Newsroom design: can be a detail, must create a central point

 
The RBS Group is among the leading multimedia news organizations in Brazil, with its flagship newspaper title, Zero Hora. The Daily Telegraph is among the leading quality newspapers in the UK. De Volkskrant is the leading quality newspaper in the Netherlands. 

RBS: Readers don’t buy a newsroom

For Marcelo Rech, editor-in-chief of the RBS group, newsroom design “in our case is a detail. An important detail, but it’s not essential.” First and foremost, cultural change is needed to promote integration.

At RBS, according to Rech, different platforms have been integrated as early as the 1960s, when print, radio and eventually broadcast journalists shared their content across the RBS group. So to an extent, RBS is currently trying to ‘unify’ its already integrated operations.

For that purpose, newsroom design helps. In the last year, RBS has revamped its physical newsroom “in order to mix the digital staff and the print staff.” Since the redesign, some departments have been merged, such as all design operations (layout, infographics…), the internal press and wire agency, as well as the ‘Countryside’ section, which coordinates local correspondents across the country.

The print and digital editors-in-chief, as well as eight other department heads, now sit centrally.

At RBS' Zero Hora, cultural change comes before newsroom design.

RBS’ new newsroom cost about €100.000 (“most of it in air conditioning”). But does this really bear an influence on editorial quality?

No, not really, said Rech. Cultural change is the prerequisite, not a beautiful setup. “Readers and the audience don’t buy a newsroom, it’s the editorial product people buy.”

Actually, he predicts – perhaps rightly so – that in the future we’ll see more and more virtual newsrooms, although it’s obviously nice to be under the same roof. Newsroom integration “is not a matter of just architecture.” “Thinking complementarily is the real newsroom of the future.”

Daily Telegraph: esthetic and practical

Most editors seeking to redesign their newsroom have heard about the Daily Telegraph’s hub-and-spokes newsroom. Some background about the general layout:

The Telegraph's hub-and-spokes newsroom has drawn the attention of newspapers worldwide.

department heads sit in the middle of the open floor newsroom. Each of the news sections (business, sports, international…) is lined up on a different ‘spoke’. Adjacent spokes are actually positioned in ‘curves’ of people in charge of either content, or design, production... “Those curves are quite important to us, they kind of work as internal triangles,” said Rhidian Wynn-Davies, consulting editor of the Telegraph. To the sides of the open floor are all the content-producing teams (supplements, magazines, featury content) that are less dependent on news, but also production rooms for video and audio. Upstairs, set apart, sit all commercial and corporate operations.

Design is “very important but nowhere near as important as changing your mindset and getting your commissioning structure right,” said Wynn-Davies. Don’t think your seating plan alone is going to change things.

Again, does the new design – which is, granted, far more pleasant than the previous offices in Canary Wharf – help to improve the editorial product?

“I don’t think it’s affected the actual product, it just makes our daily life easier,” said Nicole Martin, digital and media correspondent for the Daily Telegraph. Instead of having to walk up a flight of stairs or having to write an email, Martin simply strolls across the newsroom. Although she admits “lots of people still do it through email or phone, it just means people are more easily accessible.”

“I don’t know if the hub and spoke makes any difference to me, it probably makes more difference to the news desk, in terms of how far away different specialists are sitting from each other,” said Rebecca Smith, medical editor at the Daily Telegraph.

From the journalists’ perspective, the Telegraph’s brand new building and ‘revolutionary’ layout (inspired by the ever-innovative Scandinavian newsrooms) in itself doesn't drastically improve their daily jobs.

On the other hand, Smith pinpoints what the Telegraph’s newsroom design does do: it enables easier communication and coordination on the editorial level. And according to Wynn-Davies, on particularly busy days, such as ‘Budget Day’, this proximity has proved very important to coordinate the related coverage carried out by different sections. Additionally, the centralized layout solidifies the Telegraph’s integrated hierarchy: all editors and journalists alike realize that they are responsible for the paper and all report to one person, the editor-in-chief, Will Lewis.

Sitting in the editors' central hub at the Telegraph.

While the proportion of the hub and spokes newsroom has earned the Telegraph much attention, there are many smaller details that can prove to be just as helpful in promoting integration and helping journalists.

Acquiring two computer screens per staffer is an example of a straightforward hardware investment, which is helpful for video production, layout work, or simply Internet research. “If you took these away from people now, they would go mad,” said Wynn-Davies.

The ‘video wall’, visible from across the newsroom, “gives people the impression that they’re not just dealing in a newspaper world, they’re dealing with a range of competitors.” At a glance, journalists can view breaking news from broadcast television channels, best hits on their website, as well as Telegraph.co.uk’s homepage.

