Fitting News in Time, Not Space

I missed this the first time around, but through the miracle of the Internets, I’d like to take us back, back, back to April 28th, 2006, when Jonathan Landman, deputy managing editor of the New York Times was asked about how they handle news online. He even said some kind of interesting things:

Q. Media and technology (and consumer interest in these developments) are changing the ways in which the news is delivered and consumed. How have journalists’ roles evolved as they report and write stories for different delivery methods, i.e. developing a story for the print paper vs. the online NYTimes, a blog or podcast, or a piece for multiple outlets? Does one journalist create a story and rework it for multiple delivery methods or are there separate individuals who focus on different types of delivery? What do journalists today need to know or be able to do that is different from the past?

– Erika Gutierrez, New York

A. Things are changing so fast that it’s hard to know where to start. So I’ll start with The Times. For us, these changes appeared on the horizon in the mid-1990’s when we started our Web edition. Immediately it became clear that we had a terrific Web site around 11 o’clock every night when the next day’s paper was posted. But it became a little less good with each passing hour as other Web sites put up breaking news from news agencies and other sources and news hungry readers made new demands.

So we had to find a way to move faster. That meant in some cases that reporters would file partial stories that we could post on the Web, then keep reporting for their newspaper articles. At first some of our people were reluctant to do this, thinking they would scoop themselves and thereby give readers less reason to absorb the more complete stories in the newspaper. That view has disappeared as reporters and editors realize that a) there are a lot of Web readers and news sources out there creating a lot of Web competition, and b) a well-timed Web story can flush out sources that produce a better story in the paper. But it did require a significant mental adjustment.

…

New journalistic forms like blogs and podcasts, and old ones that are new for newspapers, like video, also impose new demands. We now have a video unit in our newsroom, and many of our still photographers have learned to shoot video. In a handful of cases, reporters themselves carry video cameras in some pretty challenging environments, like Iraq and the Shanghai city dump. That’s a brand new thing for newspaper reporters, changing the pace and sometimes approach to reporting a story.

…

The Internet has also changed the journalist’s relationship with his or her sources and readers. Both often grab stories as soon as they appear on the Web and then seek to influence the final versions that might appear later, online or in the newspaper. Sometimes this produces useful new information and new perspectives. Sometimes it produces hot air. Either way, it keeps journalists on their toes and that’s good.

Other interesting stuff there for anyone thinking about online journalism (which is another way of saying “journalism”). Now, if the paper can just manage to avoid sitting on major stories for long periods of time as elections glide by, we’ll be making progress.

Explore posts in the same categories: Color Commentary, Foreshadowing