Doing digital...

Writer for The Christchurch Press Alex van Wel is immersing himself in convergent thinking - the coming together of all forms of journalism online. He's in America on Fairfax Media's Mike Robson Fellowship. In Manhattan on day six, he spent the morning watching from the inside at the prestigious New York Times.


Times Square, 7th Ave & Broadway, NYC
Times Square may be where visitors try to take the pulse of the American media, but it's a block away at the New York Times where they'll find its digital heart.
At last count, the NYT online edition was getting more than 20 million unique website hits a month (Nielsen, September 2009) putting it in the enviable company of the web giants - like the UK's Guardian newspaper.

There’s no doubt digital journalism has changed the rhythm in the NYT's gleaming Manhattan HQ.
New York Times building, 620 8th Ave, Manhattan
Its core web team is positioned in the centre of its 1100-strong newsroom, running the "live" site.
In the middle sits the Homepage Editor, staring intently at two large computer screens, writing, messaging, issuing instructions - pausing only occasionally. Around him, an army of writers feeds the machine.

It's much like a traditional broadcast environment - a 24-hour operation, with constant updates, headline and content changes.
No longer just focused on the morning print edition, the NYT staff know that news online means different mediums, diverse content, interactivity and immediacy.

The paper has around 100 web producers to make it all come together online. They are not there to write original copy, but to ensure the best of the organisation’s content is displayed in the most engaging and imaginative way possible.
For them multi-media is a playground, not an obligation.
They have a vital production role, but are also quietly referred to as "change agents" - gently coaxing the organisation out of any lingering old ways and into the new.
The NYT sees digital as an opportunity to use a much wider range of tools to tell its stories, and it wants to be the best at it.

Take a look at this business piece on the shenanigans behind private equity. Once through the introduction, you'll see a range of choices appear...
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/business/2009-private-equity/index.html

But it’s not only on the big stories. A lot of time was given to this ‘feature’ on a local New York neighbourhood, Harlem…
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/01/22/nyregion/sugarhill.html

On politics, the paper will carefully draw on its in-house knowledge…
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/politics/2008-election-overview/

And on foreign stories it’ll think carefully how to get its readers closer to the story being told…
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/01/17/world/americas/haiti-earthquake-multimedia.html

Most striking though - digitally-speaking - is the NYT’s morning editorial meeting. The Executive Editor and his section heads arrive promptly at 10.30. They seat themselves around a huge, oval-shaped table in a cavernous room.
Visitors sit behind on two sides, in straight rows. Close to 30 people attend the meeting, but the space still seems un-filled.
The atmosphere is relaxed, but highly-ordered.
At one end of the room is a colossal viewing screen, and on it the NYT home page peers down, a commanding presence.

The Digital News Editor is the first to speak.
He discusses the current headline, and the multi-media offering around it.
Next he scrolls down the page to highlight various stories.
Then he talks about what will be coming up online during the day.
The entire room is drawn into the digital offering, editors silently prodded to consider how they may fit in over the next 24 hours.
Only then is the next morning's paper discussed.

Toying with TV...

Writer for The Christchurch Press Alex van Wel is immersing himself in convergent thinking - the coming together of all forms of journalism online. He's in America on Fairfax Media's Mike Robson Fellowship, travelling from South Carolina up to New York. In the nation's capital on his 5th day, he dropped in on a landmark publication.

The Washington Post is not the kind of paper to dabble with new ideas in an unfocused manner.
As the preferred read of America’s governing elite, it offers some of the best political reporting available, and still counts Watergate investigative journalist Bob Woodward among its staff.

Video has been on the paper’s agenda since print publications moved to the web at the end of the last decade.
Now it’s ramped up its capability, with a state of the art new facility.
It knows that attracting traffic to its website means competing with all mediums, including live TV news.
Last Friday the paper quite consciously went head to head with national television when Tiger Woods emerged to apologize for cheating on his wife.
The Post’s assistant managing editor for news video has a track record in broadcast tv...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoRl1KiRG-Y

The spark for all this is the bottom line.
Newspaper executives began by simply experimenting with video, with not too much concern about shaky camera-work or inaudible sound. But not anymore: there's a realization that advertisers are not going line their products up next to amateur packages.
It's tricky though. Web users are being asked to transform their perceptions of newspapers, in much the same way that the journalists are having to redefine their roles.
Chet Rhodes again...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3HOzDOVhQg

Capitol Hill, Washington DC













Not all newspapers in the US see it this way, though. Smaller, local papers know the cannot compete on national or foreign stories. Some are also reluctant to use resources trying to beat local TV crews to breaking news in a medium in which they lack the expertise. Many only use video to go behind the headlines and tell more personal stories.
There are limitations of course, too. It cannot just be video for the sake of it. TV just doesn't lend itself to complex political stories. It is good with emotion and personal tales, but looks horribly out of shape when it tries to tackle something like the detail of legislation.

