looks at the quantity and the type of those.

The analysis of the newsroom organisation, on the other hand, focuses on four significant aspects in an organisation: culture, tasks, people and systems. To evaluate the degree of integration and convergence in the “back-end,” or the “work flow,” a questionnaire is used to understand those four aspects. This questionnaire covers topics such as journalistic practice, newsroom management, working organisation and convergence.

Looking closer at the “back-end” and the four organisational aspects, the first component deals with “culture.” What is the culture of the newsroom in terms of media integration? This takes into consideration the whole behaviour pattern, the thought pattern, the belief system, and the shared values. Does the newsroom believe in media convergence? Is there a vibe of “Digital is part of our future,” or is it “The Internet is bad and needs to be banned”? This area also includes the organisation’s informal culture.

The second part is “tasks.” These are simply the roles, the job descriptions, the responsibilities in the newsroom, and they are different in these three different systems. Here is a simple example: In newsroom 1.0, a journalist is only responsible for writing a story for the paper, whereas in 3.0 it would be to tell the story across different platforms and to write different versions, or to build the print version upon the online version.

The third component is “people.” Here, the analysis examines the areas of skills and knowledge. Are the journalists capable of thinking across media? Many print journalists traditionally focus only on words and pictures, but are they also capable of thinking in terms of moving pictures to determine the best way to tell a story?

The fourth and final area is “structure and systems.” The systems are not solely the technical systems, but also the management systems and include the processes and organisational structures as well as the leadership and the management of incentive systems for example. Are there incentive systems in place where the journalist benefits from the fact that he is a multiple-media journalist?

The evaluation results in a “CTPS factor,” which lies between 0 and 100 percent and describes the status on the path between newsroom 1.0 and newsroom 3.0.

Combining the quality of the cross promotion strategy at the “front-end,” and the status of the four aspects of organisation in the “back-end,” provides an indication of how far we are on this path between total separation and integration.

A transformation process from a separated, or traditional, newsroom to an integrated one is an overwhelming experience. There are hundreds of issues that have to be taken into consideration. A structured analysis helps publishers to focus on specific areas. For the newsroom executives it is easier to define the points of action for the newsroom and to say, for example, “We need to focus on skills. The culture is right, but we don’t have the people who can do it, so we have to educate them,” or “The workflows are not right yet because we are still focusing too much on the print workflows.” And re-checking later allows for progress to be measured.

Finally, it’s great to benchmark the organisation with others to learn from them. This has already taken place for 59 newspapers in Germany in 2010. The benchmarking network was of course anonymous, but the data can be used to see where other publishers, which are for example of a similar size, are on the “road to integration.”

If you want to get your newsroom convergence check-up, please contact me in dietmar.schantin@wan-ifra.org. Newsplex offers this service to its members.

The multi-title newsroom – two case studies from Europe

Many reorganisation projects in the last years have shown that changes in a classical newspaper newsroom are a necessity and not an exception. Adapting and reorganising outdated processes and structures to meet today’s demands frequently enable major improvements in product quality as well as the performance capacity of newsrooms – both print and digital.

Today it is generally accepted that there is no one-size-fits-all recipe for how a newsroom should be structured and how it should work. The industry has also largely ceased the practice of uncritically copying concepts from other publishing houses and applying them with only minor modifications at their own operations. Publishing houses now recognise that each newsroom needs its own, tailored solution in order to optimise content quality and the performance of the newsroom.

Besides the classical projects that focus on integrating digital and print newsrooms, in the years 2009 and 2010 growing numbers of more extensive projects, i.e. the integration of multiple titles or media brands in one newsroom, have started and are in part already completed. These projects seek to develop an organisational solution for supplying different print media and digital platforms with content from a pool of writers and editors. The scope of such complex projects varies such as integrating newsrooms for a morning and evening edition of one title, or creating one newsroom for a number of different titles, some of which may address various target audiences. In all cases, content was produced by separate teams in the past.

Which models have publishing houses considered for such tasks and subsequently implemented? Some years ago, Die Welt group in Berlin pioneered multi-title newsroom integration. At present there are two further examples in Europe for establishing an integrated multi-title newsroom: the Ringier group in Switzerland with the titles “Blick”, “Blick am Abend”, “Sonntagsblick” and “Blick.ch” as well as Archant Regional of Archant Ltd. in the United Kingdom with the regional titles “Evening News” and “Eastern Daily Press” in Norfolk.

