Results matching “to combine print and”

The Asheville Citizen-Times of North Carolina, The Courier-Journal of Kentucky and The Tennessean have all announced a number of format changes to their print editions.

The Asheville Citizen-Times has cut and reduced the size of certain section of the newspaper.  The paper has also closed down its printing facility and will be printed by The Greenville News in South Carolina.

In the run-up to the 16th World Editors Forum being held in Hyderabad, India March 22-25, 2009, the Editors Weblog is running a special series entitled "Doing More with Less." The series highlights major trends that editors-in-chief are using to steer their newsrooms through the difficult economic climate. The first of the series studies newsroom integration at the UK daily, The Guardian, which has recently moved into a new building with intentions to combine its print and online staff.

Guardian News & Media recently integrated its print and online operations, The Guardian, The Observer and the website Guardian.co.uk, having moved to new premises last month.  The Editors Weblog spoke to Paul Johnson, Guardian Deputy Editor and overall head of news, business and sport, and Nick Watt, Chief Political Correspondent, to find out details.

Changing offices was essential to the integration process.  Paul Johnson emphasized how "we couldn't make the big leap until we moved to the new building." Previously, five different buildings housed the Guardian's 1400 staff, including around 850 journalists. Guardian News & Media has now taken three and a half floors of the new King's Place development: a brand new building also housing a concert hall, with notable green credentials and which is, as Editor-in-Chief Alan Rusbridger described it, "a thing of beauty." Nearly all journalistic staff are now sitting together on one floor. 

The Guardian's new building is a "thing of beauty", according to Editor-in-Chief Alan Rusbridger.

However despite the integration, staff will work hard to maintain the different voices of the two papers and the website. According to Johnson, "we recognise that a distinctiveness is necessary. We are not attempting to bulldoze this into a flat surface." The Observer will retain eight dedicated journalists who will write for the Web but who will focus on the Sunday paper, and under the platform-neutral "heads of" there will be separate section editors for each platform which each subject area.

A group of 111 journalists, plus management staff, were involved in developing ideas for integration as part of what Johnson described as "a bottom-up, consensual process," very different to that of The Daily Telegraph, for example. One of the methods used to spark ideas was inventing different story scenarios and making journalists tackle them; from this it emerged that "we didn't necessarily have the right resources in the right place at the right time and we built around that," Johnson explained. 

Centralised but devolved

'Platform-neutral' is one of the key terms of the new newsroom: heads of national news, international news, business and sport are all described as 'platform-neutral.' Key to integration is the new newsdesk, which deals with both print and online and centralises operations. "It's a real hub," Johnson commented, seating 19 people, including both web and paper heads for national news, international news, and business news. Nick Watt explained how the very fact that these people are sitting together makes a huge difference, as when he is working on a story with the home news editor and the business editor, he now only has to call one number and the decision making process happens much faster. "You get rid of the 'us and them' element.

"Being in one building means greatly improved communication, said Johnson, "compared to being on four or five different sites, you feel a lot closer." A major communication point for the day is an open door morning meeting. Following a small meeting for senior staff in Rusbridger's office, anybody who wishes to can come to a larger meeting, which is broadcast on screens around the office. Incidentally, a management consultancy firm hired to help with integration recommended against the word 'meeting', so these gatherings are now known as 'checkpoints'. 

The devolved aspect of the newsroom, equally crucial to the integration process, is the "pods" system. Print and online journalists have been grouped together by area of specialization such as health, education, politics or media and technology, into so-called pods, which can then publish autonomously straight onto the Web site. The pods range in size from five people to 28, and usually include reporters, sub editors for the paper, site editors for online, and a head who is platform neutral. Nick Watt explained that the political journalists now all work in one pod and report to Will Woodward, head of politics, who works for all three platforms and decides which stories to follow and where they will go. 

In the "pods" system, print and online journalists of the same specialization are grouped together and are able to publish straight to the web.

This is a significant change from the traditional "funnel" structure of the newsroom where all stories would go through a single editor. Nearly all of the pods are in the main newsroom, a couple are on the floor above and some members of the politics pod are still based at the House of Commons. All of the arts journalists sit together in an area known as the culture hub.  

Multimedia focus

A multimedia training day was offered to all staff in advance of integration, and according to Johnson, the take up has been "extremely good in terms of numbers." Possibly surprisingly, it has not been just the younger staff who were enthusiastic; "some of the people who have been the best exponents of different styles of journalism have been some of the more experienced journalists and correspondents."

