Finally, a newspaper redesign worth rooting for - The Washington Post

Posted by Robb Montgomery on March 19, 2008 at 2:18 PM

Editor announces plans to shake up the editing culture in Washington newsroom

By Robb Montgomery

CEO, Visual Editors

How many newspaper redesigns can you name that actually aim for the heart of the matter? Reinventing the core assumptions about a paper's editing culture and its 20th century newspaper reporting, editing and production practices is big stuff. The Washington Post has a plan to dismantle their mass-production mentality and rebuild around new realities for reporting, editing and story planning. This is the seed of a true newspaper redesign.

Slate reports:

The Washington Post plans to abandon its "assembly-line model for news production," according to a memo from executive editor Leonard Downie. The rise of the Web is vanquishing the traditional once-a-day production cycle as reporters and editors file original stories online.

Many taboos are addressed in this memo and I think it's refreshing. Finally, someone really has a plan to redesign their journalism around how it should work rather than merely what the newspaper should look like. This is "Jobsian" thinking. (Steve Jobs, naturally!)

We'll be watching as they plan to:

Shift editing resources to earlier in the day
Merge the night National and Foreign copy desks
Reroute the editing of feature stories and nonbreaking enterprise news pieces and projects to daylight hours
Eliminate the bottlenecks that tend to form at the end of the day

I find it surprising that they would edit features and news features at night . . . but they have a key idea here that will take them forward.

If you are going to win - you are going to have be successful in planning all the story components BEFORE a word is written and then decide what dimensions of the story are best told with video, graphic, photos, text, headline, list, links, and then in what form; long-form narrative, chunky text, online timeline, blog or micro-site or special section.

Only by pushing things forward in time and getting skilled at working stories from all angles can you migrate to a continuous publishing mindset. I expect some creaks in the old machinery and a push back from those who can report but cannot write and also those who will be asked to upgrade their mindsets to meet the demands of digital reporting.

The Post's Managing editor Phil Bennett conveys a pointed message as he hones in a common newsroom conceit.

The reason many newspapers rely so heavily on editors--a reason rarely spoken--is that some reporters can't write. Their copy isn't edited as much as it's rewritten. Bennett has a message for them: "Reporters who can't write are a dying breed."

So, the 'rewrite desk' is dead.

Best wishes to the paper as it retools the future. The plan sounds like a good prescription for a new start. But it still, only a start. It is the execution and new newsroom culture that can arise from such a plan that will ultimately be measured.

A modern redesign is as much redefining reporting and editing values and recapturing relevancy as it is improving processes and the industrial design of the product.

Robb Montgomery is the CEO and founder of Visual Editors and principal in Robb Montgomery Consulting. He has worked as a visual editor for the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune and partners with editors in the Middle East, Asia, U.K., Europe and North America to improve their digital journalism, newspaper design and online multimedia.

Blog and travel schedule » www.robbmontgomery.com

The Washington Post editors announce sweeping changes to the way it will report and edit the newspaper and Web site.