Rhodes believes the perfect formula is still to evolve.

Mixing mediums...

Writer for The Christchurch Press Alex van Wel is immersing himself in convergent thinking - the coming together of all forms of journalism online. He's in America on Fairfax Media's Mike Robson Fellowship, travelling from South Carolina up to New York. On day three he spent a morning with the Shelby Star newspaper in North Carolina - a paper firmly embracing the digital age.



Yup...it's a video news provider, a newspaper, and an online and interactive source of local information - an entirely new media animal.
Once upon a time it was simply a print publication, but for the past few years the Star in North Carolina has been blurring age-old distinctions.
It defines itself minute by minute, in line with the way the news-day unfolds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDv88CHVttE

For reporters, it was adapt or die...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGUVDFUSbNg

So, while circulation dwindles and print executives in the US grope around in the dark for a solution to their revenue crisis, a new genre of journalism is quietly emerging from their thinned-out newsrooms. It’s one in which immediacy, interactivity, and multi-media is becoming key.

(Day 4)
The Roanoke Times in Virginia this week held an unprecedented multi-media brainstorming session with its staff - to firmly embed valuable experiences gained over the past few years.
It learned a thing or two during the Virginia Tech shootings in 2007.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBh9DIYPN68

In essence it's about making sure the cultural shift is firmly in place.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz2yrvEuJOU

But some worry the new focus may dumb down the offering and reduce reporters to no more than ‘content-gatherers’, stretched to deliver on so many different platforms.
“Do I film, tweet, scribble or e-mail?” they ask.
Gone is the long lunch...and time to think, as one senior journalist put it.
The concern is that careful analysis and reflection could be lost in the much busier lives of today’s reporters. Traditional print writers are increasingly being expected to understand moving film, graphics, audio and still pictures - as well as being masters of the written word.
It's not an issue, though, according to the Shelby Star's advocate of change.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5KxE1HZKsw

All in the mind...

Writer for The Christchurch Press Alex van Wel is immersing himself in convergent thinking - the coming together of all forms of journalism online. He's in America on Fairfax Media's Mike Robson Fellowship, and travelling from South Carolina up to New York. On day one and two he visited Newsplex in the city of Columbia, a centre devoted to the multi-media world.

“Don’t worry about the technology!” barks journalism guru Randy Covington “just focus on the story.”
The Newsplex director has one objective in life: to de-mystify the ‘new’ media, and make it easy for reporters to embrace the digital age.
In his view, those who try to over-complicate the world of blogs, tweets, platforms and tablets should be taken outside and given a damn good thrashing.
With the very real crisis in the US newspaper industry, there’s just no time for it.
Here’s his message to us.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKJvCv6a99g

A bit over the top? I don’t think so. Here's a little peek at The State Newspaper in Columbia. Its Online editor Gary Ward is chasing after a fire which has already badly burned his staff.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4SmZdV2cpk

Of course, it's not as if the internet is delivering a silver bullet. It's the complete opposite, the migration of readers online the root of the problem. “We’re trading analog dollars for digital dimes” laughs Covington, echoing the dry words of Universal CEO Jeff Zucker. Newspapers are left trying to work out how to make the dimes add up to something. Some are moving seriously into moving film and gathering their own quality footage. They know companies are much more willing to pay for pre-roll – the adverts which precede video-clips, because viewers are much more engaged. But at the moment television is often still clipping the ticket, on Stuff at any rate.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_ZX35Wgp90

An alternative business model is struggling to be born. All kinds of wild ideas are being thrown about - even a US government subsidy for public service journalism. And there are still mutterings about full or limited pay-walls. One newspaper executive here told me everyone is standing still, looking anxiously from side to side to see who will make the first move. If the damage isn’t too bad and they survive, then we’ll all fall into line, he said, refusing to be named. A few big players – the New York Times and the Daily Telegraph in Britain – have set up specialist units to brainstorm. Everyone in the business is trying to pierce the future, to work out what it’s all going to look like. It could look just like this…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5CzQyjw1Gw