Gannett's Strategic Plan focuses on seven primary jobs
Jennifer Carroll, Gannett's VP for new media content says "We've learned that no one wants to read a 400-column-inch investigative feature online. But when you make them a part of the process they get incredibly engaged."The 7 Primary Job Areas
By May, the editorial side of each Gannett newspaper will be organized into the following seven primary job areas, which make up the Information Center:
Digital — selecting the best platform for news delivery;
Public Service — extending First Amendment coverage, in part by involving readers and asking for community input on investigative areas;
Community Conversation — expanding the concept of the editorial page; managing staff commentary, from editorials and blogs to columns; and encouraging community participation online;
Local — expanding local coverage and re-establishing sports, business and feature reporting into hyper-local areas;
Custom Content — connecting with identified target audiences and looking for efficiencies in repurposing content across all platforms;
Data — elevating the practice of managing and acquiring deep local information;
Multimedia — leading all visual presentation across every platform; photographers will be trained for any type of multimedia.
From what I have seen in my travels and talks with editors and publishers around the world is that it boils down to the basic truth — that it's not enough to simply push out information that is unavailble anywhere else — a modern news group must facilitate a community and provide an invaluable experience that their users simply cannot find anywhere else.
As the founder of Visual Editors and a contributer for this editors blog I am obviously a fan and promoter of the concepts of interactive journalism and empowering the audience.
The key to me is recognizing that databases are the gold mines fueling the business models in this scenario and how well they are structured, mined and managed will be one of the keys to rolling this plan out. I like how their thinking clearly values that reality and that they will invest in the interactive and participatory strategies.
Many journalists will want to talk first about how their jobs are changing, naturally. Well, that’s good but I like how the values are focused on investing in community participation in a never-ending feedback loop.
That can lead to some remarkable results and good journalism. Look, what Gannett is really trying to do here is build a new model around their key assets - customer data - deep, local customer data. News, community and marketing data.
Managing structured data is the linchpin in executing a vision like this.
I know that sounds like gibberish to some but, mark my words, getting real smart about managing all of your company's databases will be the key to making this work.
What are your thoughts on Gannett's bold new plan?

Some real clear thinking here Robb that, no accident, gels with a lot of the conversations I had with Gannett folk that didn't make it into my story. I go into more depth on my last crowdsourcing post (trackback below). Thanks.
One of the major problems with newspaper reconstruction for the digital age was that it is usually a bottom-up movement or side project. A top-down reconstruction is more likely to function efficiently.
It's astounding how hard it's been for newspaper companies to come to grips with calendar/community/entertainment databases. Undoubtedly, newspapers -- at great cost -- collect more of this event info than anyone else.
In fact, when Knight Ridder moved forward with now-dead Zip 2 in the mid-'90s, it arguably had a lead. But that then-ahead-of-the-pack technology froze in time and never got updated. Tribune tried some new things with Metromix and the WashPost's CityGuide is now one of the best. I'm interested in the Star-Tribune's Vita.Mn as a step-forward into the 2.0 world. Biggest development though may be this month. Yahoo, as part of its bigger deal with 7 newspaper companies, will be providing "technology" -- in part, tools to harness that entertainment/community content. Yes, it will be better displayed on individual newspaper websites -- but also through Yahoo's vast desktop and mobile network.
This may the be second coming of interactive, community-generated community/calendar/entertainment sites, intelligently mixed and matched with professional content.