The new year has inspired a couple of postings of how the news industry needs to change. Steve Outing, writing in Editor and Publisher, argues that the culture of newsrooms need to radically change:
As you enter 2008, I urge you to focus on cultural change within your newsroom. Get everyone involved in the task of reinventing the newspaper. Give them time in their schedules to participate. Assign tasks — to everyone. Build a new culture of innovation that involves everyone. Bring in creativity and innovation gurus if necessary, and expose those experts to everyone in the company.
Mindy McAdams picks up on the theme, arguing that it is too late to be cautious about change:
Tear up your news hole. Destroy it. Tear up your CMS templates. Install something else and link to the new thing. Do it fast and furiously, as if your life depended on it. Because it does.
This may sound like radical thinking in an industry known for its conservatism. But journalists, editors and publishers should embrace change. They should embrace innovation. They should embrace experimentation.
Instead, the news industry is shackled by its history, both in newspaper and broadcast newsrooms. This baggage is holding us back.
Journalism is shifting towards a multimedia, multiplatform environment. This requires a fundamental shift in the mindset of journalists.
It is time to stop thinking about a journalism defined by the means of distribution. It is time to start thinking about a journalism defined by the journalism itself. In other words, how best to tell stories and reach audiences, using the most suitable tools across a multiplicity of platforms.
Technorati Tags: journalism, innovation
Site Search Tags: journalism, innovation
PDF
Alf. Spot on. The need for dramatic innovation in 2008 is the main thing I have been discussing this week with senior colleagues at BBC News. The issue now is whether we can do more than talk about it in the first week of the year. I’m sure you’ll keep us up to the mark. Peter
Peter, trad journalism tends to lack a genuine diversity in its ranks and the BBC seems to epitomise this. Few editorial managers are tough enough to really shake that up, preferring to remain player-managers, to borrow a football analogy.
Diversity of experience produces good problem-solving and innovation. But, as I understand it, you now have the dual challenge of integrating a politically-charged culture into one newsroom from (three? or more?) while introducing more innovation.
What comes out of the coverage at the moment is a disdain for finance and a disdain for technology. Unfortunately these are the main drivers of events these days. Journalists need to be deeply curious about them, and critical. But they still seem to prefer political narratives.
Complexity requires collaboration. Big organizations like the BBC, while they have the resources to scale that complexity for the time being, will tend to breed more politics.
Tim
[...] Steve Outing, Mindy McAdams, Alfred Hermida and others have written about the need for varying degrees of [...]
[...] Alfred Hermida says this will require a fundamental shift in the mindset of journalists: It is time to stop thinking about a journalism defined by the means of distribution. It is time to start thinking about a journalism defined by the journalism itself. In other words, how best to tell stories and reach audiences, using the most suitable tools across a multiplicity of platforms. [...]
Online is still seen as the poor relation in my BBC local newsroom, left to its own devices with little or no interest from management.
The managers’ priority is still to make sure that the evening telly bulletin gets out to a dwindling number of viewers.
Meanwhile online, which can rack up more hits on one story than the entire viewing numbers for a local bulletin, gets ignored.
There is the odd 360 production to tick a box for those higher up. But there is still no enthusiasm for the interactive dimension online can bring to stories.
There is little questioning of online staff, who represent a small fraction of the total, about how they think the local output could be changed.
And ideas that could make a difference are dropped quietly.
It could be so different.
Already local newspapers are stealing a march on us with breaking news on their websites, blogs by reporters and video news, often compellingly presented.
Where are the blogs from BBC presenters and reporters? Just a mish-mash of websites that no-one apart from those who work on them understands.
For example the local Spotlight website still gives pride of place to a picture of its “new” co-presenter, who started in January 2006. Meanwhile local news online gets shoved into the bottom right hand corner.
It’s risible and if Peter Horrocks is serious about change he needs to make sure everyone is involved.
[...] Steve Outing, Mindy McAdams, Alfred Hermida and others have written about the need for varying degrees of [...]
[...] We know it as a journalism buzzword, too. [...]
[...] presenteerde. Zie eventueel de reacties daarop van Poynter, nog eens Poynter, Steve Outing, Alfred Hermida en Mincy [...]
[...] Alfred Hermida (Prof an der University of BC in Vancouver) sammelt Postings, die sich mit den Veränderungen im Journalismus befassen und zieht selber ein Fazit [...]