These are slides for a workshop for Madison SPJ.

1. Going Digital-First
in Your Newsroom
Steve Buttry
Madison SPJ
October 17, 2014

2. Why “unbolt”?
● Increase digital content
● Increase digital audience
● Increase digital revenue
● Digital is the future
● Work more efficiently

3. Digital-first priorities
● News coverage & storytelling
● Processes
● Engagement
● Planning & management
● Mobile
● Standards

4. Coverage & storytelling
● Breaking news
● Event coverage
● Routine daily coverage
● Enterprise coverage

5. Breaking news
● Independent breaking news team
● Publish as soon as you verify
● Update frequently
● Liveblog
● Tweet & post from scene

6. Daily coverage
● Liveblog all events (meetings, trials,
festivals, sports)
● Report routine daily stories as they unfold:
Verified newsworthy fact, then updates
● Early deadlines (during workday)
● Quick version, then full version
● Crowdsource

7. Digital enterprise
● Plan & work for digital platform & timing
● Not “Sunday story” or sweeps
● Plan digital elements from the first:
databases, social, videos, interactive …
● Engagement
● Crowdsourcing (you can’t scoop yourself)

9. Five Satins
● Story published online Monday
● Text twice as long online
● Loaded with links
● Videos
● Audio clips
● Strong engagement all week
● Still published Sunday in print

10. Digital content
● Videos (yours & community’s)
● Visuals (photo galleries, maps, graphics)
● Link to relevant content (external & archives)
● Embeds (tweets, source documents, etc.)
● Interactive storytelling tools
● Interactive databases
● Live (blogs, chats, streams)

11. Processes, planning
● How do you change daily, weekly meetings?
● Critique website, app, not legacy products
● How do you change staffing, shifts?
● Edit for digital publication
● News budgets for digital planning?
● Training for digital tools & workflow
● How do you measure success?

12. Read more about it
● stevebuttry.wordpress.com (Project
Unbolt category)
● @stevebuttry
● stephenbuttry@gmail.com