ASNE Convention 2012 : newsroom

Small newsrooms, big journalism

Amanda Knowles — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 21:35:00 GMT

By Kara Rose

As the size of newsrooms dwindles, many news organizations have struggled to carry out their duties with meager staffs and limited resources.

Four top editors who have successfully used their smaller newsrooms to full potential addressed discussed how to do world-class reporting despite disadvantages in a 24-hour news cycle.

David Newhouse, editor of The Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa., said he looks at his newsroom as "a big dog in a small dog's body." The Patriot-News covers five counties, the state capital and Penn State University with only 19 full-fledged reporters and broke the news about the sexual assault case against former Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky.

The key, Newhouse says, was enterprise journalism.

"We live, we think, we talk - literally, we breathe - enterprise every day," Newhouse said. Developing enterprise stories and finding original sources, he said, "makes best use of the staff cuts we are all facing."

Also on the panel were A.M. Sheehan, editor of the weekly Advertiser Democrat in Norway, Maine, and Mike Connelly, executive editor of the Herald-Tribune in Sarasota, Fla., who said his success started with building a "climate" in the newsroom, beginning with a "no distractions policy."

Connelly and Newhouse said being a "cheerleader" is one of the most important ways to set the proper newsroom climate. Another, Connelly said, is challenging your team, rewarding its victories and developing successors.

"You have to believe in your newsroom," Connelly said, adding that delegating downward inspires potential successors by "building their confidence and giving them room to grow."

Sheehan, who has a staff of two full-time reporters, said that although her readership is interested in "yesterday's news," her publication was still able to uncover a low-income housing scandal.

She stressed the importance of always knowing why her organization is reporting on a story in the first place, noting that time management, efficient writing and community cooperation made that possible.

The relationship fortified between the community and the publication is something Sheehan and other panelists found vital to their survival.

Manny Garcia, executive editor and general manager of El Nuevo Herald in Miami said going into the community builds readership and tips off reporters about underreported topics there.

He compared his newsroom model to that of a Ferrari - "a hot car built from the ground up." He said he seeks help from his staff to improve the publication's brand.

The panelists each ultimately emphasized high-impact journalism for their respective communities. These stories, Newhouse said, inspire enacted change.

"When you made an impact," he said, "... it has a ripple effect in the community."

Kara Rose is a student at the University of Maryland. She is one of several local university journalism students reporting live from ASNE 2012 in Washington, D.C.

What should your newsroom be doing right now?

Amanda Knowles — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 19:19:00 GMT

By Tom McParland

A panel of news editors and researchers discussed new strategies Wednesday for adapting to a future of constant innovation, including partnering with students and better utilizing emerging platforms and video.

In ASNE's "What Should Your Newsroom Be Doing Now?" session, panelists described how they "experiment openly" with new media, which can often cause problems for journalists and editors.

"Every single generation has grown up with a new form of media," said moderator Eric Newton of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. "There aren't unequivocal answers, and nothing is absolutely right."

Video has become a useful tool for news outlets, which have been successful in providing live election video feeds and featuring in-depth "explainer videos" on complicated issues such as fracking and redistricting.

"These are things that, if done well, will be of value for a long time," said Joshua Benton, director of the Nieman Journalism Lab.

But, while video is in high demand among advertisers, news organizations still face revenue problems as they experiment with different uses.

"Video scares me," said John Geddes, managing editor for operations at The New York Times. "It's also an opportunity to lose a lot of money."

New platforms, such as tablets, allow journalists to push boundaries and reach broader audiences, panelists said.

"Tablets are a great opportunity to stop thinking about newspapers as one omnibus product," Benton said.

But the tablet still has some growing up to do before reaching its full potential, said Nancy Barnes, editor of the Star Tribune in Minneapolis.

"We are still trying to figure out how to make the tablet a transformative platform because it's not right now," she said, adding that a solution may come in adapting the burgeoning platform to niche markets.

In an effort to expand their influence, many outlets are rethinking strategies on the social media sites Facebook and Twitter to direct traffic to back to their own Web pages.

"We want the best engagement to take place at our site," Geddes said.

But with social media still in its infancy, news editors and executives are still struggling to profit.

"We don't know enough yet,'" Geddes said. "We don't know what we want to do, and we don't know how to monetize it."

As the media tries to expand its reach and adapt to the future, it could find an ally in students, a group with which Karen Peterson, editor of The News Tribune in Tacoma, Wash., has partnered to augment election year coverage.

Students, she said, allow organizations to expand coverage and to better tap into concerns of young people.

"In some ways, it comes down to treating these students somewhere between citizen journalists and a few steps down from professional journalists," Benton said.

Despite challenges posed by ever-changing technology in the industry, panelists agreed that he opportunity is worth seizing.

"Every year's going to be challenging, and it should be," Geddes said. "We could curse the times we are in, or we can revel in it."

Tom McParland is a student at the University of Maryland. He is one of several local university journalism students reporting live from ASNE 2012 in Washington, D.C.

Innovative newsroom leadership

Amanda Knowles — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 23:54:00 GMT

By Robert Baird

Leaders of some of America's oldest and newest publications discussed the future on Tuesday.

The all-female panel moderated by "Washington Week" and "PBS NewsHour" anchor Gwen Ifill talked about digital content and challenges and opportunities of new media.

Arianna Huffington, founder and president of the seven-year-old Huffington Post website, said the media need to produce "more autopsies and less biopsies" of the stories of our time, such as the buildup to the war in Iraq and the economic recession.

"If mainstream media were ADD, the best journalism on the web is OCD," she said, because they "obsess" over stories.

 Jill Abramson, appointed in November as the first female executive editor of The New York Times, defended the paper, which has undergone recent staff reductions.

Abramson said that the passion for journalism hasn't changed but that "all the news that's fit to print" doesn't just mean with paper and ink.

"Five years ago, we were husbanding really great stories for the front page, [but] we hardly ever do that now. . . we publish them when they are ready," she said.

With the discussion firmly focused on new technology, the audience gasped and even laughed when Kathleen Carroll, executive editor of The Associated Press, admitted that she does not use Twitter.

Discussing tech-savvy journalists and journalism-savvy tech experts, Carroll noted that many in the industry had been surprised that it took so long for talent to develop with strengths in both areas. She said that everybody had journalists who had developed tech skills and technical folks who had developed journalism skills, but most had expected students or young people with equal strengths to emerge at least a decade ago -- and that has been slower than expected.

According to its website, the 166-year-old news service has more than 3,700 people in more than 300 locations worldwide. Despite the challenges, AP is changing the way it presents news from text-only to a dynamic multiplatform media outlet.

"For us, the presumption that [every story] is a print or a text story" is gone, Carroll said.

The discussion was cordial, yet the competition among their publications for talent is fierce. Chrystia Freeland, editor of Thomson Reuters Digital, said the battle is on among news outlets for talented writers, digital producers and online technical specialists.

Which is why Abramson said she is "rapacious about stealing" that talent, trying to lure it with a reinvented Times website and apps that are "the envy of the profession."

Robert Baird is a student at the University of Maryland. He is one of several local university journalism students reporting live from ASNE 2012 in Washington, D.C.