Ringier AG, founded in 1833, is one of Europe’s largest publishing houses and publishes internationally more than 120 magazines and newspaper titles, produces more than 20 TV programmes and operates some 80 websites and mobile platforms. In addition, Ringier owns 11 printing plants in Europe. Ringier’s Blick titles have long been major players in the popular press market in Switzerland. In 2009, a project was initiated with the objective of running the three newspapers and the online portal with a common, integrated newsroom.

Newsroom of the BLICK Group in Zurich / Switzerland

One of the most important challenges for this concept was, and still is, the question of how the synergies in a joint newsroom can be utilised, while at the same time retaining the identity of the individual titles. Although all newspapers include the word “Blick” in their titles, there are in part major differences in target audiences, topics, journalistic styles as well as content orientation between the titles. In order to resolve this potential conflict as effectively as possible, core teams have been formed for each title consisting of two to four editors for some desks. Members of these teams are a chief editor responsible for the title concerned as well as other roles, such as designer, managing editor and production specialist who are decisive for the characteristic properties of the title.

Most sections in the Blick group are fully integrated, and each editor is responsible for producing contents for each title. Depending on the job assignment, this can be for just one product, or a story is produced for one title and adapted as required for other titles. But in order to retain the ‘DNA’ of a title at section level, some sections continue to have editors specifically for certain titles who produce contents exclusively for one title. For example, this solution is put into practice at the politics section. This type of hybrid system allows both: to use the synergies of a large-scale common newsroom and at the same time retain the specific brand characteristics of a title, i.e. the specific style concerned.

The second recent example of a complex reorganisation is located in the east of England. In Norfolk County, Archant Regional publishes two daily newspapers and their corresponding websites as well as a series of weekly titles. The “Eastern Daily Press” is a morning quality newspaper for city and rural regions. The “Evening News” is published early in the afternoon, features a popular style of journalism and has more focuse on urban areas. In this case, the objective was that a common newsroom should supply multi-titles with content at the same time ensuring each brand gets the requsite focus. This is made possible by each daily brand their own “brand editor” who is also responsible for the digital version of their title.

Newsroom of Eastern Daily Press and Evening News in Norfolk / UK

The different sections are fully integrated as regards titles and platforms, there are no longer any section editors working exclusively for just one title. In order to optimally supply the news-driven titles for both print and digital by using the existing newsroom resources, even the “fast-moving” news sections works with exceptionally intensive content planning. Although the news sections process large volumes of the latest content, a lot of content is based on plannable events, such as press conferences and other fixed events. With this hypothesis as a basis, the positions of a “planning senior content editor” and a “day senior content editor” were called into being.

As the titles of these two responsible positions indicate, the planning senior content editor focuses on planning content for both titles and the newsroom resources on a day by day, weekly and monthly scale. This information is fed to the daily senior content editor as he bases his activities on the daily execution of tasks for both titles and their websites and sees to it that the titles are up-to-the-minute. Both senior content editors report to the brand editors.

This relatively new structure has been used already to prepare content generated by a number of events in an integrated newsroom for both titles in completely different ways. It has been possible in Norfolk to retain the specific characteristics of the titles concerned. Both titles benefit from a much larger pool of editors than before, something that is reflected in the diversity of topics, increased creativity and number of new ideas.

These two examples from Switzerland and England demonstrate that, by carrying out a careful analysis of existing work processes and structures, it is in fact possible to avail of synergies without this necessarily leading to a title losing its characteristic properties and a drop in quality. It is obvious, however, that the way in which the newsroom works changes radically, as in both cases, the editor in-chief no longer has exclusive access to the newsroom resources. Instead, a type of internal agency for specific topics is created. The difference and most important advantage compared to classical news agencies is that the responsible editors for a title.

If the differences between the titles become too significant in relation to target audience, market orientation and editorial concept, then the synergies will be only very minor and the risk of confusing the titles quite serious. But in many cases the advantages could be possibly greater than the drawbacks and constitute a possible answer to the continuously increasing cost pressure.

We published two special reports about those projects. Please send me an email or contact my office (kerstin.oestreicher@wan-ifra.org) to get copies. Thanks.

Boost synergies in a multi-title newsroom

Today’s economic situation demands that news publishing houses must work as efficiently as possible. For medium to large publishing companies producing several titles and brands on print and/or digital, far greater efficiency can be achieved through the establishment of a newsroom where, to a large extent, a group of journalists creates content that can be used across all titles and brands.

