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Jim Roberts, digital news editor at The New York Times, will speak of the newsroom integration process undergone by the paper of record at the upcoming World Editors Forum, to be held June 1-4 in Gothenburg, Sweden.

He'll describe the last 3 years at the Times, as "it has attempted to make what I consider to be a historic shift in its mission," towards a much more rounded and "almost platform-agnostic" approach.

Roberts isn't one of those online editors who have an instinctive aversion for print, to the contrary - he worked as a print journalist and editor, as well as a National news editor at the Times. Although he resists calling the Times 'print-centric', it's a fact that print still accounts for over 80% of the company's revenues, and that "our main mission still is putting out a print publication," he said.

One key factor in the NYT's integration process was the gradual approach adopted by the newspaper, instead of "a radical shakeup" - similar to the Guardian's approach in that respect.

"There was a change in newsroom culture and it had its rocky moments, I certainly can't minimize that," said Roberts.

But "We haven't ordered anyone to focus on digital journalism to the exclusion of everything else." Instead, "We've encouraged people to think of Web as one of an array of tools and outlets to report the news."

Here are some of the other factors that made the Times' integration approach successful, in Roberts' view:

- The creation of a Continuous News Desk, in 1999, first appealed to foreign correspondents. With the help of staff based in New York, the reporters could publish stories online that could instantly be read by their sources. This established the foundations for print reporters seeking the advantages of online.

- Not having evolved through edicts, but by engaging staff's brains: give the print reporters the necessary tools.

- Teaching journalists that the Web can mean more and better ways to tell stories.

- Two years ago, the Times 'planted' multimedia editors at each news desk. This led to increased print-online collaboration on stories and to successful enterprise-type projects, where the Web content complemented the print articles, and vice versa (see this multimedia project about prisoners that were exonerated by DNA evidence, which complemented ex-prisoner profiles in the print edition).

- Roberts' own print background, thus trusting relationship with the paper's reporters. "One of my chores has been to eliminate the fear aspect of it (writing for the Web)."

- Last but not least, tell reporters that if they don't report online, their competitors will: "If I could point to one thing that has really worked, it is appealing to reporters' competitive instincts."


Roberts will speak in the second session of the World Editors Forum, entitled "Are integrated newsrooms really working?" View other interviews in this preview series by clicking here.

Source: Jim Roberts, Digital News Editor, The New York Times

TimesOnline launched a beta version of its digital archive, opening up over two hundred years of newspaper content online.

It seems more and more newspapers are opening online archives, in an effort to draw traffic (guardian.co.uk has been trying a paid-for model since last November).

The archive features content from The Times, Sunday Times and TimesOnline published since 1785.

The beta version will be expanded and officially launched in the next couple of months.

TimesOnline is using technology from search company Fast. The archive will initially be free to access, but eventually a subscription model could emerge.

Source: journalism.co.uk

The following is a brief narrative of the last World Editors Forum Study Tour in the US. We accompanied 26 newspaper editors through some of the most advanced newsrooms in the area, including Reuters, the Associated Press and The New York Times in New York, The News-Journal in Wilmington, and the Politico and Washington Post Newsweek Interactive in Washington D.C. (not all are depicted).

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

It seems the only way to make captions appear is by clicking on the pictures - and pausing the slideshow. Captions are included below too:

- After having visited Reuters, AP deputy managing editor Tom Kent and others gave us the tour of the Associated Press' new integrated newsroom...
- ...which spans over plus 100,000 square feet on an open-floor plan.
- The main feature of the new design was spatial flexibility...
- ...and, at times, the newsroom may resemble a construction site. But, Kent assured, this didn't disturb journalists' work.
- Another feature at AP: editors have two working spaces. They can work outside the closed office, preferably, to be closer to their staffers...
- ...but they can also use their private office if need be.
- The tour ended by AP's video production control rooms.
- At the New York Times...
- ...editors got a glimpse of the brand-new newsroom...
- ...and its modern design and architecture.
- NYT Futurist Michael Rogers treated us to the Times' top-floor research labs...
- ...lined with tech gadgets...
- ...that thrilled the editors.
- On our way to D.C., we stopped by Gannett's innovative News Journal...
- ...where editors greeted us warmly around the central hub...
- ...showed us their video studio...
- ...explained the editing work...
- ...and how the website has set up databases...
- ...and implemented mobile journalism.
- In Washington, we visited the Washington Post's online newsroom.
- Here again, a hub-like centre...
- ...and plenty of video equipment.
- The tour ended with a visit at the recently inaugurated Newseum...
- ...and the editors flew home.

