- Chapters 1, 2 and 3-

IN-DEPTH FOCUS: INTEGRATED NEWSROOMS

Introduction

It is no secret that the past few years have been a tumultuous time for newspaper newsrooms around the world. Standard procedures embedded for decades in newsroom culture such as the once-a-day deadline structure, content production for a sole, print platform, and multiple layers of pre-publishing editorial scrutiny have been overturned. In their place, practices such as continuous news operations, multimedia content distribution, and rapid publishing with minimal editorial oversight are developing. Many of these trends are unavoidable. What will determine the success and even the survival of newspaper newsrooms is how they manage the trends.

Indeed, the most pertinent issue facing newspaper newsrooms since these trends surfaced is the integration of the rapidly evolving field of multimedia Internet communications and news distribution into print operations. Virtually all newspapers have established websites. An increasing number now publish online video, Flash graphics, blogs and the like. Others are opening themselves up to their audience. As newspapers have adopted these trends, their newsrooms have had to adjust. Three primary paths have emerged:

1. Integration of print and online newsrooms: When choosing the integration path, newspapers move their print and online operations into one newsroom transforming what used to be completely separate entities into a unified news organization. The distinction between print and online journalists is eliminated. All journalists and editors are often expected to produce for both platforms. And the rhythm of news production speeds up dramatically.

2. Maintaining separate newsrooms: Newsrooms that choose this path are not ignoring the Internet. Instead, they view their print and Web editions as two different beasts with a different purpose and different workflow that necessitate different staffs and specialties. Choosing this path allows the print newsroom to continue producing quality, well-investigated and edited journalism while affording the website’s newsroom to grow apart from the paper, preserving a Web dynamic and allowing for experimentation with new journalistic methods.

3. Completely converged newsrooms: This path is similar to that of integration but goes a step further. Instead of just combining a newspaper and its website, several publishers have combined all of their media holdings including newspapers, television, radio and Internet. The result is one, 24-hour, true multimedia operation where journalists dedicated to one platform are in constant collaboration with colleagues of other platforms.

The first three chapters of Trends in Newsrooms 2008 investigate the integration or non-integration practices of some of the world’s most innovative newspapers.

CASE STUDIES

CHAPTER 1: CHANGE YOUR NEWSROOM’S CULTURE BEFORE CHANGING YOUR NEWSROOM

THE NEW YORK TIMES: NO DISTINCTION BETWEEN PRINT AND WEB JOURNALISTS

The integration story at the New York Times combines an aggressive, rapid adaptation to Web-era newsroom publishing with a conviction that some of the platform convergence will find its own way, at its own pace. Under a policy of "platform neutrality," Times Executive Editor Bill Keller informed staff in 2005 that the paper planned "to diminish and eventually eliminate the difference between newspaper journalists and web journalists." Every print editor was to think of themselves as a de facto Web editor, and maintaining "essential qualities that makes us the Times" mattered more than where stories were published.

CHAPTER 2: NON-INTEGRATED NEWSROOMS: SEPARATION WITH COOPERATION

LE MONDE’S JOURNALIST EXCHANGE: FORGING PRINT/ONLINE RELATIONSHIPS WITHOUT INTEGRATION

Le Monde’s print and online teams are not integrated. In 2007, the French daily began mapping out a strategy for greater collaboration between the online and print units, but never formed plans to go so far as complete integration. Meanwhile, the paper and website have maintained Le Monde's widespread reputation in France as the country's premier paper of record. And among national news sites and portals, Lemonde.fr holds a strong second place in unique visitors and average time spent by each.

So why isn't Le Monde integrated? And with no plans for a full convergence, how does it keep both operations running smoothly?

CHAPTER 3: COMPLETE MULTIMEDIA CONVERGENCE: THE MODERNIZATION OF THE PRINTED WORD

FAIRFAX MEDIA’S NEWS MEGAPLEX: REVOLUTION AT EVOUTIONARY SPEED

At the end of 2007, Australia's Fairfax Media rolled out plans for a uniquely transparent, $110-million structure in Melbourne that would serve as headquarters to The Age newspaper, 3AW Radio, Fairfax Digital and the Melbourne bureaus of the Australian Financial Review and Business Review Weekly. The hybrid media megaplex marked another milestone along Fairfax’s path to convergence.

The design focused on seamlessness and open movement on the interior, while providing the Melbourne public outside with a view onto several media operations in action - and interaction. The architectural goal was to offer as concrete a step toward convergence that online, broadcast and print media would see under one roof.

DEBATE

Spanish newsrooms: to integrate or not to integrate?

With Arsenio Escolar, Director, 20 Minutos; Mario Tascon, Director General, Prisacom/El Pais; Fernando Baeta, Director, elmundo.es

TOPICS:

- What is the biggest advantage for integrating/not integrating your print and online newsrooms? What is the biggest disadvantage?

- How has the workflow in your newsroom changed in the Internet Age?

- Has the role of the newspaper Editor-in-Chief changed in the Internet Age? Should the Editor-in-Chief of the print edition also be the Editor-in-Chief of the online edition?

IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS

The keywords of convergence: conviction, communication and culture change

There is no one, coherent, universally accepted way in which to integrate a newspaper newsroom: certain strategies work in certain places. Knowing what strategies are out there, however, is imperative when preparing an integration process. Three newsroom executives, Guillermo Franco, Online Editor of Colombia’s Casa Editorial El Tiempo, Ralph Gage, Director of Special Projects for Kansas’ The World Company/Lawrence Journal-World, and Per Lyngby, Editor-in-Chief of Denmark’s Nordjyske Medier, shared their publications’ best practices with the World Editors Forum to give their colleagues around the world ideas to create their own, unique integration strategy.