This is the first in a three-part series on one of this year's main newspaper trends: the integration of newsrooms. We'll study how three major newspaper companies around the world are implementing their own versions of the integrated newsroom - Telegraph Media group in the UK, Fairfax Media in Australia, and Gannett Co. in the US.


Editors Weblog spoke to two key people involved in the fundamental change at The Telegraph to look at the differences and the benefits of this new communications layout. Rhidian Wynn Davies, Consulting Editor of The Telegraph, was part of the working project group. He managed the logistics from creation to implementation and then training of staff for the integrated newsroom. Edward Roussel is the Digital Editor at The Telegraph and has an obvious role in the change in delivery of news to readers.

The study that The Telegraph did before implementing this huge change included visiting and analyzing newsrooms around the world and a series of tests. The results of the study led to a fundamentally different newsroom design based on a central hub with each of the news-desks coming off it in ‘spokes’. The new model has been met with fascination from around the world with many newspapers from other countries coming to visit to learn how they can improve their own newsroom.

The initial reaction from employees wasn’t quite as expected from management. In hindsight, Roussel understood these changes: “We’ve gone through a major overhaul over the last twelve months and you’re always going to find some that swim with the current, and some that swim against it. Last year, there were three major changes to contend with: an office move, a reorganization and a re-orientation of strategy.”
 
In fact, a strike was threatened and whilst put off, still isn’t out of the question (more info here) although according to both Roussel and Wynn Davies, employees are a lot more positive about the new structure now that they’re working in it. This is perhaps the first lesson learnt from this major change– get employees on-side before the changes are made. Mike Van Niekerk, Online Editor-in-Chief, Sydney Morning Herald and The Age at Fairfax Media has put this lesson into practice and told Editors Weblog that Fairfax has already agreed to certain changes for their new integrated newsroom later this year. “It was a combination of long discussion and negotiation with the unions. We are providing training for necessary new skills (and have been since the beginning of 2006). We borught all this into the bargaining including the pay upgrade, working conditions etc and they voted yes to the integrated news-desk.”
As mentioned by Van Niekerk, training is also key to the operation of an integrated newsroom. The Telegraph provided five days training for each journalist over a period of fourteen weeks.

Wynn Davies explains that “journalists aren’t expected to be experts in all areas of multi-media, the training was an introduction to the different platforms available.”
Roussel followed up saying: “Many journalists are web savvy anyway. The training helped them understand more about reporting a live news story in a digital environment. In 2006, training was very much ‘one size fits all’. The goal in 2007 is to go deeper.”

Training has been popular amongst the journalists, particularly with video. Roussel explains that “there are a lot of smart people who are mid-career and see the opportunity to improve their skills and enhance their value”.

Journalists are able to choose their training and there is no mandate as to the skills each desk must acquire. Wynn Davies says: “People have different talents and we intend to infuse the organization with a range of skills but it’s not a mathematical equation as to what skills lie on each desk. Its about the appropriateness, not all stories will have audio and video angles right now”
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Roussel explains how a typical day has changed and why: “We have several ‘touchpoints’ through the day. The main peaks in readership come between 8am and 10am and then again between 12noon and 2pm. We then get another peak later in the day as people are leaving work. We are looking at using different products at different times of day. The first news meeting is at 7am, first we get the breaking news online and send out the alerts. We’ve found that first thing, readers want to know what’s going on in relatively short, sharp bites. At lunchtime, readers want more of a leisurely read, something less intense. This is where we will start using video more.”

The Telegraph has launched an afternoon edition called Telegraph pm which users download into pdf and then print off. “We produce a quality afternoon newspaper on the internet. It’s good because it reaches a wider group of people but the downside is that people have to go on-line and physically download it. We had our biggest download day yesterday". The number of downloads has increased dramatically since the first launch and they have ambitions to increase this substantially over the cource of the year.

The Telegraph seems very definite about its plans and building up their audience and uptake of the new medias being offered. “We are holding up statistically against our competitors. Online, November was a record month and January is shaping up to be that way too. We aim to be the number one UK news website” says Roussel. In fact, The Telegraph was one of the few newspapers that increased their year on year sales in December. The Daily Telegraph circulation was 899,493, up 0.23% whilst the Sunday Telegraph circulation was 643,592, up 0.21%. In their view, the stable newspaper readership base is precisely because they have a strong web product, that serves to introduce new readers to the paper.

With journalists being trained on multimedia at the moment and the change in structure fairly recent, what are the main reasons behind this success? It appears to be twofold, the physical structure of the news room increasing communication and a tangible need to succeed from all involved.

Wynn Davies says simply “we couldn’t do what we do now in the old structure”. Roussel explains a little further “Everyone is on one floor and no-one can hide away in their office – there aren’t any. It improves communication. I don’t think anyone would want to go back to how it was. It’s such a dynamic environment now, we have short sharp meetings where decisions are made quickly rather than hour long arranged meetings. Before people didn’t communicate. Now those that aren’t good at communicating are forced to. There is no question that it works a lot better and the quality of the content is higher”

He goes on to say: “We still have a tough year ahead, in one of the toughest newspaper markets in the world, but people want to succeed”



This series continues early next week with a look at a day in the life at the Sydney Morning Herald by Mike van Niekerk, Online Editor-in-Chief demonstrating what can be achieved through an integrated newsdesk.