The Situation

“News in the online environment is what those contributing to its production make of it,” asserts MIT Professor Pablo J. Boczkowski in his new book “Digitizing the News.” He reports that news is moving “from being mostly journalist-centered, communicated as a monologue, and primarily local, to also being increasingly audience-centered, part of multiple conversations and micro-local.”

The fast-changing media landscape requires an extreme focus on agility and an appetite for new entrees. It requires constant exposure to changes in the way readers access news and information. News organizations must change internal culture, content, distribution and organizational structures. They must ensure a creative and responsive working and learning environment. And they must assimilate and embrace all forms of participatory journalism, including citizen-generated content. Civic participation is increasingly media participation.

The Challenge

We must find ways to ensure news executives and staff are exposed to research, new technology and best practices. And we must ensure they are positioned to hear of relevant trends and respond nimbly. Traditional news hierarchies are wedded to past models; ones that continue to divide internal operations into “online” and “offline” structures. New structures must be devised; changing the “us” vs. “them” work environment into a converged one across media platforms. The new structures also must be rewarded internally.

We must build staffs and partnerships that can deliver the immediate breaking news, connect the dots on macro issues, help our niche audiences learn about micro areas of interest and be entrepreneurial enough to dream up and deliver on new products.

We must be relevant to those who revere us, newly engaging to those who dismiss us, and useful to our advertisers.

We must be positioned to understand and teach the future skills that are needed to do all of the above.

The Opportunity

• Identify early adapters and new idea generators across the industry, with specific ways news companies can apply lessons learned.
• Devise new reward systems to better position news staffs to experiment. The Media Center can help find ways to instill a sense of urgency and provide ideas for forming coalitions for change.
• Champion methods of talking to readers, viewers and users as often as possible, ask them what they want, and really listen to the message. The Media Center can help media companies interpret and understand the impact of changing media behaviors.
• Highlight and push relevant research across age groups in ways editors can quickly assess and disseminate. The Media Center can be/is a clearinghouse for this.
• Devise incentives for the management team from the top hierarchy to the daily managers, across the business and editorial divides.

The Solutions

The Media Center can wage a public relations effort, much like a campaign, to challenge all media organizations to buy into the new way of thinking and reinforce industry standards that set the expectation of opting in, not out. This can be aimed at all levels of media leadership, including and especially mid-level editors who are in a position to experiment but may not be exposed to new tools, thinking, ideas and practices.
We proposed overhauling the current Media Center e-mail newsletter as part of the campaign. It should become a well-edited must-read collection of top industry practices and research across platforms. Instructive items will be culled daily from all leading journalism think tanks, organizations and newsrooms and distribution will be expanded. The newsletter will be rebranded as the comprehensive guide to cutting-edge thinking it will be.

Other action steps

• Collect and showcase journalism best practices across platforms.
• Collect and showcase best ethical practices across platforms.
• Experiment with new job descriptions explored at leading organizations and centers including Ifra.
• Track and analyze user/ reader/advertiser research.
• Gather internal awards success stories, including how to build a new idea culture.
  

By Team Change members:

Jennifer Carroll, Director, News Development, Gannett Company, Inc.
Carin Dessauer, Principal, mc2
Jan Schaffer, Executive Director, J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism