Author: Melinda J. McAdams
Published: January 01, 2000
Last Updated: March 10, 2000
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By Melinda J. McAdams, Knight Chair Professor of Journalism, College of Journalism and Communications, University of Florida January 2000 About this study Research for this study was conducted in the fall of 1999 by my graduate assistant, Jennifer Berardi, then a master’s candidate in the College of Journalism and Communications at the University of Florida. She had training and experience in research methods. The funding for her assistantship came from the college’s Knight Chair endowment from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Ms. Berardi conducted in-depth interviews with 11 online editors and producers. The questions were prepared in advance and read from a script during a separate telephone interview with each participant. The interviews were tape-recorded with the participants’ knowledge and consent. No follow-up questions have been asked as yet. Participants volunteered for the study in response to a request I posted in September 1999 on the online-newspapers Internet mailing list. Participants were promised no compensation other than a copy of this report. Participants in the study 11 Daily newspapers represented 11 Different job titles of participants 10 Participant has a newspaper background 9 Of the two people without a newspaper background, one has been primarily a graphic designer and the other has a recent degree and experience in new media via internships. A third, also a recent university graduate, has limited newspaper experience. Obviously, 11 participants is a small number. However, I believe some useful information can be derived from even this limited sample. Job titles of participants Electronic editor Executive producer New media editor Online content editor Online copy editor Online editor (2) Online managing editor Online news editor Online project editor Producer Note that nine titles include the word editor, while the other two include producer. When newspapers first went online, there was a belief in some quarters that the staff would be more like paste-up men and women than like editors. A paste-up man, or a producer, might handle ads and editorial in equal measure. An editor generally would not be expected to handle ads. Specific tasks done by the interview subject   Never Sometimes Frequently Do you code or write HTML? 0 2 9 Do you put news stories into templates? 0 2 9 Do you write or rewrite headlines? 0 7 4 Do you choose news photos? 0 4 7 Do you write photo captions? 0 10 1 Do you find and select related stories (and link them)? 1 2 8 Do you find and select related external Web sites/resources (and link them)? 0 8 3 Do you code or place banner ads on news pages? 7 3 1 Do you code or place other advertising matter on news pages? 8 3 0 Do you put advertisers’ copy into templates? 9 1 1 Do you discuss placement of ads with ad staff? 2 7 2 Do you code or create links to advertisers’ Web sites? 6 4 1 For the questions above, subjects answered for themselves, not for their entire staff. Five of the 11 subjects manage others on the online staff, so that may account for some of the differences. Staff makeup and the permeable wall Online operations covered in this study range from those with a staff of one person to one with a staff of about 50. In most cases the interview subject could only estimate the size of some divisions of the operation, often because there was some amount of overlap -- either in duties for the online operation, or in duties split between online and print. Overlap between online and print: This is most evident in the ad sales staffs; the print advertising staff is expected to sell online ads in several cases. In other cases, the online ad sales are handled by a separate staff. Online staff shared by editorial and advertising: An online staff position is shared most often in graphic design, "shared" meaning that the person works for both sides. Programming staff people are usually shared, even when the programmer is building editorial content applications. Interaction between editorial and advertising staffs: The amount of interaction varies widely. At almost all online operations studied, ad placement is discussed. Advertising is alerted in advance of schedules for special content sections and projects. Ideas for new content areas online are often discussed with advertising to determine whether they can be sold. While this may not appear to be very different from print operations, the small size of most online staffs means that the interaction resembles that at a small community newspaper -- even when the online operation belongs to a large daily. Because of the small size of this sample, I’ve chosen to quote most of the comments relevant to the online editorial-advertising mix. Readers may find it valuable to see how the interview subjects described situations and arrangements. I have omitted only comments that were redundant. Some comments have been edited for length. The subjects have been listed in order of the size of their online staff. That structure makes it clear how tasks become more differentiated as the staff size increases. Overview Online staff Print newspaper circulation* 1 person (entire online staff) 10,000–25,000 1 editorial person; shared online ad staff 10,000–25,000 4.5 people