TAKEAWAY: It is happening at USA Today, the nation’s second largest daily newspaper, a reduction of personnel, but, more importantly, a dramatic change in how the newsroom operates. Two important details in USA Today’s story catch our attention.
The content driven newsroom
It is important news: USA Today
—-the newspaper that spelled INNOVATION with capital letters when it first appeared in 1982—-is doing it again as it announces the implementation of a “radical” restructuring, effective today, that will refocus the newsroom to produce content for mobile devices and result in the layoff of 130 people.
As I read the many announcements and analytical blogs about this news, I notice two things of interest—-and I am not necessarily talking about the fact that focus will shift from print to digital media, something that has been part of an evolutionary process at USA Today and media houses worldwide.
To me, what is more remarkable is the following:
1. In the first wave of change, USA Today, which is based in McLean, Va., will no longer have separate managing editors overseeing its News, Sports, Money and Life sections.
The newsroom instead will be broken up into a cluster of “content rings” each headed up by editors who will be appointed later this year. Indeed, out go the traditional departments that have been the cornerstone of newspapers worldwide; in comes an approach where the tyranny of departmentalizing goes out the window, to allow for a more flexible and content driven force to prevail in the newsroom.
According to an AP report, the content rings will be “Your Life,” “Travel,” “Breaking News,” “Investigative,” “National,” “Washington/Economy,” “World,” Environment/Science,” “Aviation,” “Personal Finance,” “Autos,” “Entertainment” and “Tech.”
2. Going where the audience is: According to the AP report, editor John Hillkirk was quoted saying that :
” ‘We have to go where the audience is. If people are hitting the iPad like crazy, or the iPhone or other mobile devices, we’ve got to be there with the content they want, when they want it.’ “
This is, in fact, the foundation for survival in a multiplatform environment, abandoning the old concept of updating news when the newsroom feels it is necessary, and, instead, shifting to constant updating for users who may come at anytime during a 24/7 cycle to get the news and features they want when they want it.
For more details:
http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=134&aid=189656
Looking ahead at El Tiempo
I find this USA Today development fascinating as we have been working on a similar strategy at Colombia’s El Tiempo, which will launch a new look and a new reorganization of its newspaper and, of course, newsroom in early October.
I cannot discuss many of the details of what we are doing at El Tiempo at the moment, but suffice it to say that it involves a drastic analysis of how content is presented, with a tearing down of traditional departments, giving way to content packages based on how we know readers/users approach the newspaper and its many platforms. and NOT going by the more conservative and established rules of news departments that, in my view, are obsolete in a multiplatform environment.
Stay tuned for more of El Tiempo’s revolutiionary development.
iPad at the beach
Today’s Luxemburger Wort proudly displays a photo composite of various beachgoers holding their iPads while reading the Wort’s iPad edition. Who said you could not mix sun screen and iPad screen?
TheMarioBlog post #620