The newsroom: where alternate workflows go to die
Martin Langeveld has written up a great description of how a newsroom might reimagine its workflow to create a much richer, more contextual news site.
Why should a reporter have a quota measured in “stories,” whether it’s two courts-and-cops reports a day or one in-depth investigative masterpiece a week? In the cascade model of content management, every reporter follows a portfolio of issues, topics, trends, trials, personalities, businesses, governmental entities, towns, streets, buildings, non-profits — and a day’s work may consist of finishing a major investigative piece on one of these, while blogging about new developments touching on a handful of others, and adding new facts to the wiki entries for a bunch more. And the process of augmenting or correcting the wiki never really ends.
If you’re a newspaper editor, I’ve learned, it’s really difficult to imagine this workflow in practice. Your entire job is structured around defined products (stories, pages and sections), not floofy things like “cascades” folks like Martin and I keep harping on. I suspect the biggest reason workflows like this haven’t taken off in newsrooms is that the work of editors would have to change as dramatically as that of reporters. Instead of spending more time planning pages and sections, creating budgets for stories and visuals, and processing copy and images for print, section editors would have to make a fundamental shift towards synthesizing the best of the reporter’s work into printable material. It means having to take a longer-term view of a reporter’s work. It’s almost a completely different art, requiring entirely different skills.
Among the things I’ve come to appreciate about newspaper section editors is their view of the product they create. They are responsible for composing a page or a section to suit an overlapping variety of audiences, day after day. This means planning far enough ahead that you know today what mix of stories and art you’ll have in hand and finished by next Monday to go to press on Tuesday, while being flexible enough to accommodate the news that’s likely to occur as the pages are coming together. Meanwhile, you’re reviewing copy for stories set to publish tomorrow or the day after, keeping one eye on the massive Sunday piece your reporter’s been working on for three weeks, and juggling promos to and from other sections and the Web. At any moment, the A1 editor might come by your desk to tell you that Sunday centerpiece has been pulled instead for the paper’s Friday cover, so you’ll have to do some quick thinking to rescue your weekend section front from mediocrity. Among your only tools for managing this mess are the fleet of earnest, quick reporters at your command.
Martin’s workflow, which I love, upends the fragile chaos of an editor’s life. When people like us talk about being “Web-centric,” we’re telling these editors that their new prerogative is to sift the borderless dumping-grounds of a reporter’s whimsy for shards of insight and curiosity that they might glue together into some recycled wreck of a page. All the while knowing that this page and the ads it contains are what pay the vast bulk of that reporter’s paycheck, when you get right down to it. If I were a print editor in these conditions, I would probably nod vigorously when my executive editor handed down the order, then do whatever I could to preserve my precious workflow just as it is.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reorganization of a few years ago aimed for a workflow that might have made a process like Martin’s possible. The editorial division was rearranged into four quadrants: News and Information, Enterprise, Print and Digital. The two former divisions were content-focused, charged with finding and creating good stories and pitching them to the two latter divisions, which were product- and audience-focused. N&I, it was thought, would have a slight bias towards pitching to digital, while Enterprise would be more print-centric.
I’m not sure how well it’s working, but it was a bold and imaginative arrangement. When I think of the print editor’s workflow, what strikes me is how vastly different it is from the ideal Web workflow Martin imagines. It’s worth acknowledging up front the breadth of the gulf between these two media.
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I was likewise intrigued (though not quite persuaded) by the Atlanta reorganization, Matt. It would be a fine thing for some smart young scholar or journalist (ahem) to discover for all of us how it's working, whether it has iterated, what Julia et al think of the experiment now.
Let us know if you hear anything, will you?
Howard Weaver
8 Apr 09 at 12:00 am
Martin's post doesn't seem to be working. Or is it just me?
Tom Warhover
8 Apr 09 at 3:36 pm
Hi, Tom. Martin's post seems to be working, but if you're still having trouble, shoot me an email, and I can send it to you that way.
And, Matt, great post.
Zach Seward
8 Apr 09 at 4:20 pm
Thanks. Well worth the wait. Both posts are incredible.
What would the structure of a newsroom look like if you pushed this idea to practice? How would a traditional newspaper have to change?
Critical here is providing a new language in order to reach beyond a story-centric world.
Tom Warhover
8 Apr 09 at 8:06 pm
Don't worry, Howard, I didn't entirely forget to do some reporting. ☺ Before I wrote this post, I sent an e-mail to Mike Lupo, managing editor for News & Information at the AJC, to ask how it's going. I'll certainly let you know what I hear.
Matt Thompson
8 Apr 09 at 3:49 pm
What is the work flow in the Special Sections department?
A list of newspaper supplements is created by the Advertising department. Each supplement has a theme. Some supplements are linked to an event and thus are required to be published during a specific time of the year. This list of newspaper supplements is the Special Sections calendar.
The content for these Special Sections supplements comes from many sources.
Some annual supplements are almost entirely filled with editorial content submitted by a national organization. They may contain editorial submitted by advertisers.
One-time supplements – usually an advertiser celebrating an anniversary, open house, grand opening, renovation – contain editorial content supplied by that advertiser. Sometimes an independent contractor is needed to flesh out the editorial content, in which case the Special Sections editor hires a freelance writer/photographer to work with the advertiser.
When the newspaper hires an independent contractor to produce editorial content for Special Sections supplements, the freelancer retains the copyright. The newspaper is purchasing first-time publication rights from the freelancer, and permission for publication in any and all of its newspaper products.
Advertisers and others who wish to use the freelancer-produced editorial content in products not owned by the newspaper, for which the newspaper has paid the freelancer, must contact the freelancer directly for that permission and possible payment to the freelancer. That is because the newspaper has paid for the use in its products only.
The Special Sections editor maintains a list of independent contractors, assignments, and payments. The SS editor submits invoices to the VP of Advertising & Marketing, as well as the Payroll department.
For themed supplements such as Weddings, Women, Health, Funerals, Family, and others, the SS editor decides what topics to assign to the freelancers. Budgets may allow for two or more freelancer-produced articles per supplement. The topics are based on the theme of the supplement, to be sure, but also taken into consideration are the advertisers of that supplement. For example, if there are several family counselors advertising in the Family supplement, a freelancer could be assigned to interview three advertisers on a topic such as teen depression.
The inclusion of quotes from advertisers gives the articles a local flavor.
The number of pages in a supplement is determined by the number of ads sold.
So far we have editorial content from national organizations, advertisers, and freelance-produced. The remaining content comes from press releases, news stories, and advertising articles found on the Internet and from editorial content subscription services.
The Special Sections editor works with the SS calendar to make sure editorial content is procured for every supplement. Freelance work is tracked and submitted to payroll.
The Special Sections editor edits stories for grammar, spelling, and to follow the AP Style guidebook as closely as possible. Also, the SS editor formats photos in PhotoShop, adjusting for the best print and web versions.
When the supplement is designed for the print version, the Special Sections editor becomes a paginator and page designer. The SS editor notifies the advertising department of missing or problematic ads.
A copy of the supplement is printed so that the Advertising department can look over it. Every extra set of eyeballs help.
When the supplement has been okayed, the Special Sections editor exports the pages to a folder that prepares the pages for the plate making process. The SS editor must view each page in the folder and check that everything on the digital version of the page looks as it does on the print version.
When each page is approved, the Special Sections editor's job is finished. The next step in the workflow is pre-press, the department that makes the plates that will then go to the press room.
If this information has been helpful, I keep a blog about random stuff pertaining to my work as a Special Sections editor, media career, ideas, social networking, etc.
http://specialdee.wordpress.com/2009/04/11/specia...
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