The new building houses what Johnson described as "a fantastic multimedia suite", with seven recording studios and 24 editing desks. And he says that so far staff have been showing a considerable "appetite for video, picture galleries and interactive graphics which are vitally important for us." The pictures desk is now fully integrated, and most of the photographers and a lot of the reporters are now trained in video. Video production is being taken seriously: in 2008 the Guardian was the first newspaper to win a Royal Television Society award.

No cost-cutting

An extremely positive side to the Guardian's integration process is that unlike, unfortunately, many other integrating newsrooms, the merger of print and Web teams has not resulted in layoffs. There have been some voluntary redundancies, but total staff numbers have not been reduced. "It's not a cost-cutting exercise," Johnson stressed. He explained that "we wanted to make this change within budget, without cutting our headcount."  The essential detail to grasp is that it is about reallocation rather than reduction: "what we have done is repositioned resources towards the web." Rather, the measures taking have been to maintain "journalistic excellence, and to free up some of the resources we have got to focus on getting our work out there." 

Success?

Johnson was very confident that integration is going well so far. The necessary changes in mindset were largely made over the year of preparation prior to the move, particularly during two integration "dry runs" which were implemented for the Olympics and the US elections. He claimed that "people seem to be embracing the changes and people have been very positive about it across the board."  One of the main reasons for this, he explained, is that journalists love to see their work published "in different forms and in different ways." After all, it is exciting to file a story and see it appear on the website almost immediately. Nick Watt was also enthusiastic about the changes: "it's much more collaborative and much more efficient."

It will be interesting to see whether the publications succeed in maintaining their distinct voices, and what sort of increase in multimedia content there is. As the Guardian is in the fortunate situation of being highly successful and run by a trust which reduces financial pressure, integration is a choice rather than a obligation, and the necessary time and effort has been spent to ensure a smooth transition.

James O'Shea, ex-editor of the Los Angeles Times, believes that future of newspapers depends on public trust.  He believes that newspapers will continue to exist, but that the real question is "what kind of journalism will we have in the newspapers that manage to survive the current wave of circulation and advertising declines plaguing the industry."

He brings up a recent interview with Tribune Co. owner Sam Zell who believes that "the newspaper industry truly still doesn't understand that it is in a business with customers and the business must reflect the needs and demands of the customer. And to the extent that we don't do that, we will disappear."  O'Shea does not believe in Zell's philosophy because of "how that vision is applied in newsrooms he controls."

President of Groupe Les Echos, Nicolas Beytout, announced the fusion of their titles print and online newsrooms by 2009. 

The group's titles include Les Echos, Enjeux Les Echos and Investir.  The company has also changed their name from Di Group to Groupe Les Echos.

WNBC launched a new website, www.nbcnewyork.com this week.  The website is designed to provide local content for New Yorkers.  

It will provide news, information, lifestyle programming, mobile services and a 24-hour news and information channel.  The site will combine content from blogs, online services, print publication and WNBC.

The Nation Media Group, the largest independent media and publishing house in East and Central Africa, has relaunched their websites with CoreMedia CMS.

Now, all sites launched, or relaunched by NMG will be housed in one newsroom in order to combine online and print resources.  Editors will also work together on content.  Furthermore, NMG has introduced a new content management system in order to incorporate more multimedia on their sites.  

In addition, over 200,000 articles form the last ten years have been uploaded to NMG sites.  

"The possibilities of print have just begun," David Granger, Esquire's editor in chief, recently commented to The New York Times.

"Magazines have basically looked the same for 150 years," Granger said. "I have been frustrated with the lack of forward movement in the magazine industry."

Esquire has attempted to buck that trend and to celebrate its 75th year, has designed an electronic cover that will flash "the 21st Century Begins Now," when it appears on newsstands in September.

On its own, the magazine will run for 90 days by a battery small enough to fit inside the cover. "Mr. Granger knows some will see the cover as a gimmick -- but he says he thinks the technology behind it, which has been used for supermarket displays but never embedded in a magazine, speaks to the possibilities of print," reported NYT.

E Ink, a Cambridge, Mass. based company, designed the cover. The company has also worked on Amazon.com's e-book device, Kindle.

"The interesting thing," said Peter Griffin, the deputy editor, "is it has almost nothing to do with the normal way of putting out a magazine."

"We are trying to combine a 21st-century technology with a 19th-century manufacturing process," Granger said.