Guardian News and Media (GNM) officially announced today that it will integrate its print and online platforms for News, Business and Sport journalism once it moves into its new premises at Kings Place, London, at the end of the year.

Journalists from those sections will work for the company's three platforms (The Observer, daily Guardian and guardian.co.uk) and will produce text, audio and video.

As gathered during the World Editors Forum study tour in the UK and during our talks with head of editorial development Neil McIntosh, the Guardian's integration was planned collaboratively in the newsroom, as opposed to a top-down model.

Said Alan Rusbridger, Editor of the Guardian and Editor-in-Chief of GNM:

"Our model for integrated working has been designed through a long period of collaboration and consultation. More than two dozen editors from across the three platforms have worked together to design the ways in which they want to collaborate in the future.  It's very important that desk editors themselves have taken the lead: the last thing we wanted to do was impose a model from above.

As has often been the case for other cases of newsroom integration (Fairfax in Australia, the Daily Telegraph in the UK, The New York Times in the US and many more), the Guardian's move to a new building - and thus to rethink its newsroom design - coincides with the formal integration process.

"The move to a new building is the obvious moment to re-arrange the way we work in a way which more closely reflects the patterns of how people read and react to news," said Rusbridger.

Also discussed with McIntosh, the newsroom will redesign will include 'pods', which will group specialists around specific topics. For example, on the International News desk, pods will group reporters by time zones and regions.

The good news is that the Guardian's integration isn't synonymous with layoffs (the company had previously said this could happen) - at least for the time being.

"We've done this without any reduction in headcount.  It is important that news organisations retain quality and trust while being at the forefront of the digital revolution," he added.

Source: Guardian press release

News Corp. has announced plans to further integrate its redesigned Wall Street Journal website and its News International holdings in the UK, such as the Times Online.

"It will be partly about tools, partly about deep linking to each other's content," said Anne Spackman, editor in chief of the Times Online. Spackman also suggested that similarities between The Sun and The New York Post may lead to integration between the two.

The Times had first announced plans for cross-selling advertising opportunities with WSJ. It now seems, however, that the integration will touch editorial as well as advertising content.
 
Speaking at the PPA conference, Spackman said: "We are increasingly linking to them around subjects of common interest. Our friends down under at news.com.au - we link to sport with them on cricket and rugby; with the Wall Street Journal, it will be the same on business. It will be an extremely useful thing in a way that it would never have been when we were only selling to our home audiences and when there was no power of the link."

In other news from the PPA conference, The Times, published since 1785, announced the beta launch of 200 years-worth of archive content on the web. The archives, which are supported by search technology from FAST, will be free to users initially, although subscription plans may be introduced down the line.

The Telegraph also unveiled plans to introduce user-generated content across its website.

Sources: PaidContentUK, Journalism.co.uk

In this section, John Zogby, CEO of Zogby International, and George Brock, World Editors Forum President and editor of the Saturday Times in the UK, comment on the results of the 2008 Newsroom Barometer. Both agree that the results show editors have opened to the new necessities of the digital age, while remaining strongly conscious of the possible threats to their newspapers and journalism.

(View the main results to this year's survey here.)

According to Brock, this year's survey points to the fact that "editors remain confident about a mixed-media future and have quietly got on with the business of integrating their newsrooms," but this is "tempered by anxiety that newspapers are not investing enough in recruitment and training for the future."

The path is clear for many editors: integrate the newsroom, think multimedia, train or hire a team of multi-skilled journalists. So are the threats: lack of investment, lack of training, lack of cultural change.

In the face of these deep changes for the newspaper industry and its organization, editors may often face managerial resistance to undergo these investments. But media companies must be bold. Their editors, for the most part, are ready to be. Said Brock: "I read the message of this year's Newsroom Barometer as an appeal from editors to their companies to be bold in the face of change and as a sign that they themselves intend to make the most of new opportunities."

For Zogby, who goes into more detail about the numeric results (see below), this year's results show that editors have adapted or are adapting to the current redefinition of the 4th Estate, the press, in light of the changes brought in part by the Internet.

"Perhaps the most important finding to emerge from the 2008 survey is that editors remain optimistic about the futures of their papers," as was the case for the previous edition of the Newsroom Barometer, wrote Zogby.

Yet this optimism shouldn't hide the urgency for newspapers to rethink their model. "For these editors the future is self-evident and our survey shows that they see the writing on the newsroom wall.  The evolution of the 4th Estate is no longer questions of if, when or how.  Editors now know the solution:  Innovate.  Integrate.  Or perish."