total, 1 editorial 100,000–250,000 16 content people; 5 "strictly" editorial 100,000–250,000 18 people; 4.5 editorial 250,000–500,000 25 people; 6 editorial 50,000–100,000 17 people; 7 editorial; plus 2 interns 100,000–250,000 22 people; 9 on the "news team" 100,000–250,000 30 people (est.); 12 editorial 250,000–500,000 32-35 people (number of editorial unclear) 250,000–500,000 50 people (est.); 30 editorial More than 500,000 * Circ. figures from Editor & Publisher’s 1999 International Year Book. Staff of 1 person Job title: Online project editor Background: Graphic design, including print newsroom Print newspaper circulation: 10,000–25,000 He posts the news (from the printed paper) to the Web site. He does all coding, graphics, design and navigation for the Web site. There is no separate ad staff for online; ad staff for the print newspaper is supposed to sell for online, too. He takes print ads and converts them into banner ads for the Web site. He goes on sales calls with advertising staff from the print side -- about once a month. In most cases, he said, it’s because the client has technical questions  that the sales reps cannot answer, for example, about animation and site traffic. He also goes along to "demo the Web site" for the advertiser. There’s not much advertising on their site because "the advertising staff is still trying to get geared up." "I think our biggest hindrance is that the advertising staff here has their hands full selling the print edition. "We do a number of special sections every year editorially that are advertising-driven. There are four or five of those online that have an advertising component. If you buy a display ad in the print product, you get an Internet ad in the online version of the same product. We do a kind of community guide that’s up for a whole year, and we do holiday special sections." Staff of 1 editorial person; shared online ad staff * Job title: Online copy editor Background: Newspapers, 7 years Print newspaper circulation: 10,000–25,000 * This Web site is part of a regional group of sites and local newspapers that share content and resources. A producer from another site in this group appears below. He posts the news (from the printed paper) to the Web site. He covers breaking news for the Web site "sometimes." On this man’s days off, copy editors from the print side post news to the Web site. Ad staff (about 8 people) also sells for other Web sites owned by same parent company. 2 designers: 1 strictly editorial; 1 does both editorial and advertising. Although he and the ad staff are in different buildings, "we meet quite frequently to discuss ad placement. I try to keep them informed on things that I’m doing so they have ideas of what they can sell. There is a lot of discussion back and forth." Example of how editorial and advertising staffs collaborate: A couple of years ago, there was a very large concert nearby, and a sister newspaper did live online updates from the concert. One of the ad salesman this man works with "is a music writer, too, and he went up and was the primary content creator. He did updates throughout the day. He did some writing, took a lot of digital photos and posted them to the Web." "Basically, we [advertising and editorial] know each other and what we’re doing. They need to know what kind of things I’m up to so they can recognize opportunities to sell ads and recognize the audience that we’re going for. It’s just a lot of cooperation that way. In fact, I have a Listserv going, and we’re talking about sponsoring it so they [advertising] can track who is using it." Staff of 4.5, with 1 editorial person Job title: Online content editor Background: New media internships, broadcast degree Print newspaper circulation: 100,000–250,000 He posts the news (from the printed paper) to the Web site and is responsible for "news content." On this man’s days off, the "chief technical person" posts the news to the Web site. Ad placement is the primary contact point between this man and the advertising staff. He and they discuss which ads go where. He also discusses upcoming special sections with the ad staff. Other staff: 1 online manager (supervisor): actively participates in ad sales 1 online coordinator (technical person): does online ad production 1 ad sales person 1 part-time data-entry clerk: real estate ads Q: How closely do you work with the ad salesperson? "I don’t really. Other than I sit across from him, and I’ve asked a couple questions about what pages he intends to sell ads for so that I know how many ad spaces to put on the page. But we don’t have any real official working arrangement. We’re pretty independent of each other. "I try not to put myself into discussions regarding advertising, aside from layout. I am very intent on preserving the same separation of church and state that you would find in a newspaper. Since it’s an online operation, we’re working a lot more closely together. There won’t be the same kind of the absolute separation, but we’re going to try and do as well as we can to eliminate any kind of influence or perception of influence between the two. "I would like to have other editorial people so that we don’t have the updating of the site lie with the production coordinator -- not because I think the production coordinator working with ads is going to affect his news judgment, but just because that’s