“Digital-first” means different priorities and processes for journalists.
As I’ve visited newsrooms discussing digital-first journalism, I’ve heard again and again from editors that they are “all in” for the digital emphasis. But in the next breath, some editors ask questions about what “digital-first” means for them and their newsrooms. They believe but they don’t fully understand.
Digital-first is way more than just publishing breaking news online and shooting video (though it involves both). Steve Yelvington explained:
Digital-first is about making the future your first priority, with everything that implies.
It requires restructuring all your priorities. Not just when you do it, but what you do and how you do it.
In a series of blog posts starting today, I will attempt to explain what those priorities mean.
My series is part of an extended conversation about digital-first journalism. The foundational documents being published by York Daily Record editors and Matt DeRienzo’s Connecticut Newsroom blog have shared some important views and details. I’m sure that other journalists have blogged about some of the same matters or other aspects I will not address here. I invite those colleagues to add links to their related blog posts in the comments here.
I’ll address the working, values and thinking of digital-first journalism. I’ll share suggestions for leading a digital-first newsroom and discuss how digital-first succeeds as a business model. I’ll discuss how the digital-first approach affects reporters’ work generally and specifically on the statehouse beat. Today I’ll start with the actual work.
How digital-first journalists work
Digital platforms are first in the processes and priorities of the digital-first journalist. We publish newspapers as well, but newspapers cannot drive our work. Newspapers are a shrinking audience and revenue stream and our digital community and revenue stream are growing. Our survival demands a digital focus.
Digital journalists produce content initially for multiple digital platforms: our news websites, blogs, social media, text alerts, email alerts and newsletters (and whatever comes next or whatever I’ve overlooked). Editors responsible for print products will assemble them primarily from content produced originally for digital platforms.
Whatever your job, you need to make high priorities to:
- Work and think first for digital platforms.
- Experiment and take risks.
- Try new tools & techniques.
- Cover news live.
- Join, stimulate, curate and lead the community conversation.
- Engage the community in your coverage.
Each journalist must work out his or her particular processes and priorities in consultation with editors and colleagues. Your details will vary from those I outline here and will vary day to day. Even if I outline exactly what your daily workflow should be, it may well change next month as a new tool becomes available or someone pioneers a new technique. So look at these examples as illustrations of how you might change your workflow, not as a specific, rigid or complete prescription.
I’ll sketch possible workflows for a few different reporters, a visual journalist and an editor, going into greater detail in the first illustration:
Court reporter’s workflow
On a trial day, the reporter, for the most part, uses Twitter as her notebook. She sets up a trial liveblog using CoverItLive or ScribbleLive and liveblogs or live-tweets (feeding the tweets into the liveblog) the trial narrative through the day. She keeps an offline notebook or digital file handy for tips, story ideas and notes that need more inquiry before publication, but for the most part, Twitter and the liveblog become her trial notebook and she shares that notebook with the community.
If any developments during the trial merit a news alert (key ruling, verdict, stunning testimony), the reporter sends a quick text to an editor who will send out a text or email alert, unless the reporter is authorized to publish alerts directly. (The editor should have given some guidance on whether to alert the editor first or tweet first, but both should be done swiftly.) For such a development, the reporter might write a few paragraphs to update the story that introduces the liveblog.
The stream of tweets is not a transcript and does not have to be constant. As testimony raises questions the reporter wants to ask an attorney at a break, she might decide not to tweet something until she gains further understanding. She might take a quick break from trial during a procedural argument or testimony of a secondary witness to check in with sources or check for new filings in the clerk’s office.
After the day’s testimony concludes, the reporter writes a summary story that will update the liveblog intro and run in the newspaper. Most of the time (the day of the verdict would be a likely exception), this story will be shorter than newspaper coverage of trials has traditionally been. A summary, noting that complete coverage is available online, will suffice most days. The reporter also posts a Facebook update about the trial and posts a brief item to Google+, linking to the story and liveblog. If social media discussion of the story is strong, the reporter might embed a few tweets in the web version of the game story or use Storify to curate the social media conversation for a sidebar.
On days when the reporter isn’t covering a trial, and during breaks in the trial, the reporter checks in with traditional courthouse sources: prosecutors, lawyers, judges, the clerk’s office, victim advocates, families of defendants. These checks will be a combination of traditional chats on the phone and in people’s offices and digital checks — monitoring Twitter feeds and searches, checking a Facebook group supporting a defendant, digital filings at the clerk’s office.
When the reporter comes across significant news, such as a big lawsuit, charge or indictment, she will immediately tweet and email an alert to an editor. Then she will quickly write a few paragraphs summarizing the news and file an initial story, noting that she will be seeking reaction from key people. Then she does a quick Twitter search to see if any of the key figures has already reacted. If so, she adds their tweets to the story (presuming she has earlier validated the Twitter profiles as legitimate). If not, she starts calling on the phone, emailing and/or visiting offices, seeking reaction, explanation, etc.