Read Brock and Zogby's full comments below.

Comments on the 2008 Newsroom Barometer by George Brock

Editors remain confident about a mixed-media future and have quietly got on with the business of integrating their newsrooms. The optimism is not universal and it is tempered by anxiety that newspapers are not investing enough in recruitment and training for the future.

Newspaper managements might reply that investment remains risky when it isn't yet clear where the income from digital publishing is supposed to come from. But newspaper businesses are made by content which creates and sustains demand. The first newspapers did not come about when someone assembled advertising platforms, distribution networks and hardware and afterwards looked for content to put into that system.

The sequence of events was the reverse. Somebody wants to tell as many people as possible something of interest or importance, discovers a sustained curiosity in that information or opinion and eventually a publishing operation grows up to supply the demand. The chain reaction is sparked by interest in the story, view, picture, interview, column, cartoon that's on offer. Without that first moment of ignition, nothing else happens.

You think this sounds a little basic? It is. But you would be surprised how often this simple reality is forgotten as today's media businesses struggle to adapt to a world in which digital technology is rewriting the economics of news publishing.

Online news and opinion has now been with us for long enough to see that no prediction about the future of news which is based on technology alone can tell us the future. Newspapers are not just ink marks on squashed trees: they are what people trust, they amuse people, in short they are a collection of ideas and information with which a reader forms a relationship. Where journalism - whether professional, citizen or any mixture of the two - creates that relationship, something lasting is born and can be sustained. You can see examples of success and failure both online and in print. As the first flush of online innovation and enthusiasm wears off, we can see more clearly that some of the online successes will grow very big indeed, but that only the best will prosper. Making information available - and the web makes it available as never before - does not make it wanted. Newspapers which innovate and adapt will also survive because their qualities are more important than the medium. Some of the failures in both online and print will be terminal.

I read the message of this year's Newsroom Barometer as an appeal from editors to their companies to be bold in the face of change and as a sign that they themselves intend to make the most of new opportunities. Most editors are clear that the essential qualities of good journalism can adapt to a new medium. They accept as a fact needing no further debate that their papers will now reach their constituency by several channels and not by one.

Redefining the 4th Estate: Opinions of the Editors by John Zogby

In the 550 years since the first pages of print rolled off the presses in the Bavarian town of Mainz, printed news evolved relatively unimpeded.  Even the invention and proliferation of radio and television failed to stymie the growth of newspapers, largely due to the ability of newspapers to provide more in-depth coverage.
    
The centuries-long hegemony of the ink and paper news model today faces its greatest threat--the advent of an independent and free Internet-based media.  This threat was evidenced at the height of the 2005 British elections with the publication of the 'Downing Street Memo' by The Sunday Times.  That short but potent document presented potentially damning evidence surrounding the planning in the run-up to the Iraq War, and while British papers seized the story, the leaked memo made only slight ripples in the American print media.  It did create, however, a surge within the rapidly developing blog community who used the lack of traditional media coverage as a call to arms.

Now, as the Internet struggles to define itself in the shadow of the Fourth Estate, the question remains: will these two mediums continue to battle for supremacy or will they find stability in an integrated symbiotic relationship? To help bring clarity to this question, Zogby International was commissioned by the World Editors Forum and Reuters to survey 704 newspaper editors worldwide for the second in a series of annual 'Newsroom Barometer Surveys.'

    Perhaps the most important finding to emerge from the 2008 survey is that editors remain optimistic about the futures of their papers.  As in the 2006 Newsroom Barometer, nearly all editors (84%) are optimistic about the future of their paper.  The editors surveyed are as aware of what the future may hold for their industry as they are unified in their recognition of the underlying threats and potential solutions.

The Future

    The majority of editors (56%) now believe that most news (print and online) will be free in the future--up from 48% in 2006.  Nearly two-in-three editors (63%) believe that within a decade the most common form of  news consumption will be some form of electronic media--whether online (44%), mobile (12%) or through newer electronic media like e-papers and tablets (7%).  Less than a third (31%) believe print will remain the most common form of consumption.

    The perception of editors with respect to the future is not limited to the news product itself.  The overwhelming majority (83%) agree that within 5 years their nation's journalist workforce will be expected to know how to produce content for all platforms (e.g., print, video, audio and web).  Still, perception of the future is but one dimension of the story -- the remainder is defined by the threats to the industry and  how editors address those threats. 

