Last Updated: March 23, 1999
Printer-friendly version
Future of newspapers
As the news model moves away from working toward a
daily deadline to updating databases constantly, newsroom roles should
also change
At an international new-media conference a few years ago, someone spoke
about the effect of mechanical refrigeration on companies selling block
ice to homes. The spiel presented an ice industry spokesman in denial,
arguing that kitchen refrigerators are just a fad, that electricity is
inefficient for chilling food, and that consumers won’t give up the convenience
and familiarity of dealing with a local iceman. It was a well-constructed
dig at newspapers trying to ignore the Internet.
Most newspapers have gotten past that attitude by now, realizing their
futures are linked to the digital information age even as print remains
the medium of record and journalism a valuable service.
An updated version of the ice industry analogy might chide us for the
manner in which many newspapers today are trying to handle their new work
with their old work flows. We’d hear a reformed block-ice executive coaching
a staff member this way:
Erwin, I’ve called you in this morning to tell you that we are no
longer in the ice business. The world is changing, technology is changing
and our customers are changing. It’s not just about keeping things cold
anymore. We are competing in the ‘food preservation industry.’ And if we
don’t gear up in a hurry, the only thing on ice around here is going to
be us.
So effective immediately, in addition to making better block ice,
we are going to assemble the latest in electronic refrigerators, manufacture
a line of advanced polymer food storage bags, and bioengineer a bacteria
to keep lettuce from wilting. However the public wants to keep its food
fresh, we are going to be there.
Fortunately, we won’t have to change much to accomplish all this.
Temperature is critical both in making ice and in growing bacteria so our
chiller mechanic can be in charge of those areas. We will put the fellow
who monitors water levels in charge of the liquid polymer process since
he’s familiar with fluids. And because you are good with tools in cutting
and shaping ice blocks, you put the refrigerators together.
I’m sure everyone will adapt quickly. After all, you are talented
and intelligent. And despite what I said at the beginning about competing
in a new industry, none of this is really that much different from making
ice.
But of course it is very different and only a shortsighted manager would
be blind to the consequences.
In the case of newspapers, we are moving from the business of running
a printing press to a more competitive multiple-media arena classified
as the information or news services industry.
In this industry, the printing press is just one of many methods available
to package and deliver our real product — branded news, information and
advertising.
Other distribution avenues might include the Web, mall kiosks, specialized
e-mail summaries, data subscriptions, personalized notification services,
fax-back and fax-delivery services, on-demand digital printers, audiotext
systems, a cellular phone broadcast offering and an interactive channel
on cable TV.
This may seem to be a straightforward evolution for the newspaper newsroom
and the journalists who work there. But where traditional newspaper work
flows have been fine-tuned over the years to fill space on a page by deadline,
the imperative in this new publishing model is to fill a database continuously
with material in many formats, from print and photos to video and animation.
That database supplies a pagination system to create what continues
to be our signature product. But it also feeds any number of parallel production
lines, providing them with the material they need for our other market
offerings. Eventually the database becomes a news product in its own right,
requiring appropriate journalistic oversight.
We will have to change how journalists are organized to support such
a database-centered news operation. Here are some of the new newsroom jobs
we might expect to see.
CEIO — Other than for newspapers, every major information-intensive
business has a chief information officer to help ensure that the organization’s
critical assets are effectively captured, organized, preserved and distributed
in ways that maximize their value and effectiveness. As newsrooms become
geared more toward information rather than production, the need grows for
a “chief editorial information officer” to help coordinate our focus.
Envisioned as a job for a journalist around the level of a managing
editor, the CEIO would manage newsroom information, from receipt of phone
messages and press releases, to digitization of city hall files brought
back by reporters, to research supporting an investigative news story,
to the ease with which editorial staff search the archives and use the
Internet.
The CEIO would ensure that no data or documents that come within the
newsroom’s grasp ever slip away without being evaluated for incorporation
into an editorial database. The newspaper would build up competitive databases
of authenticated, searchable information to support news coverage.
Resourcer — Newspapers are going to quickly drown in information
as they become a local clearinghouse for everything of interest to the
community. Even in today’s newsrooms, editors and reporters spend far too
much time just searching through the computer system for particular files
or shepherding the electronic delivery of a story from a stringer. Enter
the resourcer.
Imagine a combination research librarian, digital archivist, electronic
picture desk manager, scanner operator, database expert, network guru and
news technologist. Working from what might be called a News Resource Desk,
a team of resourcers will help the newsroom manage its file traffic, deal
with digital issues and ensure that information is properly cataloged in
the news database.
Maybe not a journalist in the traditional sense, the resourcer requires
a journalistic viewpoint and solid news judgment to support the editorial
effort properly.
Story manager — One of the most exciting trends in the digital-era
newsroom is evolution of some copy editors or subeditors into a new position
to efficiently coordinate multiple-media newsgathering.
The effect is to integrate into the news desk a broader range of presentation
planning and content finishing skills. This will promote comprehensive
story development and better coordination of writers’ efforts at the earliest
stages of the newsgathering process.
A basic implementation of this integrated news desk approach involves
assignment of “wordsmith” copy editors to work directly with reporters
during — rather than after — content creation. This would allow the news
desk to send higher-quality work to pagination editors closer to the time
when final pages must be released, rolling back deadlines.
Applied at this earlier stage in the flow, copy editing becomes a process
of quality enhancement rather than last-minute quality control, and experienced
copy editors take on an active role as writing coaches and story advisers.
Production journalist — For 25 years, newsrooms have been pushing
toward ever-tighter integration of page production and copy editing, to
the point that there is almost no separation between them today. This was
ideal when the newspaper had but one kind of news product to produce.
But with newsrooms starting to work around a central asset-management
database and trying to produce content appropriate for several media, re-establishing
a distinction between form and function is prudent.
This does not mean turning production tasks back to a separate production
department that is not trained or equipped to exercise news judgment. Instead,
the production journalist — in essence the other half of the copy editor/story
manager evolutionary process — would be a technically savvy editor specialized
in coordinating with story managers, in mining the content database and
in presenting news through specific media.
As news production tasks become more technical — like maintaining a
Web site — either journalists start to specialize in the processes or those
processes invariably will be run by non-journalists.
Technojournalist — This is a designation for any journalist who
wants the best chances of succeeding in the age of digital information.
Technology today is a tool simultaneously for newsgathering, for production
and for delivery. To expect that the stereotypical technophobe reporter
or editor will excel in this environment is as shortsighted as our ice
industry executive.
News judgment nor the ability to clearly explain an important story
should take a back seat to skill at surfing the Internet. But just as journalists
with advanced degrees can name their own price because of their skills
in complex news situations, journalists who can tame technology to the
benefit of the newsroom — and who can help walk their editors through it
— are now coming into great demand.
Northrup is technologies editor for Ifra and executive director of
the Ifra Centre for Advanced News Operations. Contact him at northrup@
ifra.com.
