Welcome to Poynter McCormick Big Ideas Conference resource page. Here you'll find information on innovations presented at the event we held in July.
I led the Big Ideas conference along with my Poynter colleague Butch Ward. We're happy to share what we learned. Here's a quick video guide to this page:
The Big Ideas Conference highlighted innovations from print, broadcast and online newsrooms. It was underwritten by a grant from the McCormick Foundation, with the goal of helping newspapers survive and thrive in these challenging times. The Big Ideas are listed here in the order they were presented at the conference.
If the Big Idea title appears in green, you can click on it for additional information provided by the presenter.
Content that Connects7 to 7 Breaking News: The Providence Journal/projo.com's "Blog First, Right Now" approach has all staff posting a constant stream of important and interesting news from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m. Monday through Friday, when the majority of the site's audience is available. "7 to 7" succeeds because of the systems and training that make it part of the newsroom's culture. Presenter: Alan Rosenberg, Assistant Managing Editor/Breaking News
Interactive Breaking News: NewsOK.com creatively integrates various applications during breaking news: live chats, Twitter, update blogs, live video. Used for big events such as ice storms, tornadoes and wildfires. (Here's
an example.) Presenter: Alan Herzberger, Digital Managing Editor, OPUBCO Communications Group
The Reporter's Notebook: This feature of the
Twin Cities Daily Planet invites people to "become producers as well as consumers of news." The Reporter's Notebook gives the outline of a story in progress, contact info for the reporter and questions and resources for readers. It uses Twitter, Facebook and online forums to drive community input. Presenter: Mary Turck, Editor
Buzz Style: "Buzz" is the term used at
The Sun/Inland Valley Daily Bulletin for the presentation of print stories in nontraditional formats. The goal is "no-nonsense news presentation for the need-to-know news consumer." The alternative story format breaks out ideas into digestible chunks that are engaging and reader-friendly. The challenge is building "Buzz" thinking into the front end of the story process. Presenter: Gina Dvorak, Design Editor
Monday, Monday: In Alabama,
The Anniston Star's move to a Monday tab was an adventure. After six months of planning and focus groups, the paper launched "JumpStart," a Monday tab with community features, "news you can use" and personality profiles. Readers rejected the tab format. The paper quickly reverted to broadsheet, but retained the lively content. This presentation was one of the most memorable of the conference because it provided leadership lessons in innovation, "failing fast" and moving forward. Presenter: Bob Davis, Editor
Stretched: GateHouse News Service developed a successful portfolio of print and digital offerings that delivered simple ways for people of all income groups to save money -- special sections, a magazine, coupon books and pages. Ad directors said the product worked because it opened possibilities for new advertisers and reached a wide range of readers. Presenter: David Arkin, Executive Director, News & Interactive Division, GateHouse Media
Better Mousetraps
PolitiFact: With a Pulitzer to its credit, the
St. Petersburg Times' PolitiFact is already well known. Its Truth-O-Meter passes judgment on the veracity of statements made by public figures on matters of public policy. A team of editors carefully vets the calls. The site uses a software platform that makes the site easy to search. A new feature tracks the campaign promises made by President Barack Obama. Presenter: Scott Montgomery, Government and Politics Editor
The KSL iCam: KSL radio in Salt Lake City developed
an online live chat room, including cameras and a media section featuring live, streaming audio of the radio station. It enables staffers inside the station to connect at all times with listeners. It could be adapted for news organizations that want to open a window into the newsroom and engage in dialogue with the community. The iCam generates revenue through sponsorships, scrolling messages, special events, contests and pre-roll ads on videos. Presenter: Sheryl Worsley, News Director
The Wire: WCCO-TV in Minneapolis is developing a sophisticated interactive widget designed to track news, buzz and events over a 72-hour time frame. A horizontal line moves through the days, and viewers can click into whatever area attracts them. The Wire will allow the newsroom to post news of all sorts, the sales department to sell "event" ads, and viewers to post comments. It is highly visual and creative. Presenter: Toby Collodora, Executive Editor
ABQwiki: The
Albuquerque Journal's
ABQwiki is an online answer machine, a community builder and a revenue generator. It provides free access to answers, links to authoritative stories in the paper's paid content site, and allows print subscribers the ability to edit entries as members of a community. ABQwiki uses open-source DocuWiki software. Presenter: Donn Friedmann, Assistant Managing Editor
Plug In: Plug In is a feature of
The (Fort Myers, Fla.) News-Press. When a
big story is in the news, a Plug In page builds an information and social network around it. The pages link to other sources, add documents, include interactive elements such as polls and comments, and may feature live chats and video packages. Plug In pages also can be used for breaking news, such as swine flu, and public service features. Presenter: Mark Bickel, Digital/Delivery Desk Manager
Cross-Media Ideas
RadioJax: In May of 2009,
The Florida Times-Union's
Web site, Jacksonville.com, developed a trio of Internet radio stations and a local music site called
RadioJax. In addition to channels devoted to contemporary, modern country and urban/R&B, the site offers informational podcasts.