When interviewing sources, the reporter will take notes but also record a few minutes of video and shoot a still mug shot. She may audio-record the full interview, especially if it is a critical interview, for use of audio clips online. When online documents are not available for linking, the reporter will download or scan digital copies of key documents relating to cases she is covering. In most cases, the reporter will write less than a traditional print reporter, allowing time to scan and embed documents and edit video and audio clips.
Ron Sylvester of the Wichita Eagle has been live-tweeting trials for years. Patricia Doxsey of the Daily Freeman and Mike Cruz of the San Bernardino Sun are also live-tweeting trial coverage. The New Haven Register uses a branded NHR Live account for live-tweeting.
Visual journalist’s workflow
At the scene of a breaking news story, the digital-first visual journalist shoots a range of visuals for use in a variety of formats and platforms. The work will vary by story, but could include any or all of these tasks:
- With a smartphone, he takes a few quick photos and posts them immediately to the breaking news blog, then tweets links to them.
- He shoots video (might be with smartphone or with camera) at the scene.
- He shoots a variety of still photos to use in a slideshow later and to provide a selection for consideration for print.
- He records ambient sound and some interviews with an audio recorder for use in the soundtrack of the slideshow.
- He shoots mug shots of key players if he has the opportunity, for secondary art and to archive for possible later use when these people are in the news.
- In case of a disaster, he shoots some building/setting shots for possible later use with file photos in before/after presentations.
- He records accurately the spellings of names of people and places, where possible by shooting photos of name tags, credentials and other documentation.
Upon returning to the newsroom, the visual journalist confers with editors to decide which visuals to edit and post online first and which photo(s) might be best for print.
If you’re a visual journalist, you might be thinking, yeah, I’d do all that if I had the right equipment, but I don’t have a smartphone (or whatever). Yes, absolutely, digital-first journalism requires providing journalists the tools they need to work effectively. Our company is working on that and other companies following a digital-first approach need to invest in digital tools, too.
Sports reporter’s workflow
On game day, the digital-first sports reporter covers the events live, either using a tool such as CoverItLive or ScribbleLive directly or by live-tweeting and feeding the tweets into the liveblog or by frequently updating a news story or blog. The nature of the liveblog might vary, depending on television coverage.
If the reporter is covering the local professional or big-time college team, and fans are likely to be watching in the stadium or on television, her role is more commentary and interaction with fans than play-by-play. If it’s a road game that’s not on television, the reporter needs to report more of the action. In either case, it’s essential to report big plays and periodic scores (in a game with infrequent scoring, such as football, baseball or hockey, she probably reports every score; with volleyball or basketball, summarizing runs or noting lead changes should suffice). In the case of high school sports, the reporter needs to decide (and watch the interaction to judge) whether most of the people joining the liveblog are at the game or following it from afar, and blog accordingly.
Fan reaction during the game helps guide the reporter’s coverage: The fans can identify a huge issue that she has to address in her game coverage. Or the fan discussion can show the reporter which issues have been thoroughly discussed, helping her choose a fresh approach.
In regular beat coverage between games, the sports reporter must monitor athletes’, coaches’ and teams’ social media accounts, where they might offend or apologize to fans, trash-talk upcoming opponents or disclose or discuss injuries. The reporter tweets and blogs about stories she is working on. The reporter shoots brief video clips during interviews to embed later in a story or blog post.
When big news breaks, such as an injury, trade or coach’s firing or hiring, the reporter hustles to be the first to break the story with a swift combination of tweet, news alert, Facebook update, website bulletin, blog post and full-blown story. (The order of these will vary according to the priorities set in your newsroom, but the reporter will understand the order and the importance of moving quickly through all of them.)
The reporter will interact live with the community during the week in one or more of these ways:
- Webcast, possibly with other sports writers, sports bloggers, coaches and/or athletes.
- Live chat with fans (again, possibly with guests, who don’t need to be on-site, so you might bring in a coach or athlete from a team the local team will be opposing soon).
- Combination webcast and live chat with reporter(s) on the webcast and an editor fielding and asking questions from the live chat.
The rhythm of the sports beat is heavily dictated by game schedules (and off-season schedules such as recruiting, drafts, trades and free agents). But breaking news and investigative projects can disrupt that schedule or take over the off-season. The sports reporter adjusts or overhauls her workflow as demanded by hiring, firings, signings and scandals over sex, drugs, recruiting and violence.
Beat reporter’s workflow
Of course, the beat reporter’s workflow varies by beat and by day. Each reporter must shape his own digital-first routine. If you’re a police reporter, Larry Altman’s account of a recent breaking story will help you see how you need to use Twitter on a breaking story. If you have a government beat, you should consider live-tweeting meetings and feeding the tweets into a liveblog. Even in feature beats, live coverage might be important: liveblogging or live-tweeting a festival or entertainment event.
Whatever your beat, your regular rounds should be a mix of traditional checks such as phone calls and in-person visits and digital checks such as monitoring hashtags, official Twitter feeds and Facebook pages and doing Twitter and Google searches. You use a tool such as TweetDeck, HootSuite or Twitter lists to monitor key sources, searches and hashtags relating to your beat. When big stories break, you will tweet and send editors material for news alerts as quickly as you can verify facts.
