When Australia’s The Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age converged, the new, integrated newsroom was redesigned to accommodate “instant and continuous communication,” says Mike van Niekerk, Fairfax Media’s online Editor-in-Chief.  The “sleek, modern, and open-plan layouts” place editors at the hub of the room, with key news editors and production journalists radiating out in “spokes.”  According to Van Niekerk, this has led to a new workflow and content management and essentially, a transition to a 24-hour newsroom.  Although the staff is still adjusting to the changes, Van Nirkerk advocates the change to an open newsroom, adding that, “Physical distance is the greatest barrier to good decision marking in the newsroom.”

Colombia’s Casa Editorial El Tiempo addressed similar issues by separating content development from story editing and presentation within the publishing house’s many products.  Now, subject editors work with content development to create a “content database” that includes topics such as local and international news, sports, health and entertainment, and economics.  Product editors then pull stories from the content database and choose an appropriate presentation for the platform and audience. CEO and president Luis Fernando Santos says that the publishing house also plans to build and strengthen its core brands, invest and experiment in new initiatives, and eventually, create new revenues through new businesses.  So far, the changes have brought a 17 percent increase in revenue and a 7 percent increase in subscriptions.

Plenty has been said about The New York Times’ efforts at integration, and according to Deputy Managing Editor Jonathon Landman, the newspaper staff is mastering the convergence of print and online.  Collaboration between staff members that reporters must be well versed in different multimedia forms, such as podcasts, blogs, and online video.  Embracing the integration has led to the development of the latest NYT homepage as well as the Times Select reader.  In addition, the new newsroom combines all levels of production for both print and online.  Like van Niekerk, Landman is excited about the proximity of the different departments and the potential it has for facilitating communication between the newspaper news desk and the continuous news desk.

Source: Readership Institute through IFRA Executive News Service