not his job. He should have his time devoted to what he really needs to do, which is keeping the other parts of the site updated." Staff of 16 (content side), with 5 'strictly editorial' people Job title: Online news editor Background: Newspapers, 20 years Print newspaper circulation: 100,000–250,000 She posts the news (from the printed paper) to the Web site. She works with outside vendors and clients on new content development. Editorial and advertising people "frequently" work together. The site’s two designers work equally for editorial and advertising; they also build Web sites for advertisers. Other staff: 2 online content producers 2 full-time designers 2 programmers: 1 full-time and 1 intern 2 for online used-car program (advertising) 1 Internet advertising manager 1 account executive (advertising) 1 marketing coordinator 1 part-time marketing assistant 1 content person who doesn’t do news 1 news-link updater (advertising) 1 online director (whole operation) Additional technical staff for systems and ISP operation: 15-20 people "I’ve been told I can sell ads and get a commission. I haven’t yet. "I’m in the print newsroom. We are in separate buildings. We have a staff meeting every Monday for the whole content team, which includes the advertising and the news portion. We’re all pretty much alert to opportunities in the others’ area, but we don’t do it -- we tell them about it." Example given of how editorial and advertising staffs collaborate: The schools superintendent is interested in working with the newspaper "to put some school news online and in print, so our news-link person has started something on the telephone-based system. I went to her, and we sat down and mapped out a plan of what we might be able to do for this particular school district. We are going to do similar stories online and in the news link, and set up a site and show it to other school districts and sell it to them. We do that [type of thing] all the time." Q: Do you think you’ll separate the editorial and advertising more as you grow? "That will probably happen, and in a way, it will be too bad, because it is a pretty cohesive unit now. But I imagine that is going to have to happen -- just because as organizations grow, you need to do that. People can specialize more." Staff of 18, with 4.5 editorial people Job title: Executive producer Background: Computers and Internet, 20 years (M.A. journalism) Print newspaper circulation: 250,000–500,000 He and his staff post the news (from the printed paper) to the Web site. He and his staff write news updates based on information relayed by the print newsroom -- "usually twice a day." He creates "data-driven applications for the Web site" using the database development tool Cold Fusion and the programming language Perl; this accounts for 30 percent of his time. They have a separate advertising staff for online only. The entire staff of 18 is in "one big room," with editorial on one side and advertising on the other. Other staff: 2 full-time updating producers 1 part-time updating producer 1 interactivity producer (assists in development of applications, e.g. Cold Fusion; will fill in on updating the news, too) 1 graphic designer (will also fill in on updating the news) 1 programmer (maintains the database and works on their real estate site) 11.5 advertising people "All of the editorial people are a blend of content and technical. We do not have anyone who is just content without doing some technical as well." This operation has 2 graphic designers: 1 full-time on the online real estate product; 1 is split between editorial and advertising. The database products developed by this person and the interactivity producer "can be used on both the editorial and the advertising side. "The art staff works together. I work with them, and the interactivity producer works with them pretty heavily. He helps manage the ad-management system at this point, although eventually we’re going give the responsibility for managing that system back to the sales assistant on the advertising side." The communication between editorial and advertising "tends to revolve around letting people on the advertising side know what kind of inventory we have available for ads." Ads can run on a single page or throughout a specified section of the Web site. Example given of how editorial and advertising staffs collaborate: "We’ve got a lot of community publishing-type applications on our Web site, where people can submit their own comments or their own review for a movie and have it instantly published on the Web site. Our interactivity producer modified that for an advertiser so the [advertiser] could use a Web interface to instantly change their ad on our Web site to promote whatever [event] they wanted to promote for that day. … Then if the [event] gets rained out and they want to promote something else, they can go in and make that change without having to wait for one of our designers to change the ad for them. "One of the reasons why we put this thing together as one department [was] so that we wouldn’t be doing redundant technical work on developing applications and developing content areas. We wanted to have a fairly entrepreneurial team that could respond pretty quickly to audience needs and advertiser’s needs." Predictions: "I don’t think that we are going to always be as close on the online side as we