A smaller group of top journalists can be kept separate with each working for just one title, perhaps in areas such as politics or sports so that each brand retains its unique characteristics or “DNA.” In addition, the content judgement and selection process is a crucial component of a title’s DNA, so there is a need for a brand-responsible editor and perhaps a small group of additional editors for each title to set the tone of the given publication.

In most other areas, however, multi-title publishing houses can utilise synergies among their various titles, which have traditionally employed multiple people covering the same topic areas. Likewise, each title usually has several editors processing the same wire stories.
With all of this in mind, the question then becomes: How far can we go? How far should we go? Essentially, there are four basic models a publisher can choose, and each has its own advantages and disadvantages.

The first, let’s call it the “separated model,” is that everything is kept as it is. Each brand has its own editor in chief and teams of journalists. The advantage is that all of your editorial forces work for one brand. They have a clear focus on the brand, and the editor in chief has control over the whole editorial process and resources. The disadvantages are there is likely to be double-work being done across titles, and the editor in chief can’t easily access specialists from the other titles. This is the traditional model used by most publishers.

The second possibility is the “semi-pooled model,” where parts of the sections are pooled, but a few key people in each section are still dedicated to the individual titles. The advantages here are that you can utilise the pooling effect, and because of the pool, the overall staff size available to any one title is larger. At the same time, the identity of each title can be maintained by keeping those dedicated key people. The disadvantage is that it can be tricky to define the title’s identity and, consequently, to find out who the key people are to create that identity. And, since it is a matrix organisational structure, it is often a challenge to manage it. Finding the right mixture of pooling and dedicated allocation is a balancing act and unique to the publisher and its brands. A few newspapers in the U.K. and Switzerland are working on implementing a semi-pooled model.

The third possibility is a pooled model where more or less everyone is working for all titles. Here, the advantage is that you have the most resources, and the synergies are used in the best possible way. The disadvantage is there is a danger of the titles becoming too similar and losing the individual DNA. This model has been effectively implemented by Germany’s Welt Gruppe, and Denmark’s Nordjyske Medier has taken this approach since 2003.

The fourth and final model is a mixed version of the above three models on different sections. For example, the sports section is fully pooled whereas the politics section is completely separated and financial news is semi-pooled.

It should be obvious that multi-title publishing houses must move away from the separated model to one that uses at least some degree of pooling. The traditional method is simply too expensive. However, as with newsroom integration, there is not a one-size-fits-all model that can or should be adopted by everyone. Ultimately, which model or version of models a publisher decides to embrace needs to be based on what is best for its audiences.

Crisis opportunities

As difficult as it might be to believe, the current crisis offers news publishers some important opportunities. First, because it was a long time in the making (steady circulation declines, for example, have been well documented for decades), many publishers have already been thinking about how they could change for some time.

In recent years, IFRA has had many discussions with publishers about changing their newsrooms to not only integrate digital but also to make them more customer orientated and more efficient. However, since the print business was still generating strong profits until fairly recently, decisions on actually making future-oriented changes were nearly always postponed. Today, there is no longer any reason to delay them. Indeed, now is the time to take action. Publishers must once and for all break away from the traditional daily print cycle and learn to truly embrace a more platform-agnostic approach.

Likewise, most advertising departments can benefit from major restructuring that puts the customer and his or her success first and foremost, both digitally and in print. Despite the lingering question of “How can we make money with online?” we have seen few real changes in the behaviour and attitude of advertising departments. Until now, most have remained focused solely on print, with online part of the upsell, i.e.: “If you buy this print ad, you also get an online ad for a little surcharge.”

An awareness of online as its own media where publishers can earn money has not been established apart from a few well-known exceptions, such as Schibsted, which started years ago to take online seriously as an advertising media. In the rest of the world, it has been: “We have print. Print is where we make money.”

Consequently, the mindset and sales approach for advertising have long centred on print. For example, the rules of how print advertising is sold have typically been applied to online, but we know from research that the size of an online ad does not have the same importance for the reader in terms of factors such as ad recall, as it does with print. Online, context and frequency are more relevant for the ad recall and impact of a campaign. Naturally, this has an influence on how ad packages are designed and priced.

As with the newsroom, it’s therefore now time to move the processes, the offered products and services and also the management structure in advertising sales beyond print to firmly include digital.
Lastly, the crisis also offers the opportunity for many publishing houses to develop their internal management and leadership skills. In the past, especially in newsrooms, journalism skills rather than managerial ones have largely dominated. While journalism skills are obviously of great importance in newsrooms, the lack of strong leadership and management skills have left many unprepared to cope with the changes that now must be made.

