Dispatches from the living amongst journalism's walking dead

Month: April 2010

Online news is always TBD

So our new little metro site for Washington, D.C. is no longer nameless. It was announced today that the name of the site will be TBD – and I think it’s perfect.

As my future colleague Jeff Sonderman wrote,  it really fits with the mission of what we’re trying to do here.

News at the start of the reporting process is “to be determined” – though in the traditional model, many readers don’t get to see it or be a part of it at that point. You get it later, as a finished product in print, online or on-air. If you’re lucky, we’ll let you comment on it or write a letter to the editor when its done.

I truly believe needs to be alive to be relevant. Our goal is to get news out there fast, yes, but we also need to make that news evolve in time with the release of information, the ebb and flow of public opinion and the constant input of those affected by it.

There can and will be several avenues for the public to share in cultivating and developing the news at TBD – and I hope the people of metro DC will be as excited to be a part of it as I am. So far, the reaction seems positive. What do you think?

A bit more explanation of what’s going down in DC

Poynter had a talk with Jim Brady, president of digital strategy at Allbritton and my future boss, about the as-yet-unnamed metro site I’ll be working on in Washington, D.C. starting next month.

Brady outlines the site’s coverage plan, which is, essentially, a bit of the umbrella (regional news readers care about) and the microscope (community-level news). He also talked a bit about what we on the community engagement team will be doing in terms of aggregation, curation and reaching out.

You can guess that I think the plans sound awesome since I accepted a job there and all, but I’m curious to see what you think. Does this sound like a site you’d want to read?

On making a move and taking new chances

For months now, I have been excitedly following the developing news of Allbritton’s local news site. As the parent company of Politico, many online types have hopes this as-yet-unnamed project can revitalize online news – and maybe give the Washington Post a run for their money.

I’m proud to say that as of today, I’m going to be a part of this exciting and altogether new approach to news. I recently accepted a job to be the site’s social media producer, working with the likes of Jim Brady, Steve Buttry and the site’s rapidly-growing community engagement staff.

So long Camp Washington Chili, hello Ben’s Chili Bowl.

Did I mention I was excited? I also meant terrified.

I’ve had a great ride in my three years at Cincinnati.Com. I’ve had the opportunity to work with some really great journalists and brilliant innovators. I lead a comfortable existence here, with my husband working right across the office and lots of friends living close by.

I’m terrified/excited to throw away all I know for a whole new life in a new city and a company with a new way of doing business. I think I’m running out of chances to take chances – and this one just seemed like the best fit possible.

I’m thrilled for the opportunity to learn from some of the best minds in the journalism industry – and hopefully do a little bit of teaching myself.

We’ll be out to redefine what it really means to connect with a news audience – and there’s no way we’ll be doing this alone. I encourage my readers and friends in Cincinnati to offer their ideas and advice (and maybe a pint or two?) as I prepare move ahead to the new job. If any of you are from the DC area, please introduce yourselves via social media or in the comments below. I’m sure I’ll need all the tips and ideas you can give me.

It is only with the cooperation and input from local readers that this new project will be able to thrive. I hope you’ll all be along for the ride.

Today’s news now or yesterday’s news today?

Want to know if your publication is web-first? I have a simple test for your newsroom.

In your daily news meetings, listen for how many times an assignment editor or reporter says, “….we’ll have that for tomorrow.” If this is in reference to anything but an enterprise story from the budget, that’s a bad sign. If it is in regard to any event happening that same day, it’s a very bad sign.

I’ve been on the online side of newspapers for my entire professional career and I’ve seen a lot of culture shifts, but the online deadline of now seems to be the biggest gap to cross. It seems that many reporters and editors are no longer driven by competition to be first with the news. Many don’t think there even IS competition.

With so many newspapers closing up shop in the last five years, many metro newspapers (like the Enquirer) are the only dailies left standing in their cities. In smaller areas, newspapers have enjoyed lifetimes of market domination. With the old school competition gone, some news people have simply taken to early in-office retirement.

Where reporters once raced to get exclusive stories into the next edition before the competing afternoon paper could jump aboard, now they don’t see a good reason to rush when the print deadline is 5 p.m. They ask, “Who are we trying to scoop, anyway?”

As online editor I can only say, “Everybody.”

Just because there’s no other printed daily newspaper in town doesn’t mean there isn’t competition. The Cincinnati Post may be dead and gone, but it doesn’t mean we’re the knight left standing. My paper still has to contend with several TV station websites, a “weekly” business journal reporting daily news online and a robust blogosphere that can (and often do) beat us to the punch.

Putting aside the obvious time implications of true breaking news, let’s look at the day-to-day budget – the press conferences, scheduled events and government meetings. How long after such an event has taken place does it take for your publication to have some sort of news online?

If it is more than an hour before this gets online, you’ve already lost to the competition. If it is leisurely filed at 5 p.m. for the next day’s paper, well, you should probably just pack up your website and head home.

The fact is, it isn’t even just about being first, it is about proving your value in a 24-hour news marketplace.

Readers expect information as soon as something happens. Any gap in time between an event happening and when they read about it from the “paper of record” is time spent looking elsewhere, on Google, Twitter, blogs, TV sites, etc. to find out what’s going on. They aren’t expecting a Pulitizer winner in 20 minutes, just the basics.

How relevant is that write-up of a  late night school board meeting in the day-after-tomorrow’s paper? If we as an industry still exist for the purpose of informing the public, we should re-evaluate our relevance if we can’t even get a basic overview of a government meeting to them within a half hour of its conclusion. For breaking news, the deadline of NOW is even more important.

We as journalists want readers to choose us and, preferably, pay for us – but we need to give them a reason to want it in the first place.

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