Local bands can upload videos and MP3s of their music to the site, which also features concert reviews, photos and a calendar of music events. The paper is also developing mobile sites. Presenter: Bill Bortzfield, Content Manager
Today in Brevard: Florida Today produces a daily half-hour newscast, which is presented on the local PBS station. It airs at 11:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. and streams continuously on floridatoday.com. The paper built a TV studio in its Information Center and feeds the broadcast via fiber optic cable to the PBS station. The community college that operates the PBS station pays a rights fee for the newscast. Presenter: Tom Clifford, Editor/Delivery
Statesman News Update: The
Austin American-Statesman features a daily podcast on its Web site, all because a reporter offered to make it happen. It's about three minutes long and features the paper's top news stories. The
"Statesman News Update" is produced using a digital recorder, a shotgun mic, and free computer software Switch and Audacity. It takes about two and a half hours of the reporter's time. The paper does not have metrics on downloads but hopes to grow an audience and sell ads. Presenter: Suzannah Gonzales, the reporter who pitched the idea and produces the podcast.
FridayNightOhio.com: The Repository in Canton, Ohio, developed this
Web site devoted to high school football. It is a collaboration of four GateHouse Media papers in Northeast Ohio, all of which know the passion for high school football in their communities. Thirty-seven schools are represented on the site, with streamed results on game nights (updated each quarter), news stories, pages on teams and players, webcasts, blogs, forums and contests. The site generates revenue through online sponsorships and advertising. Presenter: Don Detore, Managing Editor.
CatchItKansas.com: KWCH-TV in Wichita, Kan., also has a
high school sports site, this one dealing with multiple sports for 140 Kansas high schools. The site employs three full-time and two part-time employees, along with 15 high school students and writers and five freelancers. The site is cross-promoted by the TV station and has partnerships with newspapers. It has a social networking application with 1,500 members, a texting system for scores, and iPhone and BlackBerry apps in the works. In 2008 the site had over 7 million page views and 800,000 unique visitors. Presenter: Shawn Hilferty, Director of Marketing and Digital Media.
Doing Business
Changing Relationships: Gazette Communications in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is at work on the
Complete Community Connection, or 3C for short. The idea is to build new relationships with businesses to help them make transactions, connect with customers, provide local search solutions, develop services that assist people with key aspects of their daily lives and provide more than just coverage of stories. Presenter: Steve Buttry, Information Content Conductor
Sales Force of the Future: Morris Communications developed a multi-part business strategy, one facet of which was the focus of this presentation. Morris newspapers aim to develop what they call best-in-class multimedia sales forces. The focus is solutions for businesses, and the papers are taking a close look at small- and medium-size businesses as a target for new revenue. Presenter: Steve Gray, Strategy and Innovation Consultant to Morris Communications
NewsTote:
The New Hampshire Union Leader in Manchester, N.H., is developing a cooperative with a shared, hyper-local ad network. The project is called NewsTote. It's aimed at smaller businesses and calls itself an "advertising subscription." NewsTote launched with a sample project called
nh365.org, which is an events calendar for the entire state. Organizations across the state can post events for free. Ads on the site reach target markets statewide. Presenter: Carl Perrault, Director
The Virtual Copy Desk: The
Ledger-Enquirer of Columbus, Ga., worked with three other McClatchy papers in the Southeast to find ways to build efficiencies into copyediting and designing while not losing the local touch of participating papers. This is not a centralized copy desk. Rather, it is a work-sharing process enabled by uniform guidelines for workflow, a common page size and similar design style. The work of the papers is shared across a computer network. Staff from the participating papers share the work and back each other up, but all local stories are edited and approved at the local level. Presenter: Jerry Morehouse, Senior Editor/Presentation and Production
New Revenue from Newsrooms: The publisher of the Ocala, Fla.,
Star-Banner came to the Big Ideas conference with a provocative idea and asked the group to help build on it -- and challenge it.