The Threats

    By-and-large editors agree on the nature of the threats posed to their industry.  The decline in youth readership (58%), the rise in Internet and digital media (38%) and the lack of editorial innovation (36%) all speak to the consensus that change is imminent.  These editors tell us their chief sources of pressure are from advertisers (22%), shareholders (20%) and political forces (19%).  All pressure, no doubt,  to confront the changing reality through innovation and integration. 

    On one issue editors paint a mixed picture--the current state of their newsroom.  For some (39%) circulation in the past year is up; for others (29%) it is down.  One-third of editors (33%) have added journalists, a quarter have lost journalists (24%) and for the rest (42%) the number of journalists on their staff remains unchanged from a year ago. 


The Solutions

    When a majority of editors (54%) report that they have an integrated newsroom, they may make such statements not necessarily based on the reality, but also out of necessity.  Regardless of whether integration has or has not occurred, nearly all (86%) agree that it will be the norm in the near future.  Editors also agree on the steps needed to address other threats.  Asked what investments they would make in their newsroom given the opportunity, the top two investments cited--training journalists in new media (36%) and recruitment of new journalists (31%)--demonstrate that editors are looking to make a commitment to the future.  And with the recognition that editorial innovation is needed, 69% of editors agree that opinion and analysis pages will play an increasingly larger role in the future. 


Yes, editors are optimistic about the future of their papers, but they are also aware of the potential danger on the horizon.  Less than half (45%) believe the quality of journalism will improve over the next year.  More than a quarter (28%) believe the quality will worsen; a finding reflected in the high level of importance editors place on the need for investment in training and recruitment. 

For these editors the future is self-evident and our survey shows that they see the writing on the newsroom wall.  The evolution of the 4th Estate is no longer questions of if, when or how.  Editors now know the solution:  Innovate.  Integrate.  Or perish.


Read Part 1: Presentation - main results, the integrated newsroom will be the norm
Read Part 2: Multimedia, multi-skilled and integrated
Read Part 3: The future of the press
Read Part 4: Who participated in the survey?
Read Part 5: Comments by John Zogby and WEF President George Brock
Read Part 6: Threats to newspapers, areas of investment, more results

The Guardian won the sports coverage of the year award at the Sports Industry Awards in the UK.

Other contenders included the Daily Telegraph, Sunday Times and The Times, but the Guardian was chosen for its 'synergy between multi-platforms.'

Among the Guardian's strengths was its multimedia coverage of former English football team manager Steve McClaren getting sacked after England failed to qualify for the upcoming Euro Cup.

For this event, apart from print and online articles, the Guardian featured rolling news, comments and audio footage online. Praises were also given to the Guardian's use of Hawk Eye technology - which is used for digital replays of sports games (see here) - for its cricket coverage last summer.

Source: journalism.co.uk

To mark World Press Freedom Day on May 3, the Council of Europe is launching an online discussion forum on media freedom in times of crisis, reports the European Journalism Centre.

The forum, intended for both journalists and anyone else concerned about freedom of expression, will center on how journalists do their job in the face of government restrictions during wars, terrorist threats and political instability.

This year's World Press Freedom Day comes days after a report by lobby group Freedom House concluded that global press freedom declined in 2007. According to the survey, Iraq and Somalia remain the most dangerous countries for journalists.

Sources: EJC, AFP

The Editors Weblog is running a series of exclusive interviews about the future of journalism with top editors at leading newspapers around the world. Here is the latest installment with Dan Bogler, Managing Editor of the Financial Times in the UK.

Click here to view all interviews in this series. Other titles include The New York Times, the Guardian, Fairfax Media, the Hindustan Times, etc. (full list at the bottom of the interview).


Questions: "News, journalism, newspapers: same past, different futures?"


- How long do you think you will define your company as a newspaper company or a print company?

We see ourselves as a news organization and we're becoming much more agnostic about our distribution channels. We're becoming much more interested in creating relevant information for our readers and much less interested in how it gets to the readers. Pearson, the parent company, clearly is an education company with a print publishing arm and an information division, which includes the FT. At the FT level, we consider ourselves to be a financial news business more than a newspaper. Our mission is to be the gold standard for global business news in print and online - and in any other formats.

- At this year's World Economic Forum in Davos, a panel of futurists claimed that print newspapers wouldn't exist by 2014. To what extent do you agree with this?

