Over the course of four pieces of analysis, we compare the approach of all four newspapers towards logistics, content, staff and financials.

Part 1: Logistics Matter
Part 2: Let readers lead your content
Part 3: The web provides opportunities to show content on more than one platform. Use it wisely.
Part 4: Don’t forget your staff, or the bank balance


UK Newspapers part 1: Logistics matter

One of the most prominent trends of 2006 was integration between print and online. Where exactly should online sit? Is it a separate department on a separate platform or is it the same product but shown to readers in a different format? The strategic questions need to be answered before logistics are defined. This is what is happening in the UK:

Integrating your newsroom is a matter of opinion

The Telegraph has spent a great deal of time and energy to have the first fully integrated newsroom model (more on Telegraph and integrated newsrooms here). The spokes system ensures online is part of all conversations on the editorial floor. An online journalist also sits on each of the three main desks – news, business and sport.

Having only recently completed the office move to the new structure and still being in the process of training journalists, the results of the full integration are difficult to say. Hitwise has (controversially) put them as the number one news website in the UK (they attract approx 8 million readers to the site per month).

Anne Spackman, Editor of Times Online tells Editors Weblog that whilst a level of integration is necessary, it does not have to happen in its totality. She believes that the Internet is a specific medium and needs to have a team who sit together and spar off each other, even if they are writing on different topics. Some online journalists at The Times sit on the newspaper desks – again just the three most popular, which happen to be the same as the Telegraph. The rest of the team sit on a different floor. There are ongoing flows of information between the floors. The Times online team is 50 strong. Working with editorial depts. Makes the total resource much bigger.

The web team produces the popular box of five of the ‘most read’, ‘most commented’, ‘most curious’. The fact that they sit together means that they can create this with a range a content from around the site and it’s proved a huge traffic driver. Times attracted 10.9million to the site in January 2007 after the redesign.

Both the Sun and The Mirror follow the Times model of semi integration. The Sun has integrated their showbiz desk, Bizarre, but the rest of the online team sits in a separate corner of the building. The Mirror is yet to integrate any of their online and newspaper teams – the editorial teams sit on the same floor and the online editor attends the morning meeting but content, marketing and other online departments are several floors below. Whilst the Times and the Sun give their reasons for integrating only their most popular desks, it may well be that they, and the Mirror, are simply not as advanced as the Telegraph.
 

Integrating your products is essential

Integration isn’t just a matter of sitting journalists next to each other and asking them to post to print and web. Integrating the media themselves is key.

Both Spackman at the Times and Edward Roussell, Digital Editor at the Telegraph, made a point of telling Editors Weblog that they believe that the print product can boost on-line readership and vice versa.  The Telegraph believes that the growth of the newspaper readership base is precisely because they have a strong web product – it serves to introduce new readers to the paper.

This attitude is evident in both print products:
-     The Times puffs online at the bottom right of the front page every day, plus on the contents page and strategically placed throughout the paper. Big stories carry the tag ‘For breaking news on this story timesonline.co.uk. Plus there are references to specific blogs and calls to action, often in terms on contentious questions, to generate comments – have your say timesonline.co.uk/debate.
- The Telegraph puts it’s ‘most read’ and ‘most commented on’ in paper the next day. Page 2 has a good space at the top of the page for what is happening online including the ‘most read’ and ‘most commented on’ stories. It also has puffs at the top of most pages as well as calls to action at the end of articles.

There is still some question as to whether to go web first or save copy for print. The Telegraph generally has a web first policy whereas the Times (and the Sun) go online after the stories have appeared in print (when the stories originate from the paper). Newspapers must consider that print copy and web copy for the same article must be differentiated.

When using a print article on the web, it must, particularly the headline, be rewritten in order to be picked up effectively by search engine ‘spiders’. Manual intervention to rewrite headlines in an ABC (who, what, why) approach is necessary to reach the search engine audience. It is something that needs to be considered when deciding how to integrate the teams and link the print and web products.

Approx 50% of the Telegraph's print readers go to the website. The Telegraph was one of the few newspapers that increased their year on year sales in December last year. The Daily Telegraph circulation was 899,493, up 0.23% whilst the Sunday Telegraph circulation was 643,592, up 0.21%. They must be doing something right.

The staple elements of integration are established across the board but the ad hoc projects that need extra space aren’t always given the attention they need. After the successful launch of online bingo at The Mirror, the digital team struggled to get ads in the paper to continue to promote the joint venture.

Other media are now starting to come into play making the strategy and foundation for integration even more important. The Sun has launched its mobile product successfully and although take up is still low, it is ahead of the game in terms of its competitiors. The Sun simply tells readers there are ‘different ways to read The Sun’. Internally, there is a combine metric term called a Sun session – whether it’s by print, online or mobile, a reader is still interacting with the brand.