Media Helping Media has received a request for advice about how a national newspaper should go about introducing newsroom convergence. The person who contacted us had met resistance to change from senior staff who were producing news for the print run.

The problem is not unusual. In my experience, the dominant output area of a media house, whether it be a newspaper or a TV channel, rarely welcomes convergence.

It’s often viewed as a distraction and, at times, even a threat. So it is not unusual to find senior editors failing to embrace the steps needed to make convergence work.

It’s often met with negativity or, possibly worse, token accommodation.

What is required is for top management of the media house to set out the business imperatives.

They need to make clear that convergence WILL happen, and explain WHY convergence is essential for the media business.

They need to document WHAT it will involve, HOW it will be implemented, and WHO will do WHAT.

Convergence needs to be part of a NEW business model with a clear business plan.

There needs to be unwavering buy-in from all senior management.

Once they have totally embraced convergence, based on business logic, they need to set out clearly the steps needed to make convergence happen.

They then need to articulate that decision to all staff and make clear how all departments will be affected.

Staff concerns and fears need to be addressed. These could include the following:

• That convergence could lead to a dilution of responsibilities and erosion of status.
• How to manage different publishing cycles – daily or weekly versus ‘as soon as possible’.
• Having to learn new technologies.
• That it’s the thin end of the wedge – rather than evolution.
• That it will lead to a decline in quality.

The media house needs to become a content factory, gathering, producing, and distributing news to every platform the audience turns to for information.

All barriers need to be removed. New structures need to be put in place.

There needs to be one ‘command-and-control’ area where senior editors or news producers sit. This is often referred to as the superdesk.

Representatives from input, production, and output need to be in close proximity; they need to ‘breathe the same air’ and hear the same news calls.

They need to share knowledge and be able to discuss breaking news developments continually throughout the day.

There will be one main news meeting where senior staff, whether they are from print, broadcast, online, planning, social media, or fact checking are present.

All should attend the meeting prepared to explain and set out how each area will contribute to the production process.

Deadlines change. Output is no longer the next bulletin or edition but rather as soon as the facts have been sourced and verified.

Staff objectives will have to change. Convergence becomes a business objective.

That decision needs to filter down to become a departmental objective, a unit objective, and a personal objective for every member of staff – from the most senior to the most junior.

Convergence needs to be a central objective in all staff appraisals.

Everyone will be assessed in terms of how they contributed to the success of the business strategy.

Convergence will be different for every media house.

It needs to be tailored so that it is the perfect fit for the location, the media business and its potential, and the audience and its needs.

Every media house has to put in the work to ensure that convergence is right for them, that it’s right for the audience, and that it is right for local market conditions.

Two useful questions to ask are:

• Is the media business keeping up with changing audience behaviour?
• Is it positioned to take advantage of every content exploitation opportunity that might arise now and in the future?
• Is it informing the public debate on every device users turn to in order to access information?

Convergence is about survival and ensuring future viability.

Staff will have their doubts – that’s normal – but there’s no room for agnosticism or cynicism.

Related resources

We have more resources about convergence, how to introduce it, and the workflows and roles and responsibilities involved.

Creating a converged news operation

The uneasy but essential evolution of news

Newsroom evolution from digital denial to digital first

Basics of project development for a media organisation

Convergence, workflows, roles and responsibilities

Editorial considerations when a ‘big story’ breaks

Social media in news production and news dissemination

How to handle a breaking news situation

Updating an online news item

The post Introducing a converged newsroom strategy first appeared on Media Helping Media.

In previous modules we have looked at how to identify the target audience and create a unique editorial proposition for that audience which would inform the public debate with original, in-depth journalism.

Now we look at the challenge of keeping up with changing audience behaviour, and ensuring that the content that is produced is available on all the devices the audience uses to access information.

In the past, broadcasting and publishing were fairly predictable. The audience watched TV, listened to the radio, and bought newspapers.

We worked to deadlines set by the broadcast schedules or the print runs.

The design of devices such as TV and radio changed from time to time, but the basic philosophy of broadcasting bulletins and related programmes changed very little. The same was true with newspapers.

The digital disruption of journalism

Then digital journalism disrupted the model. Content could be viewed online, on mobile and on tablets at any time of the day, on demand and on the move. Rolling, 24-hour news channels also contributed to the disruption.