Largely but not completely. 10 years from now - 2014 may be slightly too short a time frame - we will still have printed newspapers, because people like reading  things in print. Newspapers, just like the book, are convenient to read in places you can't do with a computer; but my belief is that a lot of what will be printed will be analysis, comment, analysis and opinion. The actual news will be more or less online or in other more timely formats. In a way the FT will split in two, with FT.com for all the news that's breaking and some immediate reactions and  opinion. The more considered analysis will be almost an Economist-type publication. Maybe it wouldn't have to be broadsheet anymore, it could be tabloid or even magazine format. To put it very crudely, you'd have all the news online, and you'd have 12 pages of Martin Wolf the next day in print, and all the editorials, columnists, features and more.

- In journalism's multi-centennial history, do you view the emergence of digital journalism as part of the continuity, or as a complete breakaway with previous forms of journalism?

There's one thing that's old and one thing that's new. What's old and part of the continuum is that traditional companies are going online. Our journalists are now fully integrated and write online and in print. I'm sure that in 2 years time they'll all be carrying video cameras. We've gone from zero videos website to over 100 per month in the last 18 months. That's part of the continuum: it's us doing the same thing in different distribution channels.

What's new is the blogosphere, citizen journalists and the idea that anyone - people who are not qualified journalists, either experts in a narrow field or just interested citizens - can start a blog or website and distribute it. For the FT, you would think it's negative in the sense that there's more news and opinion and more competitors. In fact, that's not really true, it almost enhances the position of leading media brands for several reasons. One is we are trusted, people believe the news they read with us. Secondly, we select and edit, which becomes an increasingly crucial function as there is more information out there. The more 'over-informed' people are, the more likely people who want to know what's actually going on will turn to a few sources that tell them what s actually important. That's what professional newspapers do really well.

- Do you believe in the increasingly active role of the user in the news process, and is it a threat or an opportunity for professional journalists?

I do believe in their increasingly active role of users: very often readers are more informed than us. If you look at an old format like the letters page in the newspaper, the amount of expertise that our readers have, who are often professionals in the City, is just incredible. They know more about it in certain aspects than our journalists. That's why we get CEOs, academics, lawyers, heads of accountancy firms and more writing in to us to say what's actually happening. They can do this online with comments or take part in Q&As, or print their views in the pages of the FT and FT.com. That sort of content is very helpful. We also have a function for any user to comment on the website's stories.

Is it a threat? Sure, to some extent. But as long as it's happening on our site or in the pages of our newspaper, it's been bundled, monitored, checked for quality and therefore is important. We're not going to turn into a place where we just repeat hundreds of readers' letters and have no journalists of our own. It's more of an opportunity for our journalists to become more informed and build contacts among readers. And it's amazing that all these readers are willing to give this information for free.

- Do you consider the Golden Age of investigative journalism is already past, or just beginning?

I don't know. That's a really hard one. I might say it's already past.

There's so much more information out there and it's so much harder for companies to hide information. Take the Northern Rock story, which was broken by BBC journalists, and there was a bank run as a result. It's harder to hide information. The idea that journalists have to do long-term, deep, undercover investigations where they reveal something months later - I don't think it works like that anymore. Journalists still have scoops and still break important stories, but it tends to be in a much shorter time frame. It tends to be a single development that they're breaking rather than a long series of connections.

But frankly, newspapers and media organizations are under pressure. It's hard for us to send a journalist or a group of journalists off three months investigating something - and if nothing works that's a shame but nevermind. We don't have resources to let people go off and do that for such a long time. I think The Golden Age of journalists working undercover, developing sources and breaking big scandals is less likely; but revealing news that people don't want out there, on a short term basis, uncovering a scandal and having it come to light, that's more likely. As soon as a tiny thing breaks now, it gets distributed so quickly that it's hard to see a journalist working undercover for a long time and gradually piecing something together without having it go public much earlier in the process.


Stay tuned for more interviews in our series. Among the other titles that have been asked to participate in these interviews are:

- The New York Times - Jonathan Landman (US)
- Financial Times - Dan Bogler (UK)
- Guardian (UK)
- Washington Post - Jim Brady (US)
- Globe & Mail - Ed Greenspon (Canada)
- The Times (UK)
- The Economist (UK)
- Gazeta Wyborcza - Jaroslaw Kurski (Poland)
- Le Monde (France)
- Die Welt (Germany)
- The Hindustan Times - Pankaj Paul (India)
- Asahi Shimbun (Japan)
- JoongAng Ilbo (South Korea)
- The Age / Fairfax - Mike van Niekerk (Australia)
- The Nation - Pana Janviroj (Thailand)
- Punch (Nigeria)
- El Tiempo (Colombia)
- Clarin (Argentina)
- Gulf News - Abdul Hamid Ahmad (UAE)