In the race to go digital, The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph in Sydney have taken some giant strides ahead with their "News24" initiative: the papers have completely restructured their newsrooms to prioritise digital content. The newsroom will now have one central, round-the-clock multimedia centre, known as the "superbench," that will edit and curate the papers' multimedia products on all platforms.

Editor of The Daily Telegraph, Paul Whittaker, told WAN-IFRA about why the new night-and-day newsroom was necessary.

The aim is to bring the digital products offered by two longstanding and top-selling newspapers up to the same exacting standards expected in the print publication by enforcing "the same discipline and structure around the digital operation that has long existed in the print product" in a bid to "respond to the changing reading and viewing habits of our audience".

There can be no doubt that in many newsrooms around the globe, the emphasis is increasingly falling on the best ways to produce digital content - but this doesn't mean that Whittaker sees print as a redundant medium; the restructuring is rather an effort to integrate the paper into a 24-hour, news-on-demand culture. "The newspaper is still at the core of everything we do, and if this process doesn't also result in a better newspaper then we will have failed. It is about growing the masthead's presence to reach audiences anywhere, anytime and through that, produce better content for all our platforms."

The day to day running of the newsroom has been reorganised to accommodate this multi-platform constant-content approach to delivering information. Whittaker explained "We realised fairly early on we needed to move quickly away from the mentality of a print-driven single-deadline news cycle to a continuous news cycle and to that end we have a number of formal and informal news conferences to discuss that day's or in some cases that hour's news agenda." To this effect, The Daily Telegraph's planning schedule has been moved forward two hours in order to accommodate a "multi-platform conference" that will decide the agenda for the paper's digital content. It has proved to be a useful strategy for Whittaker and his team: "It works well. Most stories can be sent to multi-platforms and our news directors are almost like traffic cops, deciding what stories should be posted to which platform and when and what resources should be dedicated to boost their content coverage."

Naturally, while this innovation means a more consistent and reliable service for consumers, it means life becomes a little harder for journalists, who are expected to learn more new skills and try their hand at an ever-greater variety of technical tasks. Are the staff of The Daily Telegraph excited about throwing themselves head first into the digital era? "Absolutely. I think our team very much recognise the industry is going through its biggest change in a generation and we have the opportunity to lead from the front in terms of quality content, innovation and delivery. It's evolution over revolution."

The Daily Telegraph has provided its staff with the necessary training and technology to navigate this transition to digital with great success. Whittaker outlines that amongst the Daily Telegraph team "There is great appreciation that the journalistic practices of old no longer apply." But not every change need to be rocket science to be effective: "Some of the internal changes have been quite simple like rostering and the creation of active news menus and equipping courts and police reporters with iPads and iPhones but they have seen instant benefits."

The new twenty-four hour newsroom isn't simply about curating a non-stop twitter feed or constantly updating web content. Having reporters on the midnight shift mean they can be mobilized during the night to discover what really goes on in Sydney during the wee small hours. "While many of us are tucked up in bed, Sydney doesn't sleep and there are things going on in the city that would surprise and shock many."

One of the aims of working the night shift is to be the first on the scene in Sydney, covering "things like gang warfare, extortion and rampant underage drinking to an insiders look at late night businesses such as the fishing industry or the hospital emergency staff and paramedic crews, through to the often unheralded charity work on the streets at night for the young, sick and homeless." This can only help the quality of both the digital and the print product.

As Whittaker puts it, it's all about getting ahead of the competition: "These words and pictures can provide us with a competitive edge and a great start for the next day," be that online or in print.

Sources: PANPA, Interview with Paul Whittaker, Editor of The Daily Telegraph