I remember when I was managing editor of BBC News Online and realising when we published the first story that life would never be the same again.

We had started the continuous news cycle for the BBC. Everything had to change, including workflows, how stories were created and developed, roles and responsibilities, job descriptions, and organisational structures.

And then social media grew, and the audience became creators and curator of content, producing, commenting, sharing, adding value, beginning conversations, offering options, and participating in the news cycle. Another powerful and disrupting influence.

While all this was taking place, technology was not only matching the ambitions and aspirations of the content producers and content consumers, it was also creating new ways to do both.

Successful media businesses could no longer relax with legacy systems and known ways. They had to innovate, and to innovate they had to understand the audience, the technology, and the market.

So business development managers were hired and units set up to track the changes in audience behaviour in order to try to see what new platforms were being developed and to feed the information back into the news production and business planning departments.

Luckily, for those of us in the news management business, there also developed groups of people who made a living out of analysing the data surrounding changing audience behaviour, examining the implications for content producers and the market, and offering that wisdom to news business at a price.

One of those companies is WeAreSocial in Singapore who produce a six-monthly report on audience behaviour. The data they produce offers valuable and interesting insights into how content is consumed. Much of that data can be viewed, free-of-charge, on their Slideshare site.

Using such information can help media managers plan how their businesses need to evolve. Decision can be taken which are informed by solid business logic.

Digital first, digital parallel or digital denial

Responding to audience behaviour data will probably mean that a media business decides to introduce a digital first strategy. Digital first means that content is published on digital platforms before, or at the same time, as it’s published on traditional platforms. Please refer to the module on this site about developing a digital first strategy.

But a digital first strategy needs to make business sense. There is no point in delivering to digital platforms if they are not being used by your target audience.

And that is why you need to continually monitor how your target audience is accessing news so that you can adapt and change to ensure you are able to meet their information needs in the way they require. Otherwise you will probably lose that audience, and more aware and alert media organisations that are monitoring changing audience behaviour might take your place.

If it makes sense to adopt a digital first strategy – and it probably will, then the decision will also involve changes in how news is produced and how decisions are made.

You will need to introduce new workflows based around a news ‘superdesk’ acting as a centralised ‘command-and-control’ for the news operation. New roles and responsibilities may have to be introduced – from existing resources. Please refer to our training module about creating a converged/integrated newsroom.

Central to this will be a planning editor who will take your unique editorial proposition of original in-depth journalism and ensure there is a steady flow of high-quality news and current affairs items designed to meet the information needs of your target audience. Please refer to the module about forward planning for media organisations. At this stage you will have taken your first steps towards introducing a digital first strategy.

See our training module on newsroom evolution from digital denial to digital first.

But let’s return to the theme of the first module in this series about setting up a media business. I likened a media business to a table with four legs. Each leg having to be as sturdy as the other to ensure the table (the media business) doesn’t wobble.

Leg one is identifying the target audience and its information needs. Leg two is establishing a market differential with original, in-depth, issue-led journalism. Leg three is adapting to changing audience behaviour and monitoring the market. So now let’s move on to leg four, our media organisation’s values. Please refer to the training module about vision, pledge to the audience, accountability, transparency.

The post Adapting to changing audience behaviour first appeared on Media Helping Media.

The corporate plan is the most important tool in a media chief executive’s toolbox. Without it the media organisation can become lost and directionless. But with a strong corporate plan, staff and management are brought together, become a positive focus for change, and drive the media business forward. So it’s important to get it right. This is how to do it.

Writing a corporate plan should make running your media operation easier not more complicated, so don’t make the process complex.

The corporate plan should set out the vision for the media organisation, identify the target audience and its information needs, clarify who does what and why they do it, and set clear objectives that are cascaded down through every department and unit and which include every individual.

Corporate plans should be for a specified time period – too short and they don’t allow you to identify core and long-term value; too long and, over time, they become outdated and irrelevant. Five years is a realistic time-frame.

The more comprehensive and inclusive the discussion about the corporate plan is, the more likely it is that it will be realistic and achievable.

However, it’s not possible to include every member of your staff in the drafting process, so make sure the people you invite to discuss and draft the corporate plan are representative of a wide variety of views in your news organisation.

Select a moderator for the process who is a friend of the organisation, but does not have a vested interest in one part of it or another.

