New Fisher Grid

One of the things we use at Newsplex, and that I use in some of my classes, is a one-page sheet that started out being called by the ungainly "story organization and planning," but was rechristened the "Fisher Grid" by my co-authors of "Principles of Convergent Journalism."

It provides a structured way to think about planning a story across media, including thinking about the best way to tell the story and then backing down to alternatives based on the resources you have.

With new options and the rise of easy-to-do slideshows, etc, it needed an update. So a new version is available over at the PCJ wiki. It's a Word doc so you can fill it in by hand or put it up on a computer and fill it in that way, as my students do.

Beyond upheaval

It's really impossible to understate how much fear, loathing, upheaval and [name your basest emotion here] there is in the newspaper business this week.

Last week came the waves of layoffs. Then came the OC Register's outsourcing announcement. And the latest to touch it off was Tampa Trib Exec Editor Janet Coats' meeting announcing upheaval at that newsroom.

Intern Jessica DeSilva's record of that meeting has prompted a long string of comments and reactions. The money quote from Coats that everyone is focusing on:

"People need to stop looking at TBO.com as an add on to The Tampa Tribune,” she said. “The truth is that The Tampa Tribune is an add on to TBO.”

Mindy McAdams and Eric Deggans have more details. Interesting is the new setup outlined on Mindy's blog from an e-mail she got from inside the newsroom:

• Managing editors
• 5-6 audience editors — keep in touch with what the print, TV, online audiences want/need
• 5 sections of reporting (all the reporters for print, TV and Web are mashed up together in these groups):
  1. Deadline — for breaking/daily news
  2. Data — specifically for database stuff
  3. Watchdog — for investigative reporting
  4. Personal journalism — stuff for people’s every day lives like weather, health, entertainment
  5. Grassroots — citizen journalism

Outside of these groups are three “finishing” groups for print, TV and online to determine what stories should be covered and with what medium.

All the reporters will be trained in gathering news for online in case there’s a need for it. They’ll be training them on the go. The focus will now be on immediacy and using mediums appropriately. The print product is going to be more enterprise and in-depth, the Web is for breaking news, etc.

This is a lot like the Atlanta model announced a year ago -- the idea of a core newsgathering operation with specialty groups taking it to each medium. It's what we've been talking about in Newsplex for more than six years. It still will be interesting to see if it works. (One of the posters to DeSilva's piece says that in Atlanta many of the reporters have gone back to tried and true beats. I don't have any independent confirmation of that -- anyone with insight, chime in .)

It's a bit ironic, perhaps, that the Trib and WFLA were one of the original "convergence" hotspots, yet much of that convergence was lip service (I can say that because I have two very good sources who have been deeply embedded in those newsrooms; I've been there at off hours when the suits aren't around and have talked to those doing the work). It has finally taken an economic crisis to force them together (as a result, for instance, all the photographers will have to shoot for all media and will have to reapply for their jobs).

(Update: And not to forget that the L.A. Times said it would cut 250 jobs -- 150 in its newsroom -- while merging print and online (a good result coming out of a bad situation), and the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel launched another surprise round of cuts. Allen Abbey, writing on Poynter's E-Media Tidbits about the L.A. cuts, may have summed it all up best: This is remarkable only in that it is unremarkable.)

There really aren't a lot of deep thoughts here, other than that we are just beginning what will be a long process of readjustment. There will be vitriol and hatred and shouting (online and in person) and pleas to a higher, noble sense of democracy and community - most likely to fall on deaf ears. We are hearing the thunder now because it is happening in the metro markets. We are unlikely to hear the anguish as it seeps ever so certainly down the ranks.

Read the comments on DeSilva's post and on another here if you really want to get a sense of the disconnect -- both generational and of newsrooms from their audiences. Or look at the comments to Timothy Egan's plea at the New York Times to "Save the Press."

Robb Montgomery has a good roundup of all that has been happening.

We are entering the maudlin. "Death of Newspaper" blogs are springing up by the day. Some of the "older" ones on which you can track what's happening: Fading to Black and Newspaper Death Watch. I used to get the RSS feeds, but it depresses me, and besides, with all the traffic floating around, I seem to eventually end up there anyway.

But this is economic reality. It is the same reality many of your neighbors may have had to go through if they worked in autos or steel, on the docks or in the meat processing plants.

Unfortunately, as it always seems, there will be a lot of cruelty in the process.

It's a book!

Finally. A cover for our new book. "Principles of Converent Journalism" should be available later this month or early next from Oxford University Press. Who-hoo!

Newsplex blog

Randy Covington, Newsplex's director, is blogging.

Newsplex also has a revamped Web site.

Cooperation isn't just an 11-letter word

Steve Yelvington has put up a good post on the implications for newspapers and other media companies of the Open Social API standard for social networking sites.

In short, this is another opportunity. As he writes:

Given the magnitude of the change in Web consumption behavior brought about by social networking sites, newspaper companies need to think about how their content, tools and services might interoperate with these standards.

Question: Will we blow it again?

The answer has to come in the form of cooperation. Just as the time of the lone-wolf journalist has largely passed (at least in media companies, though a case can be made that bloggers continue that honored tradition), so has passed the time of lone-wolf media companies in an age when creating and deploying technology is critical.

A few organizations have the financial muscle and the will to create new apps for this business. Morris Communications and the Washington Post come to mind. Others have the muscle but either aren't using it or are keeping their lights under a basket (I'm thinking of Gannett, Cox, AP, Media News and a few others). We don't hear much in this area, either, from the leading industry groups such as the NAA and the NNA. API might be a natural for this, created by publishers to centralize industry training and professional development, but note that "research" is not among the things it lists, although it did produce the NewspaperNext report.

But the reality is that most of this nation's newspapers are not large or chain-owned. They are not necessarily daily. And most need help dealing with the digital world to continue staying viable. (Yes, clearly there are small-paper success stories, such as Lawrence, Kan., and the content system it developed, Django. But Lawrence is far from typical in this industry.)

What the industry needs is a skunk works. As part of that, companies should be willing to share, as in open source, relevant apps, widgets, solutions, etc. they have developed.

I'd propose doing that through Newsplex, the newsroom laboratory we have at the University of South Carolina. The skunk works would serve not only to research new applications but as a clearinghouse for those developed elsewhere that could help the industry generally.

But just having the apps is not going to be enough. I've traveled to and worked with enough small papers to know that just getting a decent online site up and running -- and keeping it current -- is taxing enough. With social media, mobile services, and who knows what else coming at them, I doubt most will be able to handle it with alacrity.

This is where press associations come in. These state-level organizations need to get into this game. I continue to believe that press associations can serve as mini-cooperatives for technology. By creating technology cooperatives for members, and thus sharing the costs of maintenance and support, they can help smaller newspapers compete in the digital arena.

They already do it on the ad side. Are they willing to take the next step on the technology side? If anyone's interested, contact me and let's discuss where we can go with this.