Jarvis: Who / where to invest in the newroom - beat reporting and community
Posted by Jean Yves Chainon on July 11, 2008 at 8:02 AM
Buzzmachine blogger Jeff Jarvis has come up with a self-admittedly "utter bullshit" plan for newsroom economics, or how to invest in newsroom staff, in an attempt to find the ideal distribution of roles amidst shrinking newsrooms.
Based on a newsroom with 100 staffers cut to 70, here are some of his main proposals:
- cut back on international reporting
- increase investigative reporting by 50% (1.5 reporters instead of one)
- increase beat reporting. "To me, though, the real heart of value in a newsroom is beat reporting. That's where the watchdogging comes in; that's where stories worth investigating often emerge."
- the number of photojournalists remains stable, but keeping in mind that most journalists will become multimedia-skilled.
- entertainment and lifestyle "can be handled by community and links."
- Subeditors don't entirely vanish (-80% though), but their role is to transfer skills to other staffers and the community.
- Increase local sports, as for any local features (for local papers).
Perhaps the most interesting new ideas concern new editorial positions revolving around community management. Jarvis proposes to that the budget equivalent to 10 fulltime staffers be devoted to a blog network of professional and amateur journalists. According to him, the end cost would be nil because ad revenues would be shared with bloggers.
The key element in this emphasis on a community network is the addition of seven "collaboration editors" to manage and guide this network of pro-am staffers. This notion is key in trying to develop Web 2.0 journalism (see the recent examples of The Corpus Christi (Texas) Caller-Times and The Bakersfield Californian).
Newspaper editors might be less enthused by the idea of cutting back almost entirely on national reporting, sports columnists, lifestyle reporting and opinion writers.
View Jarvis' full newsroom distribution proposal by clicking below. He has also made available a collaborative spreadsheet where editors can submit their own thoughts on the 'ideal' distribution of roles.
Source: Buzzmachine through IFRA Executive News Service
Based on a newsroom with 100 staffers cut to 70, here are some of his main proposals:
- cut back on international reporting
- increase investigative reporting by 50% (1.5 reporters instead of one)
- increase beat reporting. "To me, though, the real heart of value in a newsroom is beat reporting. That's where the watchdogging comes in; that's where stories worth investigating often emerge."
- the number of photojournalists remains stable, but keeping in mind that most journalists will become multimedia-skilled.
- entertainment and lifestyle "can be handled by community and links."
- Subeditors don't entirely vanish (-80% though), but their role is to transfer skills to other staffers and the community.
- Increase local sports, as for any local features (for local papers).
Perhaps the most interesting new ideas concern new editorial positions revolving around community management. Jarvis proposes to that the budget equivalent to 10 fulltime staffers be devoted to a blog network of professional and amateur journalists. According to him, the end cost would be nil because ad revenues would be shared with bloggers.
The key element in this emphasis on a community network is the addition of seven "collaboration editors" to manage and guide this network of pro-am staffers. This notion is key in trying to develop Web 2.0 journalism (see the recent examples of The Corpus Christi (Texas) Caller-Times and The Bakersfield Californian).
Newspaper editors might be less enthused by the idea of cutting back almost entirely on national reporting, sports columnists, lifestyle reporting and opinion writers.
View Jarvis' full newsroom distribution proposal by clicking below. He has also made available a collaborative spreadsheet where editors can submit their own thoughts on the 'ideal' distribution of roles.
Source: Buzzmachine through IFRA Executive News Service
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