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 Adapting and reorganising outdated processes and structures to meet today’s demands frequently enable major improvements in product quality as well as the performance capacity of newsrooms –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.
