24-7 Real Media by MarketingVoxThe print-to-Web shift newspapers continue to make means one inevitable thing: 24/7 news becomes a prerequisite for a successful multimedia operation. This shift has long since begun, with continuous news desks now integral to newspaper companies' survival, yet it's one media bloggers still explore. This week, many of the media heads who watch how newspapers deal with the digital shift post thoughts on the 24-hour news cycle. 

A feature by Carl Sessions Stepp, senior editor of the American Journalism review, inspired some of the posts by well-known bloggers. In "Center Stage", Stepp explores the online news desks — sometimes these are separate from continuous news desks, sometime not — of four major U.S. papers. The piece opens with a morning scene from the Houston Chronicle, which Globe and Mail technology columnist and four-pronged blogger Mathew Ingram quotes in his post, which I'll quote in full since it summarizes the piece nicely:

The American Journalism Review has an in-depth look at four online news operations, and how they differ from the traditional newspaper process — and how the two are (or aren’t) working together. The story starts with a description of how a Houston Chronicle online editor has posted several stories and is working on getting photos of a crime victim, while “around her, in a newsroom as quiet as a library, print colleagues shuffle in sipping from their Starbucks cups and grunting their good mornings. It is a scene repeated more and more often as mainstream newsrooms adjust to becoming two worlds in one.”

Ingram doesn't mention whether that scene rings true for the Globe offices, but never mind. Contrast Ingram's brief to the able three-sentence treatment Telegraph news editor Shane Richmond gives in his bits and pieces blog post: "Carl Sessions Step, senior editor at American Journalism Review has taken a tour through four newspapers' internet operations. Some integrate online and print, others don't. It's an interesting read."

Media strategist and frequent newspaper company consultant Steve Yelvington dishes it out more than Ingram and Richmond. His post "But it's so … 1994" comments on Stepp's point that "It is easy to imagine the time, coming soon, when the 24-hour Web cycle dominates the newsroom tempo, work flow and culture. … As for tomorrow's journalists, they will more likely be identified by their function than by their medium." Yelvington's post tells a story that shows his years in the biz: 

I remember sitting down in 1994 with Kent Gardner at the Star Tribune and drawing up ground rules for breaking news. The conversation began with an assumption that the online medium is 24×7 and that our responsibility was to publish the news when it's new. Everything else discussed was about theshold — clearly identifying what would be expected of the reporting process.

My recollection of the standards that emerged is that reporters would be expected and required to file for urgent and immediate online publication any story that met a few simple tests:

  • Importance: The item is of a level of importance that it reasonably would be considered a candidate for a section front in the newspaper. In other words, we weren't into chasing car crashes and petty crime.
  • Completeness: We know the basics, the five W's.
  • Accuracy: We're confident we have it right. Sloppiness benefits no one.
  • Public domain: We're not pushing to get enterprise pieces online the minute a reporter is finished.

So what's really different today? Do we need a lower test of importance? Push more enterprise work online first? I surely wouldn't tamper with the other two.

I'm not sure I'd tamper with anyone. Yelvington's assessment seems sound to me, but then again he's been in this much, much longer. 

The curiousity I must mention about the Stepp article, though, is this: I found Stepp's feature this week via Cyberjournalist.net. My hunch, perhaps a generous one, is that Ingram, Richmond and Yelvington didn't source that site for the article link (in true blogger fashion) because they found the article at the source. But that brings me to the curiousity itself: the article dates from the April/May 2006 issue. Why are we all only reading it now? If it was posted just this week and there's a mix-up with the date, I'd like to know. No conspiracy, just curious.

The other much-blogged piece about continuous news comes from an address by Neil Chase, head of The New York Times' continuous newsdesk, at the recent World Digital Publishing Conference. I'll stick to just a few bloggers' reactions to this one. John Burke at Editors Weblog gives us the straight report on " the latest innovations at what is becoming the world’s paper of record thanks to its website." He mentions the online and print newsroom convergence planned as part of the paper's move to a new building in early 2007, then breaks down the e-goodies.

Chase went through the nytimes.com’s most recent developments that have been well documented in the media world. He described 2006’s quiet redesign:

  • Multimedia is prominent
  • Bylines are gigantic because reporters are important
  • Designed to play up big stories, so that they are emphasized when they break
  • Shows when things have been updated
  • MyTimes, a tool that allows readers to personalize their page including news feeds from any other publication on the web, was an important development. Readers can also look at the MyTimes page of their favorite reporters to see what they’re reading
  • TimesTopics lists all of the articles related to what will soon be 10,000 distinct subjects so that the reader can go deeper into the story 
  • Video and audio will become increasingly important and many reporters are starting to toy around with cameras and digital voice recorders while they report. 
  • The Continuous News Desk has existed since 1999 and employs six journalists and six editors who help the rest of the newsroom cover stories. They post the immediate news on the site so that other reporters can focus on doing further investigation into an event
  • Reporters are using blogs more. Sometimes it can create extra work for them but more often than not, it is a means of covering stories that can’t fit in the actual paper and also a useful tool for connecting with readers
  • Interaction with readers is becoming increasingly important. We get many ideas from them, although it takes some time to filter out the good from the bad
  • TimesReader is now being tested with Microsoft who agreed to pay all of the development costs. It will allow people to download all of that day’s news and carry it around with them on their laptop or tablet, fitting to any screen and making for a very pleasant reading experience

Ingram didn't comment on Chase's appearance and the details of the above list specifically, but, wading into the fray Andrew Grant-Adamson instigated about the purpose of newspaper blogs (still more on that later), the Globe staffer remarks that "very few are making good use of the comments section of their blogs to get a real dialogue going with readers." The newspaper blogs issue, including the new Comment is Free-modeled Guardian arts blog (via Buzzmachine, but I'll link to that post directly when I comment myself).

For his part, British journalism instructor Grant-Adamson says:

Chase’s continuous newsdesk is an interesting concept which addresses the problem of newspaper reporters faced with the task of producing continuous updates for the web, and are then unable to develop the story as they should.

At the NYT they have six reporters and six editors on the desk who have the job of helping the rest of the newsroom cover stories. They post the immediate news on the site so that other reporters can focus on doing further investigation.

That sounds like a very good idea.

I'm not sure which of the bloggers blogging about continuous news read the (apparently more recent) AJR features "Online Scoops" (dek: "In the era of convergence, the notion that newspapers would be “scooping themselves” by posting exclusives first is passé. But are there exceptions to this rule?") and "Embracing Change" (contrasting lessons of newsroom convergence for US. and British papers) but they're bound to draw more posts … from me included. (Still getting over that cold.) 

One of the few bloggers who posts a different item about continuous news is also one of the most respected and most read. Roy Greenslade notes that the Plymouth County Herald, recent innovators noticed for outfitting reporters with head-mounted videocams, switched for the first time in 111 years of publishing to a 24-hour news cycle. "Another evening paper becomes a morning," Greenslade writes. Editor Bill Martin announced the move, the context of which Greenslade couches in "reflecting "the needs of the 24-hour digital age"."

And what needs they are: I am insomniac, feed me news! 

PSST: Here's "Evolving Newspapers Part I" (UPDATE: Copied onto this site too) — it's a tad lost in the shuffle right now (spoooky huh? but it's just following the Web domain aggregation). We'll fix those permalinks soon, though.  

Image from MarketingVox.com. (I wanted this one but I can't access it by clicking, telling me I probably shouldn't.)