Esquire first hired an engineer in China to develop a battery small enough to be inserted in the magazine cover. The batteries and the display case are manufactured and put together in China.

The project was expensive, so Esquire found a sponsor - Ford Motor - who will have an advertisement on the inside of the cover that employing the same technology to promote its new SUV, the Flex.

Esquire has acquired exclusive use of E Ink's technology through 2009, and according to NYT, "Mr. Granger said he hopes to come up with new ideas for it. 'This is probably just a limited view of its use,' he said."

Granger is optimistic about the potential trajectory. "In two years, I hope this looks like cellphones did in 1982, or car phones."

Source: The New York Times

Telegraph Media Group has integrated the news desks of the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph; reporters will also write for their website, Telegraph.co.uk.

"We have a huge pool of talented journalists at TMG," said Ian MacGregor, the Sunday Telegraph editor. "They now have the opportunity to play a part across all three publications, as we combine the force of our news desks to deliver first-rate stories, both for our leading website and distinguished newspaper titles."

Special reporters from the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph will collaborate on breaking news and analysis; however, TMG said both papers would retain separate reporting teams and identities.

Several recent changes at TMG have foreshadowed the merger. Last month the science desks of both papers and the website were combined. In April, new positions were created which cover all titles: Adrian Michaels was appointed to the new post of foreign operations to run TMG's world news output and Iain Martin was also hired as head of comment and community. And just nine months ago, Patience Wheatcroft resigned as editor of the Sunday Telegraph, who according to the Guardian had reputedly "been under pressure to integrate the Sunday title and its reporters with sister paper the Daily Telegraph's seven-day multimedia news operation."

Reportr.net interviewed Chris Lloyd, assistant managing editor of Telegraph Media Group, about the integration process in April.

Integrating newsrooms has been a growing trend since 2005, when The New York Times merged print and web news desks.

Source: Guardian.co.uk

The Local Media Group has published eight issues of the Burton Local News, a new monthly free newspaper in Staffordshire, and is planning on launching more editions due to the paper's success.

The exact locations for the new papers is unknown, but Doug Price, who co-owns Local Media Group with Kevin Curtis, revealed that "the five-year business plan could see a total of ten new monthly titles."

The title had an initial print run of 33,000 copies, but it has now increased by 2,000 copies because of its popularity. Readers are also able to download an electronic version of the paper on Burton Local News' website.

Price and Curtis began the Local Media Group last year when they decided to combine their experiences at local newspapers for a new business venture. The Burton Local News is produced by a team of ten in Derby, but receives its content from local councils, the police, freelancers, and volunteer photographers and writers in the town.

"It's all voluntary and freelance which keeps cost down," says Price. "But we would never carry any overtly political stuff or spin - and we're not trying to rival the Burton Mail or Burton Trader."

Source: Hold the Front Page

Starting today Feb. 21, newspapers publishers in the UK can report their print circulation and website unique users in a single monthly report.

The Audit Bureau of Circulation will start publishing its first combined readership reports, which will combine data that was previously divided according to the platform.

According to journalism.co.uk, the new reports will cover the January circulations and unique user figures of Daily Mail and Sunday Mail, the Guardian and Observer, The Sun and News of the World, the Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph, and the Times and Sunday Times.

The new reports will help newspapers sell their overall reach to advertisers.

Source: Journalism.co.uk

The San Francisco Chronicle trims it Monday and Tuesday editions of the paper as editor Ward Bushee continues his trend of shrinking big papers like the Arizona Republic, months before.

Several Chronicle reporters explained that Bushee stated that management had decided to combine several sections that run on Monday and Tuesday—among them, the business and sports sections as well as the classifieds and the Datebook. The new, slimmed down edition is set to debut on Mon. Feb. 25.

Bushee executed a similar plan during his tenure as editor at the Republic. The shrinkage of the paper’s Monday edition was presented to readers as an effort to cater to busy readers’ presumably busy Monday schedules, reported the Phoenix New Times website. Loyal readers saw through the rhetoric and recognized the underlying cost-cutting motives. Some were even offended Bushee and the paper’s management claimed to be acting on behalf of readers’ interests—saving them time by cutting out entire sections. The 168 letters received in the Republic mailroom on the subject illustrated that readers did not prefer the timesaving, shrunken Monday version.

It is unclear how Chronicle readers will react to the new editions.  While some critics dislike the shrinkage, others recognize the need to cut costs—and perhaps even save newsroom jobs—at the price of trimming down content.

Source: SF Weekly and Phoenix New Times