A corporate plan sets out your unique differential

Start by doing a realistic market scan so you know who your audiences are, what competition you have, the values your staff and mangers need to demonstrate, and what your unique market differential is.

Then distil all of that into one readily-understood, easy to communicate sentence which you can use as the basis of your corporate plan.

This sentence or phrase is essentially a mission statement, so make sure every word merits a place in it, and that the mission statement covers everything you do or would like to do.

Make sure the mission statement is ambitious enough to be challenging, but realistic enough to be potentially achieved.

An example of such a statement might be “To make appealing content for the people with a well-trained, well managed staff using a variety of funding sources”.

Next, expand each part of the phrase and explain what it means in practice.

In the example above, describe what “making appealing content for the people” actually means in bullet points. Identify targets for each of the bullet points which can be measured with a time frame.

At the end of this process, you will have established what you hope to achieve over the lifetime of your corporate plan and a framework for how to measure your progress against it.

Making your corporate plan relevant and useful

Now you have a corporate plan it needs to be translated into an action plan.

Your senior management team should identify the resources (human, material etc.) they need in order to deliver the corporate plan on a divisional or directorate level.

This document should also contain a more detailed description of the major activity to be carried out in the first year to support the corporate plan, and an outline for the second and third years. Each director now has an individual work plan.

The document should also describe what each of the units plans to do along with measurable targets for each unit and the resources needed. Each unit manager now has an individual work plan.

You now have a divisional plan. Each unit manager now discusses with each member of staff a work plan with measurable targets and objectives for the year ahead. This can also be linked to performance related pay if required.

Each member of staff now has an individual work plan which is directly related to the corporate plan with individual, unit, divisional and corporate objectives

The post Preparing and introducing a media corporate plan first appeared on Media Helping Media.

Does your media organisation have a social media strategy. Does it reach out and connect with your audience? There are many ways media organisations respond to social media, but here are three.

Media Helping Media recommends the third and final attitude in this list, but first check which one fits your media organisation and then think through what are can do about it.

1: IGNORE = the broadcast or publish at model

Attitude

• Social networking is a distraction that has nothing to do with traditional media.
• It is a plaything for trivial exchanges and is not for journalism.
• Keep out. Our content is our content. We know best.

Policy

• We will refer to a social network trend in a story but only as an illustration and only if supplied in wires copy.
• It’s our job to provide information. We are the professionals.
• If there is a piece of user-generated video, an image or a comment on the wires, we may refer to it or include it, but, come on, we are journalists and they are just amateurs.
• We’ve been trained, and we have standards – they haven’t. Keep them in their place.

Guidelines

• Stick to the wires, press releases and getting our own reporters to cover diary events and our correspondents to cover their specialisms.
• Don’t be distracted by the social media noise out there.

Result

A we-know-best attitude that fails to acknowledge changing audience behaviour and sees the audience as consumers rather than part of the news process. While this is going on, an increasingly informed and influential middle media is taking over the role of informing the public debate with people-focused stories published on blogs and distributed via the social networks that reflect diversity of opinion and offer perspectives which are often lacking in heavily-controlled news environments.

Prognosis

This model is in its death throes or already dead.

2: EXPLOIT – the engage-with on our terms model

Attitude

We realise social networking is popular, we understand the benefits of viral marketing and distribution, and we see it as a way to disseminate our material to a wider audience. Our sales and marketing department is on the case. Every now and then we are happy to refer to social media in our bulletins and stories, and sometimes it might be part of a story, but only in terms of showing a trend or in cases where social media offers access to voices we would not normally reach.

Policy

• Keep social media elements in the “and finally” part of the bulletin.
• If presenting on camera and talking about social media, offer that smile, nod and wink to suggest it’s all a bit of fun and not to be taken too seriously.
• When reporting on radio, make sure there is a tone to your voice that indicates to the audience where the line exists between the facts we have uncovered and the information that has been found via social media.

Guidelines

• Our use of social networking must be on our terms only.
• When referring to social media be sure to attribute any information as unconfirmed and ensure there is an element of doubt until we can confirm with two independent sources.
• When inviting social networking participation on any story, whether in the form of comments or forum discussions etc, be sure to keep control of the agenda.
• Only invite user input on the stories we want covered and only publish the comments which fit in with our view of how the story should develop.

