I can’t speak for larger papers, or from years of experience in a newsroom. I can only speak as a set of “fresh eyes” on the dynamics of a newsroom in a medium-sized daily. Because I work in the Online Department of my newspaper, I’m going to focus on digital journalism and share some things I’ve learned.

First, don’t be afraid to try new things. Even if the venture fails, there are lessons to be learned. If someone in the newsroom has an idea that seems even halfway plausible, develop and encourage it because it may just be the next popular thing your newspaper will do. The things that catch on with readers can be hit or miss, but it never hurts to try. My paper put out a twice-daily news report complete with an anchor, script and producer for a little over a year. It did not work out, but we have been able to refine the kinds of videos our readers do want to see, and we now have several staff members trained in video editing/producing.

Second, your job will evolve with or without you. It’s up to you to evolve with it or get left behind. This applies to everyone from reporter to editor to manager and beyond. Yes, you may have a shiny journalism degree, but there will always be more to learn – do you know how to pull video off your cell phone and post it on the web? Have you heard of Twitter? Do you understand how Twitter can be used to enhance a reader’s experience? If you answered, “Yes” to any of those questions, great! If not, then you need to get on the ball and evolve. (For a good idea of what journalists should be learning these days, Read Mindy McAdams’ Reporters Guide to Multimedia Proficiency on her blog.)

Third, don’t shy away from interacting with your readers – beyond the letters to the editor. Use your forums if you have them. Read and respond to comments they leave in stories. Get on Twitter and ‘tweet your beat’ by letting your followers see what stories you’re working on for them. Or use a Cover it Live liveblog to cover big, ongoing, or breaking stories, debates, or sporting events. This will give your readers another avenue to your content, drive traffic to your website and could generate revenue by selling sponsorship of the coverage.

At the end of the day, you will be ahead of the game if you can use a variety of tools out there (many of them free) that allow you to engage with your readers. Interaction is a huge key in developing the all-important trust factor that gets them to come to you for news and information and not your competitor.

Useful Links:

• http://www.twitter.com – Twitter – Free
• http://www.coveritlive.com – Cover it Live, Liveblogging tool – Free

Examples:

• The Independent on Twitter
• The Independent liveblog on a breaking story
• Steph on Twitter

I was tweeting updates as I could catch them (one thing we have to work on is a plan for coverage online. I tweeted info I could glean from overhearing the journos and editors in their huddles, and what I could nick out of Newsedit as the reporter worked on the story. Looking back on it, I wonder if I should have gone out to the protests too so I could tweet updates. But then, I’m not a trained journo. I’m just the online chick who fixes it when a reporter forgets his/her password.)

Anyway, the story ended up spilling into the rest of the week as passions escalated, and non-Muslim workers staged counter-protests. Our comments in each story we put up were going through the roof. It occurred to me that this would be a perfect time to open up a liveblog, using Cover it Live, and invite our readers to come and talk about this issue.

Ohmygosh Thursday was absolutely crazy. I ended up keeping that chat open (and moderating it) for 12 hours straight. Every time I tried to end it, people would come in and start the conversation over again. I also opened it back up on Friday – and while it was a little slower because the fury was dying down and everything was getting back to normal, I still had to wind up the discussion between several people at the end.

I was also able to get quick answers for readers wanting to know more info because I have the best access to the reporters covering the story. And to their awesome credit, they were quick to get back to me with answers.

What did I learn from the liveblog? Most surprising was that I could embed it in Zope Originally, I put it in my newsroom blog which is where people go to answer the daily poll. But I decided it needed to be more prominent, so on a whim, I embedded it as a story on the front of the site. Bingo.

Here are the final stats:

Total Blog Page Hits: 1310
Total Unique Viewers: 902
Avg. Unique Viewer Duration on Blog: 30 min.
Replays Viewed: 49

We used the Liveblog once a week during our Music Madness tournament to “ok” results. The stats above are three times better than all 6 weeks of MM liveblogging, and it was only open for around 20 hours total. That’s phenomenal.

Feedback included:

• Reporter coming back from District Court told me that all of the employees there were watching the chat with great interest, and asked him all about it.
• Late Thursday night, rumours were going around about a riot happening at the plant. The chat was still going, and I got a call from one of the copy desk editors who was watching the chat, and he wanted to let me know our reporter would have details about it online shortly. This is awesome to me because it means that maybe the newsroom will start thinking to include me in the loop when this happens. It means they were paying attention to the chat to see what readers were saying. That more than makes up for the disappointing meeting we had last week.
• Readers were actually disappointed when I told them I had to close it up Friday at 5pm.

I think the newsroom got a glimpse of an awesome tool in use for something more than just for fun. I think they could see the value in it. I think if I’m able to wow them now and then with things like this, my stubborn newsroom may just come around someday.

We’re in a slow patch right now as the guys, you know, do real work, which is good because I’ve got a million balls in the air trying to keep this going. Got a new sponsor for it, had to make a banner for them, they filmed a roundtable discussion yesterday that I had to get embedded, and of course, keeping the chat and twitter going.

Good thing I’m a Queen Multitasker.

But I’m very pleased with the results so far. We’re nearing 100 votes in the first bracket, the promotion we’ve done leading up to this is paying off (using Twitter, radio call-ins, house banners, and a spread in print.) And of course, the liveblog is a hoot. Still impressed as ever with Cover It Live – use it whenever you can – it’s free!