Newspapers are diving into Web journalism, and in the process, learning what television stations learned long ago: The 24/7 culture is its own animal. It's exciting, exhausting and always challenging. It's a culture that has the potential to produce journalism that's excellent or an embarrassment.
Leaders build cultures. As I work with news managers on the challenge of "managing change," I want to help print journalists build a responsible 24/7 news culture, taking the best of what TV learned while avoiding its missteps.
Local TV newsrooms moved into the 24/7 mindset thirty years ago, when videotape, microwave and satellite technology made it possible to broadcast live or just-recorded video reports anytime, and from just about any place. Technology changed the culture and the content of TV news. Reporters could now "go live" from a legislative debate or a police chase; they could alert communities to a dangerous chemical spill or break news of a fatal car crash even before the next-of-kin knew it had happened.
Overnight ratings and viewer research told stations which stories and coverage attracted viewers, and drove more "live, local and late-breaking" reports. Media critics at newspapers lamented the resulting TV news menu: a diet of accidents, fires and crime; of too many events and too few issues.
Now those newspaper folks are plunging into a 24/7 world of their own, where online reporting must be fresh and updated. Where the "breaking news" banner is now theirs to unfurl. Where heat maps tell the staff which stories are getting the most hits, and Web editors know which are the most e-mailed. Instead of "overnights," these are real-time ratings for stories, pictures, graphics, polls and blogs.
Now print journalists are learning the minute-by-minute challenge of keeping space and resources dedicated to covering the "important" while "urgent" or "unusual" gets the popular vote.
Print journalists are also learning they must change their work habits and mental models of productivity as they "feed the beast." They must meet the boundless demand for online content that tells readers what's happening while it's happening, is accurate if not yet comprehensive, and if comprehensive, is visually powerful and easy to absorb.
I bring some firsthand experience to the conversation. In the 1970s, my station was the first in town with a "live" truck -- and I was designated as the station's "live" reporter, seen nightly at 6 p.m. from somewhere in the viewing area. Here's the promo to prove it (click on the image below, then press the "play" button in the new page):
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Promo courtesy of WITI-TV (Milwaukee) |
When I moved into management, I oversaw the transition to ever-more-immediate technology. I was smack in the middle of helicopter, weather and breaking-news wars, with all the attendant fiscal, ethical and cultural challenges.
The cultural imperative: Be ready and able to report news at a moment's notice, grow people with the talent to deliver the words, video and graphics instantly, create systems that reduce internal confusion and maximize communication, and most of all, do it while emphasizing critical thinking and journalistic responsibility. Oh, and beat the competition, too.
Now newspapers must do the same. If you're among the newspaper folks merging your traditional newsroom with online and aiming for a culture you can be proud of, let me offer some tips for you:
In a 24/7 newsroom:
Break down your old barriers. In breaking news, weather and sports in particular, every member of the organization can provide information. Call, write, shoot -- just deliver!
I learned this many years ago from a radio station with which we were partnering on news coverage. A staffer there told me it was standard operating procedure for everyone in the station -- from news to sales to engineering -- to call in during severe weather and be prepared to go on the air with what they were seeing from their vantage points. While the newsroom gathered official facts and figures, every staffer was also an eyewitness to a slice of the story.
I realized then that my newsroom had been wasting some natural resources. We had photographers all over town who were equipped with cell phones, but we never invited them to call in while covering stories. Citizen journalism? Heck, we hadn't even been fully tapping into our journalists' journalism. We changed that -- and redefined out culture so that everyone defined himself or herself as a reporter.
Beware the lure of scanners and tipsters. The passion in the dispatcher's voice on a police radio can raise your adrenaline level. The drama of a citizen's "eyewitness" video can tempt you to rush to publish. Temper your urge to be first with the goods with the knowledge that when the site bears your news organization's name, your credibility is on the line. Long after readers/users forget which publication "broke" a story, they will remember the one that brokered bad information and had to apologize.
Online staffs today are a rich mix of folks with differing backgrounds. Not everyone was indoctrinated by J-school profs or veteran editors who chanted "Verify! Verify! Verify!" So make your confirmation protocols clear -- and then never penalize a staffer who, when faced with a genuine choice between immediacy or accuracy, goes for accuracy. Build "How do we know?" and "How many sources do we have?" into your breaking-news conversations.
Now that you can publish at any time, remember just how much power you wield. You can do so much good, providing information that saves lives, connects people, dispels rumors, reduces inconvenience or satisfies curiosity.
At the same time, you may identify the dead or injured before authorities notify their families, thanks to that cell-phone picture of a bad accident sent by a staffer or citizen. You may incite a hostage-taker to violence with your account of his or her mental state. ("Assume the hostage-taker has access to a TV," we'd tell our staff -- and today it might be safe to assume there's access to all forms of media.) You might close a school because a prankster took advantage of a vulnerability in your severe-weather reporting system. As you build your 24/7 culture, ask yourself, "What do we want to be known for?"
