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A gunman opens fire in the U.S. Capitol, and Tribune newsrooms, like newsrooms across
the country, jumped into breaking-news mode on that July 24, 1998. What happened? How many
attackers? Who did it? Was it an organized plot or a lone assailant? Who was shot? Any big
names?
Few of the newsrooms, however, put into play the combined reporting skills
of dozens of
broadcast, print and Internet journalists that Tribune Company was able
to throw at the story. The journalists' goal was to try to answer those
questions as swiftly as possible for their own outlet. But unlike other
newsrooms, they also were reporting for an audience that may be learning
about the shooting from another medium that comes under the Tribune umbrella.
In Washington, where the Tribune Media Center combines the operations of Tribune's
broadcast and newspaper bureaus, the chaotic scene outside the Capitol was transmitted
live to stations across the country. Soon, Chicago Tribune congressional correspondent
William Neikirk joined the broadcast, adding his expert eyewitness account from his
knowledge of the halls of Congress.
A little while later, tapping into my expertise as a former congressional
correspondent, I was interviewed live by CLTV, Tribune's local all-news cable channel in
Chicago. From a TV stage in the middle of the Chicago Tribune newsroom on Michigan Avenue,
I described the security set up in the Capitol.
Meanwhile, Chicago Tribune investigative reporters went to work contacting their law
enforcement sources, and they soon learned the identity of the captured suspect. From our
positions on the multimedia Chicago Tribune city desk, an Internet editor and myself,
representing the broadcasting outlets, shared the information with a wide audience hours
before the Chicago Tribune went to press.
``Law enforcement sources tell the Chicago Tribune,'' the reports said, that the
captured suspect was Russell E. Weston Jr., a native of the downstate Illinois town of
Valmeyer, who had been questioned in the past by the Secret Service for threats against
the president.
Every outlet benefited from the multimedia activity. The broadcast outlets secured
information from resources usually available only to larger networks; the Internet kept
ahead of the breaking story; and the Chicago Tribune was able to communicate that it was
on top of the story through its own vast reporting resources by sharing exclusive
information that would lose its uniqueness long before the newspaper would hit the
streets.
It was a great example of intergroup cooperation at work, albeit in crisis mode, by
practical, no-nonsense, doing-it-daily journalists, with not a question raised about what
we were doing or why. Tribune executives, editors and news directors answered those
questions years ago, though the daily application of it is an ongoing conversation.
Tribune Company believes it is on the cutting edge of multimedia journalism. Financial
analysts appear to recognize this; Fortune magazine ranks Tribune at the top of its
``most-admired companies'' list in the publishing category. Publishers, editors and
journalism professors from around the world come through Chicago nearly every week to see
what we're doing, some spending a few days exploring the newsroom culture and spending
time at Tribune Company's CLTV, superstation WGN-TV and market leader WGN-AM.
Yet, no company can honestly say it knows where this will all lead. Chicagotribune.com
and Metromix.com, the primary news and features Chicago Tribune Internet sites, now fall
under Tribune Interactive, a new corporate group that brings together the interactive
functions of the company's four newspapers and more than a score of television stations.
More outlets for Tribune content are under development. The advent of digital TV allows
for the transmission of all kinds of additional information besides the TV signal.
Meanwhile, Tribune Interactive is providing AT&T@Home customers in Chicago with new
customized high-speed Web content that includes complete local news, information,
entertainment and classified advertising, plus high-speed access to Tribune's Chicago Web
outlets for the Chicago Tribune, CLTV, WGN-TV and WGN-AM.
Despite the uncertainty of how people in the future will get their information, Tribune
Company, and more specifically, the Chicago Tribune, my home base, is planning for it.
When it came time to rebuild the Chicago Tribune newsroom, Tribune Publishing Division
President Jack Fuller, the Chicago Tribune's former publisher and editor, and the
newspaper's current publisher, Scott Smith, and editor Howard Tyner made sure that
capacity for the technology of the future was built in.
In addition to modernizing the newsroom, designers included a TV studio linked by fiber
optic cable to CLTV, WGN-TV and WGN-AM, and they put it in the middle of the newsroom in
the line of sight between the offices of Tyner and Managing Editor Ann Marie Lipinski.
That as much as anything made a statement to the staff. Panels were built in seven other
locations in Tribune Tower to plug in live camera and studio equipment. The installation
includes a radio booth, two digital editing bays, digital video storage for easy sharing
of content among the newspaper, the stations and the Internet Tribune, and a master
control.
Interestingly, when the walls were torn out and cable was being laid, capacity was
built in for expansion and installation of technology that may not yet even be in
development.
From these facilities, which were dedicated in May 1998, live interviews, taped
segments and full shows are created and distributed. Movie, theater, TV, music and
restaurant critics record their reviews for TV packages. The Tribune's Good Eating section
is turned into a weekly TV show on CLTV. Foreign correspondents report on the air from war
zones. Tribune experts in all fields analyze news developments. Exclusive and enterprise
stories are shared with broadcast partners to air the night before they are printed.
Elsewhere, CLTV News shares its headquarters with the newspaper's west suburban bureau
in Oak Brook, Ill. Also, live camera positions are in place in three other Chicago Tribune
suburban bureaus.
Each outlet has its own news gathering staff. But coverage is enhanced by the
multimedia desks in the Chicago Tribune newsroom and the Tribune Media Center in
Washington.
So the systems are in place; what about the people?
When CLTV signed on in 1993, managers of the Tribune and the station determined that a
liaison needed to be in place to manage the resource sharing and the relationship. That
grew from one person into what is today a multilayered staff within the corporate
structure of Tribune Company and the Chicago Tribune and in the newspaper newsroom. A
Tribune Company vice president, David Underhill, oversees intergroup management for all
Tribune Company divisions. Within the Chicago Tribune, an intergroup operations unit
oversees the relationships among all Tribune Company outlets in the Chicago market.
The managers build new relationships and find new opportunities among all Tribune units
and outside partners. Meanwhile, a team of two newspaper editors and seven print and TV
news veterans at the Chicago Tribune work on managing the daily relationship and creating
content. The production tem includes a news editor, two producers, an associate producer,
two videographers/editors and an engineer. Similar teams are in place at the other Tribune
newspapers: the Newport News (Va.) Daily Press, the Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel and the
Sun-Sentinel, South Florida (Fort Lauderdale).
Most significantly, the newspaper reporters and editors are encouraged by Tyner to
participate, aided by the synergy staff to improve their communications skills on radio
and television.
And so this past summer after power failed in sections of Chicago's downtown during the
middle of a busy workday, Chicago Tribune experts made live appearances on WGN-TV and CLTV
to explain and analyze the outage. In addition to attending the usual news meetings,
synergy editors were around the city desk exchanging information with Tribune editors. The
Internet Tribune mixed the latest news with broadcast interviews and TV pictures from CLTV
for a multimedia experience.
Meanwhile on the Tribune stage, the newspaper's fashion expert recorded segments to be
used later this fall on CLTV. In two edit rooms elsewhere in the Tribune newsroom,
production continued on movie review and on-the-go segments built from newspaper and
Internet content. And in the field, a Chicago Tribune features reporter taped an interview
with movie star Halle Berry.
So we believe we are ready for the future. Let it come.
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