Posts Tagged ‘ newsroom ’

5
9
Nov

Newsroom travels back in time

My newsroom feels like it’s gone back in time about two years when I was really struggling to get everyone on board with social media stuff. I can’t remember the last time someone grabbed our spiffy Zi8 to grab some video of a breaking story, or hell, I can’t remember when I last had regular news updates for the web without asking for them or finding them myself.

We had a brief period of excitement when it looked like we might be able to finagle a couple of Droids for newsroom use and I had visions of live tweets from pressers and games and breaking stories. I had fantasies of reporters who finally had that big old light bulb go off when they saw how much their work is enhanced by using a Droid and how effective Twitter is at communication.

Well that got squashed pretty quickly in corporate red tape and well, we have no droids and my newsroom is once again too busy getting their stories in for print (and web, often as an afterthought) to fuss with Twitter. I’m back at square one and it’s killing me pretty good. I just don’t know if I can handle starting at the bottom of the hill again. I’m like the Sisyphus of Social Media. And in the meantime, I see our competitors leaving us in the dust because they’ve embraced it.

Let me just say here that I believe the staff here is phenomenally talented at what they do, and have been doing for years. They’ve got experience, great contacts in the community, they’re creative and they are some of the best. I just wish I could find a way that isn’t patronizing or insulting to reach them and switch on that light bulb so that they see what I’m trying to give them is another way to enhance their work, their careers, and at the same time, make a lot of it easier. I want to help, but instead I feel sometimes that I’m seen as a brick wall they can’t be bothered to climb.

Having said that, we still need a solution to the problem of regularly updated content for the web. We still need to be using Twitter and Facebook and Storify and every tool we can get our hands on to make my newspaper THE place to get your local news.

To that end, we’ve been kicking around the idea of just sending me out with the reporters to do that stuff. It makes sense in a, “Why didn’t we think of that before?” kind of way.  We’re not going to change minds in the newsroom by constantly hammering away at them. Ever been lectured by a parent? Ever tuned them out while they lectured? That’s what happens in a newsroom – well mine at least. So let’s just do it ourselves. I’ve been live-tweeting stuff for years. I can juggle my iPhone, various apps (hello AudioBoo!), cameras and finesse wi-fi in the strangest places. So let’s stop moaning about a newsroom that doesn’t “get it” and just show them. They can still whip out their pencils and digital recorders and write their stories when they get back, and meanwhile, I’ll have continual updates going out instantly, and then Storify them when *I* get back.

I will either piss off my comrades, or they will get to see how this stuff works in action and maybe have a light bulb moment.

3
2
Mar

Does your newsroom have a Breaking News plan?

At The Independent, we’re trying to come up with a breaking news “mobilization” plan to put into place that takes into account our tools (cameras, phones, other recording equipment), our software capabilities and reporter abilities.

What? Why haven’t we done this already?

Well, it’s not like we don’t know how to cover breaking news. We do that pretty well. But it’s time to create a plan that includes social media and some staff that our 140 year-old newspaper is still getting used to using.

For example, we’re ditching our cludgy, GL-2 cameras that require tapes and take two to three hours post-production and switching to Kodak Zi8s with external microphones. We will eventually have three or four (more if we can get them) of these available to the newsroom and we will train and expect our staff to grab them when heading out on a story. Not every story will need video, but the reporters are the best judge as to which stories WILL require video to enhance them and it needs to become second nature to them to remember to grab a camera. We’re lucky to have a couple people in-house who can take that video, edit and upload it for them, but in my opinion, reporters would be smart to learn how to do this themselves. The Zi8s and Moviemaker (or iMovie) are really all you need to get something online quickly.

Our recent experiment with live tweeting has taught some of us how to use an amazing tool like the Verizon Droid to manage a whole new kind of news story. We can’t afford to buy our reporters each a Droid, but we *might* be able to invest in at least two that will be designated for newsroom use. In my wildest dreams, I want every reporter to have a Droid (or iPhone, but those aren’t available here) because I still believe they are one of the best tools a reporter could have in their arsenal. So, I’ve been tasked with coming up with a Breaking News plan that goes from news tip to the very last update. I’ve found a few suggestion online, but it’s pretty sparse. So I’m going to try my luck again with a little crowdsourcing and ask, maybe even beg for advice and suggestions from my fellow awesome journos.

  • Do you have a plan?
  • What do you include in it?
  • Who do you include in it?
  • Do you post all updates within one story with timestamps or post multiple stories each time there is an update?
  • Do you have someone “corral” all incoming information?
  • Do you flow everything through an editor before anything gets posted?
  • Do you post “as-is” and make corrections later?
  • How big does a story have to be before this plan goes into effect?
  • How do you handle the front page of your site? (Does the template change etc.)
  • Do you have a general plan or do you tailor it to your organization? Which is best?

Any help would be much appreciated. Comments are open! :)

5
11
May

News/Online Merge: The first week

I will eat some crow now. I have done a complete about-face on my views about open plan environments for newsrooms. It was my own personal dislike of not having much in the way of privacy that made me so grumble-y about it. But after a week of sitting in view of the City Editor who runs the morning budget meetings, and within shouting distance of every reporter, plus a week of having a website that is refreshed and updated often throughout the day because of my visibility, I can safely say that I’m over it. The benefits far outweigh a little uncomfortableness that’s pretty much all in my head.

I sit next to the scanner. Always tuned it out when I sat further away, and I still kind of do, but when something is happening, I catch it faster. I can also sit at my desk and tune into the conversation happening right now between the City Editor and one of the reporters and try and see if it’s something that can go online. Once I got past some initial clumsy hurdles (software story prioritizing system is antiquated and difficult), I find myself slipping into the flow much better now. I’m losing the shyness that keeps me from timidly asking a photog for art to go with a story. Without going into personal detail, shyness is one of the things I worry most about in this new role of mine.

In what’s become something of a routine, the City Editor will come out of the 10am budget meeting with a story for web right away and will email me some other stories that are coming up later in the day for web. It’s working nicely, but I think it will be even better when I can start going to the meetings myself (time conflict presently with our daily morning chat “show”) . I’m hoping to be able to sift through the list myself and be able to choose. I never felt like I could “be the decider” before but I do now.. It’s really weird to me and hard to explain, but I’m totally digging the new digs :)

Also, really enjoying being able to nag people into tweeting stuff :)