News publishers can actively fight against this crisis by taking strong, decisive measures to make their newsrooms more efficient and reader oriented and their advertising departments more customer oriented. While there are no “magic bullet” solutions, one way out is to finally reach decisions and start planning and implementing the changes that are necessary.

From mass medium to individual information provider: What comes after the media-integrated newsroom?

Today, media-integrated newsrooms are viewed as an accepted solution for meeting the challenges of the digital media in connection with the printed newspaper. However, because the majority of newsrooms continue to view the print product as either the only or most important carrier of information, it will be a while before the new ways of thinking and working are part of the average newsroom’s DNA.

As newsrooms redefine and ‘rewire’ their strategies and operations, changes in society and technology continue. This raises two questions: What do newsrooms have to consider to keep a step ahead, and what comes after the media-integrated newsroom?

To answer these questions, one must first consider how society is changing in the 21st century. Even casual observers can see that three specific areas – virtualisation, mobilisation and individualisation – are experiencing explosive growth in many countries.

Virtualisation points to the growing importance of virtual communities, such as Facebook, that are used by millions each day and are redefining how people socialise and share information.

Mobilisation in the sense of permanent, mobile, broadband and wireless connection to the ‘global network’ points to the ever-expanding use and diversification of the mobile phone and other mobile devices.

At the same time, both virtualisation and mobilisation help promote individualisation. The possibilities that arise for each media user and the infinite range of information, communication and entertainment offerings increase the demands, especially on media operations.

Virtualisation and mobilisation already allow the move from a mono-medium distributor of content to a media-integrated communication business.

However, many news publishers are only beginning to work out how best to handle individualisation. While various departments try to reach their target audiences as effectively as possible, the topics mix often continues to be uncoordinated, or the target group is not considered in a cross-topic way.

One example is RSS feeds, which are offered for topics such as sport, international news or business. This is one channel being used for one topic. Taking RSS to the next level would be target audience-oriented feeds comprising a mix of topics from different sections (e.g. information from all sections for working mothers with children).

A media brand often has four to six distinctive and partially overlapping segments of the general public that are large enough, and therefore relevant enough, for both the newsroom and advertisers.

Although these target groups are still too large for members to be addressed individually, knowing more about them is an important factor in efforts to address content more effectively via print or digital media. Consequently, a clear orientation of the editorial planning and decision-making processes towards target audiences complies with the trend towards individualisation.

A media-integrated newsroom that generates wholly platform-independent contents is the prerequisite for carrying out a target audience-oriented approach. In this model, the responsibility for the content on the individual channels lies with the section heads who, together with their team, decide which topics are covered and in what form.

Following the principle of clear responsibility and ownership, in a further step ‘segment editors’ or ‘target-audience editors’ can be integrated into the team of section heads and chief editor. These segment editors are responsible for the individual segments and create specific products and services for their target groups. This can be, for example, supplements or entire titles with integrated digital and print components.

Also new, cross-media products with their own brand can be realised with this concept. Microsites, RSS feeds or newsletters that draw on the editorial content can be generated simply and quickly.

This ‘target audience-oriented newsroom’ combines the advantages of a media-integrated newsroom with those of a target audience-specific content control that caters to the interests and needs of specific segments.

However, an absence of target-audience orientation remains in many newsrooms because no one is responsible for individual segments. Customer segments and their needs are often either unknown or seen in vague demographic terms.

In view of societal trends, a far more stringent orientation towards the public is essential for content providers. Overcoming mental and physical barriers between platforms was the first step. The next step is to combine topics from various sections to form target audience-specific multimedia information and entertainment packages.

Top 5 measures in the newsroom for 2009

As a consequence of the economic downturn, many publishing houses are engaging once again in intensive discussions about how to reduce costs in the newsroom. In the U.S.A., many newspapers started to lay off personnel months ago. Jobs are also under threat in the U.K., and in Germany one of the biggest regional newspaper publishing companies, the WAZ Group, has announced its intention to save EUR 30 million p.a. – with a large share of this to be achieved in the newsroom.