are right now. "I think that the trends both here and nationally will be to take the lessons that we’ve learned as a small entrepreneurial group and apply them back to the newspaper as a whole. So that we’ll start involving the print-side newsroom and the print-side advertising department more in the Web site—and as that happens, I think you’ll start seeing the online editorial and the online advertising people begin to drift apart from each other and back toward their print counterparts a bit more. "There will always be a level of shared expertise. I think as a result of what we’re doing in new media, and what other new media departments are doing, we’re going to start seeing more cooperation on the print side between various departments." Staff of 25, with 6 editorial people * Job title: Producer Background: Newspapers, 15 years Print newspaper circulation: 50,000–100,000 * This Web site is part of a regional group of sites and local newspapers that share content and resources. An online copy editor from another site in this group appears above. He posts the news (from the printed paper) to the Web site. He does some programming and automation. He works with outside partners and people in the community on new content development. He moderates an online news discussion forum. He is 1 of 2 producers for this site. Ad staff is "2 to 8 people." Editorial and advertising are in two separate buildings. "I’ve never sold or created an ad." For this site, there is an artist who works half editorial, half advertising. There are 2 designers: 1 strictly editorial, 1 strictly advertising. "They get together once a month and trade information. They also do a lot of e-mail with each other, just trading information on new programs and sharing ideas, trying to get the creative juices flowing. "There are regular monthly staff meetings for the whole online division. The editor is really clear on the line between editorial and advertising. We try to maintain that wall as we’ve moved onto the Web." Q: Do your editorial and advertising people ever work together? "We run ideas past each other. If I have a new idea for some new content, I want to make sure that it is financially worth our time to create it. I can judge if it would be worth it to our readers in an informational sense. But I don’t want to put a lot of my resources into it unless there is some way we can reap some benefit from it. So I’ll run it past the ad people, and they come up with ideas too and run them past us. They say, ‘Can we offer this kind of information? Because I’m sure I can sell it.’ They are aware of what we’re doing, and we try to keep aware of what they’re doing. "Certainly if I hear of someone who wants a Web site, I pass the lead on to the ad staff. We don’t exist on separate planets. We’re all trying to make this work." Examples given of how editorial and advertising staffs collaborate: (1) "Gee, it happens all the time. A few years ago, I wanted to do a Web site to do with books. There is a big literary community here. I ran the idea past my boss and past the guy who was in charge of ads on the newspaper Web site at that point. They both thought it was a good idea, and I started up in a limited way, and he was able to sell it to a bookstore chain." (2) "We have offers from outside content partners to do things like, we’ll provide your fitness site and you can fill 50 percent of the ads or horoscopes or whatever." Staff of 17, with 7 editorial people, plus 2 interns Job title: Online editor Background: Newspapers, 7 years (B.A. journalism) Print newspaper circulation: 100,000–250,000 She manages 9 people and oversees the entire Web site, which includes much more than the print newspaper (magazines, entertainment guides, etc.). She works on design for the Web site. She edits copy original to the Web site. She plans event coverage for the Web site (exclusive to the Web site). Online ad staff has separate office, but on the same floor. "We have a lot of content that we generate ourselves." Other staff: 2 content editors 1 sports editor 1 entertainment editor 3 designers: 2 editorial only, 1 advertising only 1 full-time multimedia developer: an illustrator who creates Shockwave applications (for both editorial and advertising, including banner ads) 2 content developers (work on content related to the magazines more than the newspaper) 2 people "solely devoted to online advertising" (plus designer noted above; total of 3) 4 technical people (Web site only) The subject of the interview supervises everyone above except the 4 technical staff and the 3 ad staff people. All the ad-sales staff for the various print publications (newspaper and magazines) "occasionally sell ads online. "Many of our interns have become full-time employees. "Our general manager meets once a week with [advertising] and discusses what sorts of ads they are pursuing, how those work with our site, overall goals for marketing." Examples given of how editorial and advertising staffs collaborate: (1) "We have special sections devoted to events in town" such as a large annual rodeo. "Our special section includes coverage of the rodeo, but it also includes guide information for people who are coming into town to visit the rodeo. … We tell [our advertising staff] we have this section and what the target audience is, and they can go out and sell advertising for this