RSSNews/Online Merge: Flustered Beginning
22 Apr 2009 4 Comments
in News/Online Merge, Social Media, Working on the Newsroom Tags: merging, newsroom
Today was the first day I asked a reporter for some of his story so I could put it on the web. And he was cool about it. I think this flustered me, because I then proceeded to upload it with the wrong priority setting which messed up the homepage, then I put the byline in the wrong place so that there was no excerpt showing and well, Epic Fail. I had to publish the site about three times before I got it right which made me feel stupid. On top of that, when I tweeted the update, I got part of the story wrong.
Yeesh.
Yes, I do know how to run the software and how to tweet but man, for some reason I was just nervous as all get out. So stop telling me horro stories people 
My journos are lovely people who won’t suddenly become evil just because I’m going to ask them for a few more updates
In fact the second reporter I asked for an update was just brilliant when she very kindly explained why she’d prefer we hold off putting it on the web until just before 5pm. I was unfamiliar with the story and didn’t realize it was something she really had to work at to get the information, so she wanted to be sure it was our scoop.
I think the journalists here want every facet of The Independent to be successful, including the web. I feel better now that I have some direction on what I can and can’t do during the morning budget meetings, and I’m excited to finally be able to control our site’s content update frequency. I’m going to rock it. I’m going to remember where the bylines go, that Priority ‘1′ will bugger up the main package story so only use it if I have a story with a photo, and that the reporters who work here are awesome.
Desk update: I can’t shift desks until next week. Darn.
Apr 22, 2009 @ 16:20:24
Stephanie, thanks for blogging your transition to the newsroom. I’m interested to see how it goes, warts and all. Could you talk about the workflow at some point? For example, how many eyes take a look at copy before it’s posted to the Web?
Apr 22, 2009 @ 16:26:32
Sure I could. It’s pretty much: Reporter –> Editor –> Web. So for today’s first botched example I wrote about, the reporter wrote a few paragraphs, told me I could have it, and I read it, and posted it. For the example I had to wait on, it will have been looked at by another editor (one who edits for print most of the time) and then I’ll read it before I post it in about 30 minutes.