It is becoming increasingly important to work efficiently, while at the same time maintaining quality standards. However, frequently short-term and poorly considered measures are carried out in order to improve the figures. Instead of subjecting the, in many cases, traditional working methods and processes in the newsrooms to a fundamental analysis and adapting them accordingly, all too often personnel are haphazardly removed from structures without consideration of the medium and long-term consequences. But it is especially the reorganisation and restructuring of work processes in the newsroom that offer a major potential for obtaining a sustained increase in the effectiveness and efficiency of the newsroom as well as a means of securing or even enhancing editorial quality.

For 2009, newspaper newsrooms should examine precisely which instruments they can use to be successful. Listed in the following are five measures that are not fully utilised in most newsrooms.

1st Measure: Optimise editorial planning

Introducing or improving editorial planning is one of the first approaches towards optimising processes in the newsroom. This means deciding early on, at least on an outline basis, the selection of topics, the timing of the publication of their content via print and online and the positioning in the various media. A precondition for this is to consider the topics in a differentiated way as regards relevance, topicality and best possible platform. Not everything is of equal importance for the public, not everything is “breaking news” and not everything is suitable for multi-platform coverage. Thus by prioritising the topics it is possible to better utilise the newsroom resources – from the reporter up to production.

By improved and earlier cross-media planning it is possible to give reporters, photographers and production specialists assignments that are both more precise and more in advance timewise for the newspaper edition or for video: This improves the quality of the articles, therefore reducing the need for reworking. Peak workloads in the production area are reduced because contents are spread more evenly over the day or the week and can be processed. Such a planning strategy was introduced recently at the Nottingham Evening Post and Welwyn and Hatfield Times in the U.K. It has also been applied successfully since a longer time at Nordjyske Medier in Denmark. In every case, it proved possible to increase the levels of both quality and efficiency.

2nd Measure: Generate rather than check quality

Promoting quality consciousness represents an additional challenge. To date, in many newsrooms basic requirements, such as correct grammar or spelling, continue to be checked and not generated. As a consequence, much too much time is spent on cross-checking and correcting that would be better invested in creative tasks.

Then again, the knowledge that such checking is done, as well as the absence in many cases of feedback to “upstream stages” (e.g. to the reporter from the editor), means that there can be no learning effect. Paradoxically, experience shows that too many checks do not necessarily improve the quality and can even result in new errors being introduced into the text. The Daily Telegraph in London managed to halve the number of checks without lowering the standard of quality by giving every editor in the news chain more responsibility. The freed-up time resources can be used for new tasks, in the case of the Daily Telegraph this time is invested in digital journalism.

3rd Measure: Produce pages more efficiently

The increased use of design modules for page production is another method for increasing efficiency. This optimisation of page layout, together with more intensive planning, means that it is possible to quickly design pages with content and page area known early on in the day. This in turn facilitates giving assignments to reporters as they can be told more precisely the desired length of an article. It also reduces the peak workloads at the page production stage before page deadline, as certain pages must be altered only slightly.

4th Measure: Qualify personnel

The successful implementation of all the listed measures is dependent to a major degree on the personnel who are involved. They must be given the necessary skills, e.g. to plan contents in a cross-media way, prioritise contents based on the profiles of the target audience or to use the many possibilities of new digital forms to cover topics. Leading personnel is also becoming increasingly important where quality is concerned: an aimed communication of tasks, constructive criticism or the use of design modules in the editorial or production system. However, more important than specific skills for implementing the measures is having the right attitude. An in-depth understanding of the backgrounds, interrelationships and pursued objectives, as well as the conviction on the part of each individual of the sense of the measures are the precondition for their successful implementation. Such understanding and the specialised skills can be communicated by aimed and structured training programs.

5th Measure: Generate content effectively

Besides optimisation in the planning and production area as well as personnel development, synergies can be used also at the content generation stage that lead to time savings and cost optimisation. Some topics, in many cases from the area of entertainment and specialised subjects, are not subject to geographical or time limitations. Likewise, processing content for specific target audiences is in many cases very similar or can be adapted relatively simply. Examples of such topics are news about celebrities, presenting and testing new car models, service information on health, fashion, education or career.

This type of content can be obtained either from third parties (something that is done already in many instances by the taking over and reworking of agency bulletins or sports and TV schedules) or, in the case of publishing houses that produce several different titles, produced in “joint newsrooms” operating as a type of “internal agency”. The identity of the individual titles or brands respectively is not endangered, as long as “core topics” that constitute the brand DNA are not outsourced or centrally sourced.