Telling "what happened" is one way of reporting -- and it also has the shortest "freshness dating." That story gets old the moment it is published. There's so much more to every story -- and online, you have limitless options to move it forward.
Add layers. Look ahead. Beyond the what, there's what else, what next, what the heck, what's possible, who's in it, who's out of it and who cares.
Even as you post a story, assume people already know about it. Play an FAQ game with yourself: What questions are people asking about this story? (And not just in the halls of power or in the newsroom, but in their homes and at the water cooler.) Anticipate the questions and answer them as you continuously advance the story.
- Think in multiple time frames.
When a big story breaks in a strong 24/7 newsroom, everyone wants in on the action. Your staffers call in immediately, some just show up automatically, even from vacations and days off. You bless them. And then you manage them carefully. Especially the managers.
It is imperative for news managers to extract themselves from the "now" -- trust that to well-trained deputies -- and start thinking about tomorrow and the next day.
Think about what's missing, who'll need to be on duty tomorrow at this time, what's needed for future story treatment, and how to produce reports for both online and print that deliver what each medium does best. Don't get mesmerized by the thrill of the breaking-news chase at the expense of quality continuing coverage. You can't do that without a plan -- or with an exhausted staff you failed to schedule strategically.
- Remove barriers to peak performance.
The most important thing a newsroom leader does is envision what excellence and success look like. Share the vision with staff, build their confidence through coaching and training and then remove the barriers that keep them from executing.
As I built a 24/7 culture in my newsroom, I ran into technical challenges. To get news on the air outside scheduled newscast time, we needed a studio and a control-room crew. Sometimes the right folks weren't on duty. Sometimes, we had to displace a paying client who was in the control room producing a commercial. Imagine how popular that made us -- and how much of a barrier it was to airing an important story NOW!
I tried to work around the existing system. But I realized that what we really needed was to challenge the system, to build a new one. I went to our chief engineer with a simple question: "Assume we have important information to broadcast. How could we get it on the air -- in 60 seconds?" When I framed it as a 60-second challenge, it led to brainstorming. For the first time, we thought about how the station was wired, how video and audio were routed. How to bypass big studios and use flashcams right in the newsroom, where information is generated.
What barriers to production still exist in your online system? How can you brainstorm ways to break them? How can you make it possible for as many people as possible to publish -- responsibly and quickly -- to your site? What's your "60-second question"?
- Visual information trumps words and audio.
The writers among us may chafe at that reality, but it is visuals that draw people in. In a multimedia presentation, visuals (photos, video, illustrations) can override any narrative that accompanies them.
Look at some of the best examples of television storytelling and you will find that the words and pictures always complement each other.
(See samples of the terrific work of KARE-11's Ken Speake in this column by my colleague Al Tompkins. Let Ken be your teacher.)
Remember that the mind can't process audio/visual dissonance well. If what you're saying doesn't support what I'm seeing, your message is lost. So, by all means, think visually, but marry words and pictures effectively. In a 24/7 culture, this needs to be part of your DNA, lest you waste time and energy on ineffective multi-media, or give me too many words when what I long for are visuals to help me understand and appreciate a story.
A 24/7 newsroom should be a utility. Just like a switch that produces light or a faucet that provides water, you are there to provide information on demand. Make yourself the info headquarters. Tap into every existing source of useful info out there, especially that which is real-time: What's being monitored, counted, maintained or studied by universities, nonprofits or the government?
Can users access things like highway cams, traffic sensors, mountain cams, fish and wildlife reports, air-quality indices, vote tallies or seismographs -- through your site? Is everyone on your staff on the alert for opportunities to identify sources of real-time data, and provide it? Is everyone prepared to capture and preserve the real-time images or info during an important event, to build a story around it?
In a 24/7 culture, you are likely to become more conversational in your approach to the news. A reporter live-blogging a trial writes in a looser and often more interesting form than the traditional third-person inverted pyramid. A print journalist recording a podcast is now a "voice" that people might find comfortable (or irritating, if you don't provide good coaching). Your online staff is in conversation with the community. Learn to do this well. You may come to reap one of the benefits that accrue to credible TV anchors and reporters: People feel they know you, so they share information with you. You guide them through the ups and downs of a big story, and if you do it right, they turn to you in the future.
You explain how and why you are covering the story. You open a window to your challenges, be they technical or ethical. You give credit to citizens and staff who contributed to important coverage.
Be transparent, but not self-aggrandizing or self-absorbed. Learn the delicate balance that builds familiarity and trust.
Finally, in this 24/7 culture:
- Never stop being a journalist.
It means exercising news judgment, setting standards, building quality into systems, giving voice to people who lack one, and sometimes -- even often -- doing the unpopular. It means remembering that stories can be popular but pointless -- and you can demand better. It means doing your best to help build a successful business model -- without turning journalism into junk mail.
It means knowing when -- even in the 24/7 newsroom -- to press the "pause" button, because people need time to think.
You talk about "in a 24/7 newsroom" and do a...
