Developing a Newsroom Culture of Innovation

Developing a Newsroom Culture of Innovation
Steve Buttry, Gazette Communications
Swift Communications
June 23, 2009
steve.buttry@gazcomm.com
@stevebuttry on Twitter

Additional reading later
I’ll email links to:
These slides at slideshare.net/stevebuttry
Tips on multimedia storytelling, Twitter, liveblogging

What are obstacles
to innovation in your organization
(Swift and/or locally)?

Think (and make a few notes)
about a time when your team
excelled in the face
of huge obstacles.

Using digital tools is a start
Interactive databases
Interactive maps
Breaking news text alerts
Liveblogging
Video, including webcams
Slideshows, photo galleries
Flash multimedia projects
Crowdsourcing, user contributions
Social networks (Flickr, Twitter, Facebook …)

That isn’t enough

We need to transform:
Structure
Culture
Mindset
Business model
Relationships (community, businesses, competitors, vendors)

Complete Community Connection
Idea born at API as part of Newspaper Next
Not included in Newspaper Next 2.0
Needed to find a place ready to make the leap

C3’s revenue approach
Move beyond advertising
Direct sales (tickets, reservations, gift registries, sports paraphernalia)
Lead generation
Targeted ads
Sponsorships, events
Local search

Community Content
Driving
Home
Conversation
Calendar
Local knowledge

Driving
How often do you buy a car?
How often to you drive, gas up, service car, talk about cars, driving?
Databases, conversations, services focused on drivers’ everyday needs
Connect auto services with drivers (emergency repair services)

Personal content
Births
Youth milestones
School
Graduation
College life
Military service
Weddings
Parenthood
Divorce
Jobs, pets, holidays, food, interests, health
Illness
Empty nesters
Retirement
Reunions
Obituaries

Personal Content: Graduation
Many newspapers gather mugs, names anyway for graduation section
Launch page for each graduate
Senior, family fill in stories, photos, videos
Fill in school, target ads appear
Fill in career, sign up for email, text alerts
Gift registry

Entertainment
Traditional entertainment in digital form
Entertainment news
User-generated entertainment, events
Games

Business services
Direct sales
Local search
Communication & marketing services

Enriched news content
What’s happening now
Community engagement in news, enterprise, sports coverage
Storytelling (narrative, multimedia)
Aggregation, curation

Why separate content from product?
Packaged products come and go
Demand for content is as strong as ever

Content Room
Combines print, online, broadcast content producers in one organization
One breaking news team
One visual team
One watchdog team
One sports team
One weather team

Community relationship
Recruit contributors from community
Independent and affiliated contributors
Help staff engage better with community

Product Planning & Development
Product planners, editors, producers, anchors produce packaged products (newspaper, broadcasts, web sites), using our content & other sources
Three primary verticals of products: print, broadcast, online

Production Services
Ad design & production
Imaging
Copy editing
News page design & pagination

Production Services
Services don’t have to be done locally
Regional outsourcing to Gazette Communications may bring efficiency and still retain local knowledge

Ethics
Independence, integrity and credibility remain crucial to success
Journalism ethics haven’t changed, but we have to pay attention to audience, revenue performance
API ethics seminar: Upholding & Updating Ethical Standards

Innovation in a small staff
Engage the community (not free labor, but multiplying your labor)
Yes, you lack resources, but you’re more nimble
Use resources across the company
Write for web, edit for print
Consider innovation “vacations”

About those war stories …
How did your organization overcome obstacles?

In innovation as in news …
Don’t let obstacles become excuses

A short break

Making innovation happen
Take your approach from Nike:
Just do it

Three examples
Multimedia
Liveblogging
Twitter

Why spend time with Twitter?
It improves your journalism
It connects you with the community
It changes your newsroom culture
You can use it quickly
It shows that you are learning and changing, too

How Twitter helps journalists
Quickly locate eyewitnesses & participants in breaking news
Connect with sources, journalists
Monitor community discussion
Promote content
Write tight (no lead longer than a tweet)

Twitter’s value in breaking newsnot happening in Iran, Mumbai
DC Metro crash yesterday
@jkrums on Hudson emergency landing
@2drinksbehind on Denver plane crash
Fargo flooding
@MissRFTC on California earthquake

Additional reading later
I’ll email links to you:
These slides at slideshare.net/stevebuttry
Tips on multimedia storytelling, Twitter, liveblogging

Follow developments
chuckpeters.iowa.com
stevebuttry.wordpress.com
@stevebuttry on Twitter

Do we want to be the monks or Gutenberg?

Developing a Newsroom Culture of Innovation

by Steve Buttry

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