An example of this highly effective form of multiple content use is the so-called “Blue Group” of the Axel-Springer publishing corporation in Berlin. From a large-scale newsroom, topics are generated that are subsequently modified in each case for a wide range of different products: regional newspaper (Berliner Morgenpost), national newspaper (Die Welt) and its light edition (Welt Kompakt), national Sunday newspaper (Welt am Sonntag) as well as the accompanying websites.

Such a utilisation of synergies from cross-title “joint departments” is, however, frequently dependent on the publishing house structure; especially if it is desired to remain within one’s own corporate structure. But existing cooperation models of regional newspaper publishing houses that serve different target audiences demonstrate that manifold forms of synergies are possible.

None of the five listed measures can be regarded in an isolated manner. Especially the planning and production-oriented methods as well as personnel development are closely interconnected. Where the will exists, every newsroom can implement these measures also in the medium term. Certainly they are in every way better that short-term cost-saving models to the detriment of personnel and quality.

Ian Davies died

Ian Davies, director of group business development for Archant Media Group in UK, and friend of my wife Sarah and me, was killed in a plane crash on Wednesday, 29th of October. We have known him for about 3 years. We met at several conferences around the world and we always had a great time. He was one of the most forward thinking, open minded people I have met in this business. And his passion for everything to do with media inspired us a lot. Thank you very much Ian for the short time you spent with Sarah and me. We will miss your company a lot. Our thoughts are with your family, Colette, Francesca and Josh.

EDP/ Archant © 2003

Seven theses for a necessary paradigm change in the advertising business

Marketing and selling the digital offerings of newspaper newsrooms seems to be still a neglected topic in many newspaper houses. The focus in ad-selling is concentrated too much on columns and pages in print products. But especially news publishing companies in Scandinavia show that it is possible to make money with digital platforms of newspapers. At some news publishing companies, online revenues already account for 60 percent of the total advertising revenue and more than 40 percent of the effective yield.

However, such results can be achieved only if there is a fundamental re-thinking in the advertising departments. The following seven theses describe the change on the international advertising markets that foreseeably will be of existential importance for newspapers.

1. Advertising budgets go where the consumers are. And they are going increasingly to the digital media of online and mobile. The rate of increase of Internet use between 2004 and 2007 is about 43 percent (1), the average penetration of mobil telephones is in the region of 50 percent worldwide, with rates of increase up to about 60 percent, e.g. in India (2) . In the United Kingdom, for example, in 2007 more money was spent for online advertising than for placing ads in all national newspapers together (3).
2. Advertising customers are not interested in having themselves represented by a colour ad in a newspaper. Advertising customers are interested in increasing the number of customer contacts and selling products or services. For this reason, modern media houses need to consider first and foremost to be their job to support advertising customers in their efforts to obtain these objectives and not only to sell advertising space on paper.
3. Newspapers have all the means at their disposal to offer advertising customers attractive advertising solutions: Print products with a strong brand as well as attractive websites with topical, interactive and in part audiovisual contents that catch the attention of new target audiences and intensify the loyalty and frequency of contact with existing readers or users – produced by qualified newsroom staff.
4. It is not a matter of replacing print ads by other forms of advertising. A combination of different media and formats can increase both reach and frequency, and therefore enhance the effectiveness of the advertising message.
5. The circulation of a newspaper is becoming increasingly irrelevant as a yardstick and sales argument for the effectiveness of an advertising message. Instead, it is factors such as reach, frequency and ad recall that determine whether the products or brands of the advertising customers enter and stay in the minds of the consumer. This can be achieved much more efficiently by a combination of various media than just with the newspaper medium.
6. Advertising customers no longer depend exclusively on newspapers to draw attention to products and services as well as to carry advertising messages. Online, e-mail, mobile, direct mailing, sponsoring or info screens in public places are sometimes cheaper, faster and better targeted than a newspaper ad. The advertising customer can very easily gain access to some of these without even having to consider the newspaper sales rep. Consequently, it is essential that the newspaper becomes a partner for the advertising customer also for these new forms of advertising. Otherwise someone else will.
7. “Fifty percent of the advertising spend is always wasted money. But you don’t know which fifty percent.” This dilemma is becoming increasingly unacceptable for the advertising customer. Clear target audience reachability, transparency in the design and implementation of campaigns as well as a verifiable effectiveness-of-advertising control decide who gets the advertiser’s money.

In the light of these theses, it becomes essential to subject the following points to a careful reconsideration: existing product and service structures, sales processes and management structures, staff qualification profiles, business planning and contolling toolds. Cosmetic adaptations of rate schedules, additions of digital products (“We now also have banners in our programme”) or inciting sales teams to sell also online, without sufficiently adapting the bonus system, will not be enough.