Even smaller things can help change staff culture or smoothen workflows. A row of clocks set on the wall displays times from cities across the world, to “remind people that we’re not just London-focused.” Photocopiers are placed at the ends of spokes, a few yards away from the journalists. A quiet research room, complete with real paper books, enables staffers to work peacefully. A cozy reading room gives staffers the opportunity to relax away from the typing noises and phone rings.

“It’s esthetic as well as practical,” said Wynn-Davies about the video wall. The same probably applies to the newsroom design in general.

Again though, an entire and costly newsroom redesign certainly shouldn’t be editors’ main concern when trying to facilitate integration. “You need to have all of the other ingredients in place,” said Wynn-Davies.

De Volkskrant: creating the central point

When the Netherland’s leading quality newspaper began its integration and moved into new €100,000 offices last year, the goal was “to create a central point where the Internet and the paper come together,” said Jan Hart, editor of De Volkskrant.

Like Rech and Wynn-Davies, who prioritize cultural integration over office layout, Hart describes design as being “important but it’s (only) part of cultural change.” On the other hand, he firmly believes newsroom design plays a proactive part in the integration process.

“If you tell people they have to change but nothing is changed, then they don’t believe you.” A case of see-it-to-believe-it, or see-it-to-enact-it, if you will.

Sitting in the editor's seat at de Volkskrant.

So does design help to improve the editorial process and ease print and online integration?

As for the Telegraph, the editors and department heads are now gathered around the central hub. The two editors of online and print sit besides each other (in the past, the online team was set in a remote corner). “If you see that the organization is putting the Internet in the center of the newsroom, you make a clear point that it’s a very important channel to serve,” said Hart. Although many of his journalists are still newspaper people at heart, they’re getting used to writing a short 200-word story for the Web as they work on their print article. With the new focus on the Web, editorial meetings have been moved earlier in the morning, to be ready for morning traffic peaks.

Other department heads sit in the circular hub, almost facing each other. Here too, twelve flat screens on the wall continuously display news.

In fact, due to the building’s constraints, the Volskrant’s offices are split in four open floor rooms (connected by walkways): “the more dependent you are on news, the closer to the hub,” explained Hart. Supplements, commercial operations, or the travel and health sections might be past one walkway. But the breaking news desk and business section are just a few feet away from the hub. ‘Content gatherers’ simply take a few steps to the hub to let editors decide how to distribute their stories.

The new offices have also enabled the creation of an all-new online production department (distinct from the paper’s online edition team), which researches and develops commercial and websites and such. Walls are painted in bright colors, pink, orange and white, reinforcing the impression of openness across the newsroom. Some small enclosed offices were set up, for those staffers who prefer to work quietly. Although the editor sits in the middle of the newsroom, he also has his own private office.

More importantly, the Volkskrant’s hub is ‘central’, literally and figuratively. Staffers entering the offices, or simply walking through the newsroom, are ‘forced’ to go through the hub, which in effect serves both as a central hub for news and a general meeting point (similar concept to Bloomberg’s Link). On Fridays and Sundays, due to the late wrap-up of the print edition, dinner is provided for staffers, served at the hub. Coffee machines are set right beside the central point too.

“What’s essential is to create a central point. It makes a difference,” said Hart.

Cheery colors, editors facing each other, de Volkskrant's hub is a central point for work and staffers' movements within the office. 

Newsroom design at the helm, or the tail, of integration?

Whether newsroom design is important, essential, or relatively insignificant in the process of integration isn’t really an issue. All three editors more or less agree that cultural change is the main engine of integration. It makes no sense for a newspaper to spend thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions to rebuild an innovative newsroom, if the staffers and editors haven’t been prepped for integration.

But one must also realize that newsroom design can be more than a simple mirror of cultural change: it can also be part of the engine. Although newsroom design may not change habits instantaneously, it helps staffers to embrace the new values of the integrated newspaper. And careful attention to some details, however small they may seem, can make all the difference in daily workflows.

Rethinking newsroom design, as are training, embracing change or adapting to multimedia, is integration.

Related Articles:

What should a newsroom look like in the 21st century?
Associated Press: detailing the road to integration
A newsroom is not a prison
Integrated Newsrooms Part 1: The New Telegraph model
In the editors shoes, the Hindustan Times’ walk to integration
Switzerland: the shape of the multimedia newsroom

Sources: Jan Hart, editor of De Volkskrant – Marcelo Rech, editor RBS Group (link to ZeroHora.com) – Rhidian Wynn-Davies, deputy editor of the Daily Telegraph