Result

Containment, with a firm grip on the amount and scope of social networking in output. Regular references to social media as a phenomenon and an increasing awareness of its use as a possible newsgathering tool, but the main thrust of output is still based on wires, diary events and reporter/correspondent input from newsroom meetings, their contacts and their specialist beats.

Prognosis

This “engage with on our terms” model will work well as a part of a transition from the “broadcast/publish at” model, but is not a recommended survival strategy.

3: EMBRACE – the let loose to hold tight model

Attitude

We see social networking as central to all we do. By tapping into this rich vein of stories, perspectives, and first-person witness and thought we are able to enhance our output. This enriches our news and current affairs and highlights real concerns. It adds genuine comment and ensures that our output is relevant and revealing.

Policy

• There must be a social networking element in all stories.
• If we don’t reflect what is going on in society we are limiting the scope of our coverage and reducing our relevance to our audience.
• We must view all bloggers and social networkers as potential stringers.
• We must monitor social media at all times and build a new network of trusted contacts who we can turn to and who can turn to us.
• We need to get to know the network of contacts belonging to those social networkers we turn to the most and build on that, too.
• Crowdsourcing is using information, or effort, contributed by the general public. We must harness this resource.
• Ideally, we must aim to move away from a wires-led and events-led news agenda and shift the focus over to the audience.
• All our content is there for our users to take away to their preferred social networking space where they can interact with their contacts and add their own context and analysis – and we must always look for ways to bring this back into our newsgathering and news production processes.

Guidelines

• No story is complete without a social networking element.
• In a breaking story situation, where we are feeding the social networks with updated information, we must be sure to be part of, visit and tap into those networks to monitor the discussion and reflect that in our output.
• We must not rely just on pushing our updates to Facebook and Twitter. We must be part of the social media conversation so that we can stimulate the debate, ask questions, find answers and uncover new information.
• All journalists must have social networking aggregation tools on their desktops and monitor updates at all times.
• As with all information, we can refer to it but confirm it only when we have two independent sources.

Result

• Fresh, relevant, user-focused news covering the issues that concern the target audience and wider audience.
• A rapid growth in viral news distribution (the audience sharing the content for us), brand influence and trust.
• Increased traffic back to the news website.
• Increase in fans on the media organisation’s Twitter page, Facebook page, YouTube site and all other social network sites – again with associated increases in traffic to all the brand’s online properties.
• Most importantly, a welcome to the social networking party – not as a gate-crasher, but as an informed source of information.

Prognosis

A healthy strategy, adapting to changing audience behaviour, letting loose of content to hold tight to the audience, while, at the same time, reflecting the priorities, concerns and thinking of that audience.

The post Social media test for mainstream media first appeared on Media Helping Media.

A converged news operation offers improved quality control, more efficient workflows, cost savings, and new business opportunities.

The newsroom needs to have a central superdesk operating as the command-and-control centre for the media organisation. All the main editorial decisions will be made by those working on the superdesk.

The superdesk will be responsible for ensuring that one set of sourced, attributed and verified facts are made available to the widest possible audience on multiple devices.

The material will be created by a multiskilled production team using multiplatform authoring tools.

Convergence is essential for a multimedia news organisation.

The print, on-air, online and mobile versions of the news organisation’s output need to cross-promote each other.

Each must add specific elements so that the user is able to access information on the various platforms.

It’s also essential to use social networking tools for research, newsgathering, production and news dissemination.

Setting up a newsroom superdesk

Convergence is an editorial strategy issue and not a space, resource, technology or time issue. These are the most common excuses given for delaying or opposing the introduction of such a system.

It is not a nice-to-have option to be accommodated or considered by print, TV or interactive staff; it is essential for the effective functioning of a modern newsroom.

It doesn’t need to be expensive. There are many open-source tools available to help media organisations introduce convergence without incurring high costs.

In my media development work, I have helped print and broadcast news organisations build converged newsrooms based around a central superdesk system in Zimbabwe, Serbia, Croatia, Guatemala, Vietnam, Malaysia, Syria, Indonesia and Georgia.

Some have a handful of staff operating in a space the size of small living room, others have large purpose-built newsrooms and employ several hundred staff.

It doesn’t matter what size the news organisation is, what matters is adapting the following strategy to work for you and your audience.