His goal: "Generate 10 percent or more of total operational revenue from direct sales of newsroom content and expertise to nontraditional markets, without diminishing newsroom independence and credibility." Among the things discussed: consulting, corporate communications, training, research, custom publishing, and repurposing previously published material. The conversation was robust, with a focus on potential conflicts of interest among the opportunities. Presenter: Allen Parsons, Publisher
Networking for News and Profit: The Charlotte Observer believes in social networking. The paper has a
fan page on Facebook and is aware the
Facebook audience tends to be female, well-educated and -- though it is growing among older people -- still has a young population base that newspapers need to reach. The paper is working on Facebook apps (originally developed by
NewsCloud as part of a Knight Foundation research study) that connect with users and reinforce their participation through an innovative "point system" for contributions of posts. The paper's staff is engaging people thorough Twitter and has a strong
mom's network site. Presenter: Steve Gunn, Editor for Innovations and New Products
Communities that Matter
Curate Your Community: The
St. Louis Post-Dispatch is curating and aggregating microlocal news from hundreds of local sites. The project, which is still in beta, uses Outside.In's new Publisher platform. The paper has created more than 300 sites for neighborhood communities. The hope is that it will serve local readers and focus on their neighborhoods while opening small and targeted ad opportunities. Presenter: Will Sullivan, Interactive Director
MemphisTrialBlog.com: The Commercial Appeal's
Web site developed
MemphisTrialBlog.com to cover the area's most important trials. It covered three high-profile murder trials in early 2009, using the expertise of a veteran reporter who provides a constant stream of updates. The liveblog pages feature photo galleries and profiles of key players in trials, along with documents, audio and videos. The site has received about 588,000 page views since its 2009 launch. Presenter: Michael Erskine, Digital Content Editor
Communities of Interest: Skanner News Group in Portland, Ore., is a 34-year-old African American-owned weekly newspaper chain. When the economy drove the paper to publish every other week, it ramped up its online content.
TheSkanner.com built Web traffic by expanding content to include national and international news with an African American and African focus. The Skanner has also launched local community service projects and online content including a Cold Case Murder File and Emergency Preparedness pages and is working on a business incubator and job search page. Web traffic is up. Presenter: Lisa Loving, News Editor
Six Words: Each year the
Albany Times Union conducts a "Best of" reader poll with 100 categories. This year, the paper asked for submissions of six words only. The result: 1,000 submissions via text message, e-mail, snail mail and hand delivery. The best were printed in a 28-page tab and
others posted online. The new approach was creative for readers, easy on staff judges, and generated revenue with the tab. Presenter: Michaei Janairo, Arts and Entertainment Editor
The Blogging Community: The Virginian-Pilot's Web site, HamptonRoads.com, is the home of 35 to 40
community bloggers. The diverse group is carefully selected and nurtured. They blog for the joy of it. One online staffer devotes an hour a day to recruiting and managing the bloggers. They draw an average of 150,000 page views and up to $1,800 a month in ad revenue. The site has developed protocols for the effective management of a blogging community. Presenter: Deb Markham, Online Producer (who says she loves her bloggers)
Conversational Journalism: The final presenter of the Big Ideas Conference presented new research from her recently completed Ph.D. dissertation at the Missouri School of Journalism. The project investigated the degree to which readers want "conversational journalism," that is, connections with the journalists presenting the stories. The research found that readers appreciated stories told by journalists who seemed to be like them, included information on how the story was developed (including explanatory video clips), and included real people in the stories. The readers, however, were put off by too much informality and expected professionalism. Presenter: Doreen Marchionni, Researcher, Sasquatch Media Consulting.
Liveblog of Monday, July 13 morning presentations on "Content that Connects"
Liveblog of Tuesday, July 14 morning presentations on "Cross-Media Ideas"
Liveblog of Tuesday, July 14 afternoon presentations on "Doing Business"Liveblog of Wednesday, July 15 presentations on "Communities that Matter"
Liveblog of Wednesday, July 15, 1:30-2:30 p.m. closing session facilitated by Butch Ward