It means re-defining the advertising business, where the publishing house, acting as an advertising partner, provides a complex service, namely responsibility for the entire process: analysis of the needs of both the market and of the advertising customer, advice on the best possible application of the available budget, planning the use of advertising resources, implementing and measuring the success of the campaign. What several newsrooms have already managed, i.e. the transition from a traditional, print product-focused organisation to an integrated multimedia operation, will in future increasingly also be a central challenge for the advertising area. Time is of the essence.

Sources/references:

(1) Internet use of 16-24 year old in hours per week, in average in Europe. Source: EIAA Mediascope Europe 2007

(2) Source: Telecoms & Media, Nov. 2007, GSMA

(3) Source: Online Advertising Bureau. Article on http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/mar/28/advertising.newmedia

Organisational types of newsrooms in a media convergent environment

The last few years have seen publishing houses all over the world begin to adapt their editorial products, services, infrastructure and IT. The catalyst for this transformation is the rapidly changing needs of a once traditional print audience who are now moving towards the new opportunities of the digital world.

More and more, editorial departments consider digital channels as important as the print medium. Newspaper brands now offer audio and video stories on their websites or via mobile services and push interactive services such as blogs and discussion forums. These changes and diversification of products and services inevitably have an impact on workflows, roles and structures in an editorial department.

In order to achieve the goal to offer new products and services, a wide range of organisational concepts and strategies were conceived by editorial management. Some of these concepts were the incremental next step of a process of evolutionary development. Others followed a more radical approach to changing every inch of how their newsroom operates.

Looking at the organisational concepts that have been realised in editorial departments, we can see three main structural types:

The first type, let’s call it ‘Newsroom 1.0′ or the ‘multiple media newsroom’, provides dedicated editorial resources for each platform that is serviced by the publishing houses. This results in separate editorial units for the print edition and for the online site. The “low-cost version” would be one or a few editors who take the copy of the print edition, possibly rewrite the copy and put it on the website. This can happen either before the story was published in the print edition or after the newspaper has hit the stands.

On the other side of the spectrum there is a fully equipped editorial department with online reporters and online editors who do their own research and content generation and run the web site as more or less as a separate channel from the printed edition. These kinds of online editorial operation can be either part of the print editorial or sometimes even a separate company with its own P&L.

No matter what shape this type has, the responsibility for the print and the online channel are divided between different people with often an editor for the printed edition and an online editor. The content generation, editing and production is by and large divided between the print and the online world.

This structure can be seen at the Austrian national newspaper “Österreich” which was launched in September 2006 and sold in August 2007 about 167.000 copies per day. “Österreich” was set up from the beginning as a brand that equally uses print and digital as channels to publish their content.

Newsroom at Oesterreich in Austria

Looking at the structure of the newsroom, Österreich has a very innovative newsroom layout in terms of putting all editorial resources in an open office space environment. The editorial decision makers are located in the middle of the newsroom the different sections such as news, business and sport as well as online, are placed with their editorial and production staff around the centre news desk.

According to this concept the print and online journalists are working in the same environment and the online editor is part of the newsdesk team, but, in general, print journalists don’t directly generate content for the digital channels of Österreich.

Other examples of newspaper operations that follow basically the same editorial concept, but with different newsroom structures, are the Guardian in UK, der Standard in Austria, Kölner Stadtanzeiger in Germany, Aftonbladet and Norrköping Tidningar in Sweden, Verdens Gang in Norway and many others around the globe.

The second type, that can be distinguished, ‘Newsroom 2.0′ or the ‘cross media newsroom’, works on the principle that the content gatherers generate the content for all channels served by the editorial department. There are different responsibilities for each channel, but the different sections (news, sport, features etc.) generate the content for print and online and also provide other formats such as video for the web or audio and also provide input for Web-TV or Radio.

In 2003 Nordjyske Stiftstidende, a regional daily newspaper in Denmark with a circulation of about 75.000 copies, reorganised their editorial department and transformed it from a paper centric traditional operation into a modern multi media publishing. Today, a daily paid-for and a free newspaper, a TV programme for online and cable and two radio programmes are produced out of one editorial department.