Rules

• All interactive elements of your output must be by-products of a converged news operation and not stand-alone and self-managed entities
• The news website must display the main editorial choices made by the editorial teams in charge of your news organisation’s output.
• The news website must offer visitors an interactive experience that gives background information to all stories covered on air or in print.
• The audience must be fully engaged in, and be able to participate in, the newsgathering and news dissemination process via embedded interactive and social networking tools on all items.
• All platforms must cross-promote the others with information that helps the audience find the material you are producing and engage with your output.
• No story will be exclusive to one platform, but will be available on all devices.

Benefits

• News output will be consistent on all devices. This will strengthen the brand.
• Centralised quality control will ensure that the content on all devices is of the highest standard.
• Shared planning will ensure a steady supply of original journalism covering the issues of most concern to the audience.
• Streamlined newsgathering will improve news response speed and efficiency.
• There will be a reduced duplication of effort leading to savings in resource costs.
• The news organisation will be able to respond to new business opportunities and will be able to produce the content from existing resources.

Workflow

• All senior editorial staff need to sit together. This could be around one central superdesk, or in one area of the newsroom where they are all breathing the same news air and can hear the latest news calls.
• Sitting around the superdesk in a large news organisation will be an intake editor, various output editors, a planning editor, and a resources manager. In smaller organisations staff might have to take on multiple responsibilities.
• The planning editor needs to work closely with the interactive editor (I/A in the graphic below) to ensure that all in-depth, issue-led, investigative journalism is supported by fact files, timelines, profiles, and interactive features, so that these elements can be cross-promoted.
• The interactive editor must make full use of social media not only to inform the audience, but also to inform the news organisation’s journalism as to the needs and priorities of the audience.
• All will be involved in a continuous news discussion, making one set of editorial decisions and then ensuring that the output is consistently good on all devices and that all cross-promote the other.

A sample converged workflow

Editorial essentials

• Define your news organisation’s core editorial proposition. This is what you cover that others don’t, or the distinctive way you cover news.
• Ensure that all staff know the target audience for each platform, what that audience needs to know and how that audience uses the platforms.
• Continue to educate all staff, from senior journalists to the most recent recruit, in the continuing changing audience behaviour and the ways the audience is consuming news. Never presume that this news consumption stays the same. It doesn’t.
• List the special sections and in-depth areas that the online version will be required to create to support the overall editorial proposition.
• Work out the expected content production levels (number of stories a day and frequency of updates) so that you can manage resources effectively.
• Translate this into staffing needs, hours to be covered, multi-skilling training required. All staff should be able to use all newsroom systems and the online content management system (CMS) to update all platforms.
• Train staff in the writing disciplines needed to create content once so that it can be used on multiple platforms.

Technical essentials

• Where possible try to use tried, tested and proven open-source tools for news production.
• Install a central CMS and instruct all journalists to create their articles in it.
• Consider free tools such as YouTube, Vimeo or SoundCloud to embed audio and video in articles.
• Install a central database for storing content and distributing it to multiple devices.
• Add social media sharing buttons to all your online pages and assets (audio, video, maps, timelines, images) so that the audience can save, share, re-use and comment.
• Ensure that all journalists have a desktop social media monitoring tool, such as HootSuite, TweetDeck or any other aggregator and encourage them to watch how the audience is responding to news developments.

Design issues

• The design elements that distinguish your brand must be visible across all platforms.
• Your will need a breaking news tool that can be managed from the superdesk. This is so that one output editor can update all devices with one action once the news is confirmed. Make sure these connect to Twitter, Facebook and all your social media outlets.
• Ensure that all your web pages are optimised so that they will rank highly in search results. This is called SEO (search engine optimisation).

Human resource issues

• Ensure that all existing staff and new staff realise they are working as part of a multi-skilled team in a multi-platform news operation – you may need to look at existing contracts.
• Offer training for those who need to learn new skills, but make it part of the media organisation’s development rather than a personal preference.
• Set corporate, unit and individual objectives defining newsroom performance targets.
• All staff must work flexible hours.
• Implement a rota system that ensures adequate recovery time.
• Carry out workplace assessments in terms of ergonomics (whether the seats and desks are set so that they don’t injure your staff).
• Ensure adequate screen breaks for all computer users.

Convergence offers many more benefits than just cost saving and efficiencies in news production. It will prove a major benefit to your journalism and your media business.

The post Creating a converged news operation first appeared on Media Helping Media.