Gannett's New Editorial Approach: Leverage the 'Net and Stay Alive
Newspapers may have ignored interactive in years past, but today leaders of smart news organizations, including the people at Gannett, are changing their minds and recognizing the effectiveness of Internet-related technologies and business models.
Gannett has recently developed a two-pronged approach to editorial that is extremely promising in that it builds on methods that are succeeding online. The first prong is called "hyper-local," and it focuses on niche content that only local news organizations can provide. The second is "citizen journalism," which marshals the growing phenomenon of "user generated content" into an editorial force of huge potential. This approach is covered in detail in the following article from Wired Magazine:
"One morning last December, Tom Callinan, editor of The Cincinnati Enquirer, walked into his office to discover a package from his bosses at Gannett, the company that owns the Enquirer and 84 other dailies across the US. When he opened the box, he had to smile. It was a pair of Nike running shoes.
"Callinan -- and all the other top editors who received shoes that week -- got the point: The nation's largest newspaper chain was in deep trouble, and the editors had better get ready to run fast. Callinan had been ready for seven years. Back in 1999, he was in the audience when Intel chair Andy Grove bluntly told the members of the American Society of Newspaper Editors that the Internet and new technologies were about to swamp their hulking cruise ship of an industry. They had a choice: Change course or go under. The $57 billion industry didn't change, but Callinan did. By day, he was the editor of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle in upstate New York. By night he attended the Rochester Institute of Technology, emerging two years later with a master's degree in new media. He decided newsroom culture would never change on its own. "I learned a phrase in grad school: 'Dislodge the equilibrium.'"
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Gannett has recently developed a two-pronged approach to editorial that is extremely promising in that it builds on methods that are succeeding online. The first prong is called "hyper-local," and it focuses on niche content that only local news organizations can provide. The second is "citizen journalism," which marshals the growing phenomenon of "user generated content" into an editorial force of huge potential. This approach is covered in detail in the following article from Wired Magazine:
"One morning last December, Tom Callinan, editor of The Cincinnati Enquirer, walked into his office to discover a package from his bosses at Gannett, the company that owns the Enquirer and 84 other dailies across the US. When he opened the box, he had to smile. It was a pair of Nike running shoes.
"Callinan -- and all the other top editors who received shoes that week -- got the point: The nation's largest newspaper chain was in deep trouble, and the editors had better get ready to run fast. Callinan had been ready for seven years. Back in 1999, he was in the audience when Intel chair Andy Grove bluntly told the members of the American Society of Newspaper Editors that the Internet and new technologies were about to swamp their hulking cruise ship of an industry. They had a choice: Change course or go under. The $57 billion industry didn't change, but Callinan did. By day, he was the editor of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle in upstate New York. By night he attended the Rochester Institute of Technology, emerging two years later with a master's degree in new media. He decided newsroom culture would never change on its own. "I learned a phrase in grad school: 'Dislodge the equilibrium.'"
Read complete article ...
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