Newsroom at Nordjyske

The picture you can see depicts the structure of the “Superdesk” at Nordjyske Stiftstidende. For each channel there is a responsible editor who sits on the Superdesk. Additionally the picture editor is located at the superdesk as well as a spare desk for special occasions. The content is generated by what is known as content groups, similar to the different sections of a newspaper.

An additional though crucial role can be found on this Superdesk; the “Media conductor”. The media conductor role is carried out in a rota system by one person from a team of five people. Three people of this team are part of the chief editorial team.

This media conductor is responsible for the total output of the editorial department on print, online, radio and TV. He primarily handles the discussions between the different channel responsible editors in terms of priorisation of channels and the decision, what content goes when and where. Finally he is some kind of referee who balances the different and potentially conflicting request that are issued by each channel to the different content groups.

Nordjyske Stiftstidende was one of the pioneers in implementing a radical change in the newsroom and is very successful in terms of expanding their total reach among their audience and monetising the different platforms. An other example of a similar newroom concept is the Financial Times in UK, which introduced the changes over a period of a few years.

The third type, Newsroom 3.0 or the ‘integrated newsroom’, aims to provide content on multiple channels by integrating the complete news flow across print and digital media from the planning to the production. In this type, there is no single responsible person for each channel. The responsibility for the coverage of stories across print and digital channels is with the section head. Therefore, there is no online department as in type 1 or an online editor as in type 2.

This concept follows the premise that the topic owner knows best how a story should be built up well timed across the different channels by using the appropriate format. There is no “us” and “them” between the different channels and no conflict between different people or teams regarding where to break a story for instance. The story owner decides what aspect of a story is told on which channel with a certain format.

In 2006, the Telegraph Group (London) started a comprehensive programme to transform editorial into a media operation that generates and produces content for print and various digital media. The Telegraph group publishes a national quality broadsheet with a circulation of about 880.000 copies, Sunday paper with a circulation of about 670.000 copies and a series of magazines.

Since the beginning of 2007 the daily and weekend newspaper as well as the online site with web-TV and podcasts are planned and produced in one newsroom which is around 6.500 m². The former solely print journalists contribute actively to the Telegraph community site and blogs and the social network platform services are expanded continuously.

Newsroom Daily Telegraph

The picture you can see here shows the structural concept that has been realised at the Daily Telegraph in London. In the centre is what is known as a “news hub” and the sections heads with their editorial and production teams are located around the news hub on “spokes”. An exception is news production which has a dedicated spoke at the news hub. The digital spoke on the upper left takes care of the technical aspect of the online site, the content is mainly generated in the different sections by the journalists. Nottingham Evening Post, part of the Northcliffe Media Group in UK, started recently a smaller version of this concept.

If we recall the physical layout of all the examples and types, it is apparent that they look very similar or even quite identical. There is a central desk in the middle where the decision makers are placed and meet up at conferences and during the day. The different content groups or sections are located physically as close as possible to the Newsdesk, But even if the physical layout is very similar in all three cases, the workflows and roles are completely different and therefore the whole newsroom works in a completely different way.

At “Österreich” there is a dedicated online department, the print journalists are by and large not involved in the digital world. The news flows for print and digital content are more or less separated.
“Nordjyse Stiftidende” uses a kind of news market, where on one side sit the responsible editors for each platform who “own” space in the paper and the online site and time for video and audio content. On the other side there are the content gatherers, the sections, who provide content for the different platforms.

And at the “Daily Telegraph” the sections heads as topic specialists are responsible for the output on all channels. The sections produce content for print and online and use the formats audio and video for their story telling.

All these newsrooms have, to varying degrees, found out that it is imperative to see that the physical layout is just one piece of the jigsaw and that only building a central news desk is by far not sufficient to become a newsroom that works in a platform agnostic way that provides content for print and digital channels. The leverage to utilise the potentials of all the print and digital tools lies in the new ways of working with the workflows, the roles and responsibilities, the skills and, above all, in the mindset and attitude of the entire staff. This is what makes the real difference.
As it was shown with these examples, this new way of working can be completely different from organisation to organisation, even if the layout of the newsroom might look.

The changes which need be accomplished by the newspaper publishing houses in order to keep reaching their existing audience and to reach new target groups, are not primarily a question of infrastructure, newsroom layout or working environment.

The main area of change needs to happen in the head of the people. Digital media and new formats are an endless repertoire of tools for print journalists to tell stories in a compelling way. As soon as the attitude of an editorial department follows a “story teller with new tools” mentality, the other changes in workflows, structures and environment are a logical consequence of that.