section." (2) "We also have links to reservations, and we work with a reservation agency. So they’re an advertiser, and we have a profit-sharing agreement where we provide links to their reservation system in exchange for a rate—they pay us a certain amount every month for links throughout our site. They provide discount reservations to our users, essentially." Staff of 22, with a 'news team' of 9 people Job title: New media editor Background: Newspapers, mostly art and design (B.A. journalism) Print newspaper circulation: 100,000–250,000 He directs a team of 9 that is responsible for the news on the Web site. He coordinates activities of his team with the advertising and technical teams. Separation of editorial and advertising: same building, different floors. Other staff: Online sports editor; supervises 3 site coordinators: auto racing, basketball, football Online news editor Online features editor 2 designers: 1 editorial, 1 advertising 9 people on new media product team (advertising and marketing) 4 people on technical team In the newspaper’s information systems department, there’s a person with the title Lead Web Architect. That person "designs and coordinates activities for both the advertising side and the news side." Coordinates all design issues for both sides. The "new media operating committee" includes three people: one technical, one editorial, one advertising. This group provides companywide direction for new media. "We’ll discuss everything from the smallest tactics, to overwriting strategies, to what brands we’re going to launch, to how much money we’re going to spend on marketing and promotion. "One organization is focused on news-editorial content, and one organization is focused on advertising content. … We did [work together] at one point, but we actually reorganized to try to eliminate that -- so that my team can focus purely on the newsroom and the journalistic activities … We meet regularly and exchange ideas … on a more strategic level. We don’t do each other’s work. "When we first started out, four years ago, we didn’t have a lot of people doing the Web site -- either on the news side or the advertising side -- so the lines were a lot blurrier then, and you just kind of did whatever you had to do to get things done. But we’ve gotten more resources, and it created a little bit more definition between the news side and the advertising side. "There is still a little bit of a wall there, and I think there should still be a little bit of a wall there, between someone who is doing purely advertising and someone who is trying to make the site as journalistically sound as possible. So we are very careful not to take each other’s hand too much." Example given of how editorial and advertising staffs collaborate: "We have been trying to roll out a method of putting on the Web site what we call ‘sponsored links.’ It’s not the same as a banner ad or a button ad, because it’s not a graphic -- it’s a text link with a sentence that explains what you are going to see on the other side. It’s a very low-overhead project. Well, I had in mind a design for that … and I showed it to the advertising team, and they liked it. So we worked together to implement that in a way that would be satisfying to the news side and also satisfying to the advertising side." Staff of about 30, with 12 editorial people Job title: Online editor Background: Newspapers ("briefly") and other online news (B.S. journalism) Print newspaper circulation: 250,000–500,000 Six people at this operation have the title "online editor." Posting the news (from the print newspaper) is mostly automated at this operation. She plans and implements special sections; this is the bulk of her job. Until very recently, the print newspaper ad-sales staff sold the Web site; now there’s a dedicated online sales staff. Separation between editorial and advertising is distinct. Other staff: 12 editorial 10 advertising people (estimated) 8 technical people "Editors here do production, so we don’t really have a separate production staff. " Because of the automated system for posting news to the Web site, the online editors "spend most of our days planning and implementing new special sections more than building the daily paper." Subject says advertising and editorial at this operation are "pretty much totally separate." "The technical staff works pretty closely with us, but the advertising staff is on a different floor. We will give them [advertising] advance notice when we have special sections coming up, but beyond that, we don’t really have a lot of day-to-day contact with them. There are occasional staff meetings where they pull everyone together, but it is not a day-to-day thing." Do your editorial and advertising people ever work together? "Other than staff meetings, where we are trying to brainstorm for new ideas -- other than that --  Having them [advertising] on a different floor, we don’t really have a whole lot of discussion. If there is a particular project we’re working on, there might be suggestions made by us to advertising. You know, like, ‘You might want to look at this, that and the other thing.’ Or the advertising staff might say, ‘This is a suggestion for you.’ But it’s like an ad-hoc basis. It’s certainly not regularly happening. It rarely happens." For some time, one person did the art and design for both editorial and advertising. At the time of this interview, however, a new advertising-only designer had just been hired. "I think in some ways we’re handicapping ourselves, because if there was more communication -- just about technical things -- we could probably improve the site, period. There are things we could do with the job listings that we don’t do. But you never know, it could all change tomorrow." Staff of 32–35 Job title: Online managing editor Background: Reporting and editing "for a long time" (B.A. journalism) Print newspaper circulation: 250,000–500,000 Her job has three primary components: Managing the staff (which, she said, does all the things in the "specific tasks" list on page 2 of this report). Acting as a liaison between both newsrooms (print and online). Researching and developing partnerships for additional contracts for the site. Advertising and editorial all work in one large room, with cubicles. Staff people who post news to the Web site: Senior news editor Day news editor Spanish news editor Art and entertainment editor Producers Assistant producers Online copy editors Technology coordinator This site had 3 dedicated technical staff people at the time of the interview, but she was in process of hiring more. There is overlap of duties between the print and online ad-sales staff. About 5 or 6 ad people work online. There is 1 dedicated online advertising sales rep. Production: This site has separate advertising and production staffs. The production staff does only advertising production. The editorial staff does its own production. There are two separate art staffs, one for editorial and one for advertising. Do your editorial and advertising people ever work together? "The production staff don’t. The management staff do. I am frequently in meetings with the business manager and the advertising manager, talking about how to work out the line between editorial and advertising. On a management level, we work together. We discuss ad placement and how we will distinguish them as ads." Example given of how editorial and advertising staffs collaborate: "Often when we do content partnership agreements, there is an advertising component to that, which we coordinate. For example, I am working on a deal right now for with a company that provides financial information in Spanish. That’s essentially a content deal, because it’s going to add some editorial content to the site for the Spanish business section. However, part of the contractual agreement with them is that we will share the inventory of advertising that can be sold on the page. So at that point, the business manager and I come together to negotiate that. I make sure we get the content we want, and she makes sure she gets the advertising she wants. We try to make sure the overall deal works for both of us. But there is still a pretty clear line between what part of the page is going to have advertising and what part is going to have content. We do work very hard to make sure that their [the partner’s] editorial content has the same integrity and separation as ours." Staff of about 50, with 30 editorial people Job title: Electronic editor Background: Newspapers, 20 years (M.S. journalism) Print newspaper circulation: More than 500,000 He posts the news (from the printed paper) to the Web site. He creates whole new Web sites for community papers owned by the same parent company. He acts as team leader for teams working on special projects. Multiple people at this site have the tile "electronic editor," although some specialize in sports, business, etc. All of these post news to the Web site. Other staff: Deputy editorial editor for news Electronic editors Photo editors 6 artists 10 technical people 6 advertising people (estimated) Production: All the editorial people at this operation do some production, this subject said. Then he clarified: Some content editors do photo production, but no photo editors do HTML production. The artists do not do HTML production. "The art staff does creative for both editorial and marketing. In marketing, there is a separate person who is responsible for posting the ads. "Senior managers and advertisers meet to discuss ad placement so that there is some coordination of when things are supposed to happen." Example given of how editorial and advertising staffs collaborate: "If we’re running a certain ad about [an airline] and [that airline] just had a plane crash, we would probably consult with the ad department about making sure that ad doesn’t appear on the story about the plane crash -- because it might seem insensitive to the victims of that plane crash. "The newspaper sponsors a festival of books every year … that draws thousands of people, and we promote it on our Web site. The promotions have to run on certain days, so we might coordinate with the marketing staff as to when those promotions run and what editorial content might be prepared—with legitimate news value—that might go with those promotions or appear next to those promotions. "If some advertiser has sponsored a particular section, of course, since they’re sponsoring the entire section, we have to make sure that if there is supposed to be some reference to that fact on a given page, that it does appear there—so there would be consultations about that. We once had an entire section of the Web site sponsored by IBM, and so there were consultations about that."