Aug. 14, 2006

By BOB STOVER
Florida Today

There are dozens of books about managing change. But how about just managing today – midnight to midnight – in multimedia newsrooms?

"It struck me the other day, after a carbon monoxide leak at a local campus killed one guy and sent about 100 people to the hospital," Carole Tarrant, managing editor of the Roanoke (Va.) Times, wrote me.

"I spent all day running around, making sure we were feeding the Web. Then, about 4, I sat down and said, 'Oh yeah, we have a paper to put out.' "

"My lesson from all this is really just recognizing how much more is being demanded of us as senior managers. We're making new demands of employees, and sweat a lot about how that is progressing in newsrooms (as we should). But we're also swept up in this, to a huge degree, if we're doing it right."

I had a similar experience on early July.

My cell phone woke me about 6 a.m. with a text message alert, sent by our space team to our text message subscribers:

"Fueling of the space shuttle is underway at KSC."

Throughout the day our Web site was filled with video feeds featuring our reporters at Kennedy Space Center. It had traffic updates for all the tourists who flocked to town for the launch, a blog by our space reporters, animations from our graphics staff and regular news updates on the status of the launch. At the same time we were planning how to make sure the next day's paper wouldn't just be a repeat of what had been online, on television or on the text messages.

We go through less dramatic versions of that drill every day now. It's a lot of fun. But I do wonder whether we can improve the way we manage and coordinate this variety of information on the Web while ensuring that we continue producing a top-notch print product.

Tarrant told me she reformatted her budget meetings to include a significant online discussion in each one. The morning meeting focuses on the video newscast and in the afternoon they talk about polls, message boards and galleries. And during big breaking news events they appoint an online only reporter and editor to feed updates to online.  "That appointment makes a huge difference in how quickly you can post and yet still keep other reporters and editors devoted to the print story," she said.

This parallels our own experience at Florida Today where we recently reorganized our newsroom with the goal of putting more emphasis into the Web, while maintaining the quality of the daily paper.

Following are a few recommendations, based on our experience:

 Make your written news budgets more detailed.

Stressed newsrooms tend to cut corners and put less emphasis on their written news budgets. They develop a shorthand that only the person who wrote it can understand.

That would be a disaster in a multimedia newsroom where such a variety of disciplines have to communicate and work together. If budgets aren't detailed or complete, editors have to go searching for answers, wasting time that could be spent advancing their mission. Our universal budgets cover everything we know about a story, including Web links, video options, photo galleries, breakouts and lengths. And they're updated frequently.

 Establish systems that enable editors to talk with one another more often, without having more or longer meetings.

We created a command center where representatives from photo, multimedia, news content departments, and our web and print delivery desks can talk to each other while they're working.

While they're processing the day's news, they're asking questions, giving answers and making joint decisions. For example, they can decide whether video is appropriate for a story or whether a reporter needs to spend more time on his Sunday enterprise story rather than provide a Web update. They don't have to leave their desk or send a message to accomplish this. It's becoming a nerve center that speeds communications and decision making.

For fun, we dubbed this center Mission Control, but it's developed a nickname: "The Bridge" because the activity reminds us of what the folks on the Enterprise go through when they're working through a crisis on Star Trek.

 Manage today's environment.

Deliberately take the time to relieve pressure points. This may sound like remedial management 101, but I'm convinced there are more pressure points today and it's worth paying extra attention to them.

If one editor is having a bad day, try to find support from another department.

If two editors are clashing – the budget meetings are a good place to identify this problem – take them aside and talk them through it. Remind them they are allies, review the goals of the multimedia mission and their role in it and help them find common ground.

And make a point to highlight positives that reinforce your organization's goals. With the Web, they're almost always there. Skyrocketing page views and unique visitor numbers provide almost daily positive validation that our new emphasis is the right emphasis.

 Build "bridges" between platforms.

This example from metro editor Belinda Stewart summarizes the concept in one instance, but it can be applied in a lot of areas.

Her key issue was finding a way, with limited staff, "to make sure we make the most of content on both platforms." That has led her to create a "bridge" reporter who is assigned to take "breaking news forward for the next day's paper – talking to 'real people' and experts, and exploring alternative angles, to make it fresh and compelling for next-day print readers."

 Increase the number of built-ins.

This is under the theory, if you schedule it, it'll be produced and become part of the routine.

Set the standard and fill in the blank. Polls and forums are good examples. And in the process of composing these, you have ideas that can be turned around for print.

I know the most important things we do aren't necessarily the most immediate things. Long-term planning, recruiting, training and goal setting will continue to be where we have the most long-term impact. But we are "daily" newspapers and "minute-by-minute" Web sites. And each day is different and needs our attention.

Finally, this personal note: Count yourself among those you need to manage every day. Share the load – up, down and sideways. The multimedia Borg will eventually consume any anal-retentive managing editor who has to control everything in this day and age.