Cox Dayton convergence - an important look

Netnewscheck has an important series this week about convergence in Cox's operations in Dayton.

(I have a certain fondness for Dayton, its having been a stop twice in my journalism career -- once in radio and once for the AP.)

There are echoes of many of the early studies done when Media General tried to converge its Tampa newsrooms. But it's important to revisit this topic now that the industry in general seems more open to considering such operations.

Part 1 of the series is your basic overview, but to me the most interesting are part 2, which goes deeply into the workflow challenges and tomorrows part 4, which will profile an "all media" journalist.

Part 3 recounts what many of us who work in or with newsrooms know - the content management systems and their lack of integration are as much to blame for many of this industry's silo woes as anything else. (This isn't a new concept, but the first really good look at it that I know of was in the Tow Center's "Post Industrial Journalism" report.)

I highly recommend you read the series about Cox Dayton, either as a professional who may have to wrestle with these issues more fully in the future or as an educator who already is likely to be dealing with the questions of what and how to teach.