You crowdsource your stories (most of the time valuing community input more than you fear tipping competitors). On big stories, you might lead a live chat on your site (or on Twitter), or you could curate the community’s social-media conversation on the issue.
Beat reporters should be aggressive in seeking and using databases, either to present interactive answerbases to the community or to visualize data.
Beat reporters need to be smart in using hashtags. If you can use a regular hashtag such as the name of the community you cover, or a combination of a community or state abbreviation and a word that signifies your beat. Or you can promote a particular hashtag for a particular type of story (NewsOK.com has had success promoting #okstorm for severe weather in Oklahoma). Stick with descriptive hashtags that the community might pick up and use rather than branded hashtags. For instance, the New Haven Register will have more success promoting hashtags beginning with “nh” for New Haven than with “nhr.” When news breaks on your beat, note and use any hashtags the public is using to discuss the story.
The beat reporter always needs to think of multiple ways to tell stories: video, maps, source documents, links to your own archived content as well as to other related content in the community (even from competitors).
You should maintain a beatblog where the community can turn for a lively and regular report from your beat. The blog will include links to all of your content, including stories and liveblogs featured elsewhere. It also should include tidbits that will interest only people following your beat topic or community closely, tidbits that often stayed in the notebooks of print reporters.
Your work may be published without editing in a blog or liveblog and certainly on Twitter. Even full stories published online and in print may have minimal editing as your newsroom reworks editing processes and resources. You need to take responsibility for your own work and ensure that your copy is clear and accurate.
In my News University course, Introduction to Reporting: Beat Basics and Beyond, I discuss beat by beat some ways to use digital tools in your reporting routines.
Editor’s workflow
The work of mid-level editors is changing swiftly as newsrooms reorganize and rethink to face digital challenges. I suggest that editors take the lead in reworking your own workflow in consultation with top editors and the staffs you organize. Consider the following issues and questions and how they will shape your work:
- Just as editors in various positions have needed to monitor wires regularly in their work, what social media pages, sources, hashtags and searches do you need to monitor regularly?
- Your questions to staff members will guide their growth and execution of digital journalism: How are you going to crowdsource this story? What data can we gather to tell this story? Can you show that on a map? What are you searching for on Twitter? What hashtag are you using for this story?
- You coach staff members as they try new tools and techniques. If you aren’t familiar with the tool yourself, you learn with them and ask good questions to guide their learning: Where does this fit in your workflow? How will you verify the information you find here? Can you embed this in your blog?
- You need to focus on live coverage of events and breaking news. Though the reporter may post that content live, you will need to edit behind the reporter, polishing and fixing errors. Ask the reporter questions to help fill holes and resolve inconsistencies.
- At the end of your workflow, you may edit content for print. You may edit a longer blog post or liveblog into a print story. You should run the lead and key parts of the story past the reporter for clarity and accuracy.
What else?
I have not covered all the positions in a newsroom. If you’ve blogged about your workflow (or would like to blog about it as a guest blogger here), please add a link in the comments here or email me at sbuttry (at) journalregister.com. If you think I’ve omitted key points in the digital-first workflow, ask questions or fill the holes in your comments.
I’ll be blogging tomorrow about the values of digital-first journalism.
Update: I forgot to include the slides I used for some workshops last week on the digital-first workflow:
I’ll also add a few tweets from an exchange about this post:
I may blog about feature and investigative workflows sometime. But for now, I’ll add a link to the excellent use of Facebook by feature reporter Maryanne Kocsis MacLeod.
September 2014 update: This post originally referred to my work for Digital First Media and thus capitalized Digital First throughout. I have left DFM and thought I should update this. I am still a huge believer in digital-first journalism, and still plan to lead workshops based on the points here, but I thought I should update this post to reflect that I’m talking now about an approach to journalism, not a specific company.
The Buttry Diary 
Excellent post, Steve. Lots of great points. And I agree that you crowdsource without worrying about tipping competitors because there is more value in community input.
My staff has had tons of success crowdsourcing on social networking sites, especially Facebook. When my religion reporter wanted to do a story about Tim Tebow, he posted this on FB. Got 20 responses pretty quickly.
Fans say Tim Tebow gives their children a quality role model. But critics claim the Denver Broncos’ QB is too aggressive with his religious beliefs. The controversy has made Tebow a polarizing figure. Are you rooting for Tebow, or do you just wish he’d go away? Let me know at jhilton@ydr.com or 771-2024. — John
Neat thing about this reporter, John Hilton, is that he came from a paper that did not use social networking tools, where most reporters were not tweeting or posting or blogging. Within a few weeks, John was doing all of these things, plus shooting and editing video and a lot more. Proof that you can teach an “old dog” (he’s a veteran journalist) new tricks. He’s loving all of it, and it’s been an amazing ride to watch him grow and learn.
Anyhow, thanks for sharing and I look forward to your next post. Take care, Buffy
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Great post, Steve, and I hope everyone in our company, as well as industry-wide, reads it — twice. There’s a lot of great information, tips and guidelines. Along those line, and in coordination with my ideaLab work with JRC, I’ve written posts about digital first and using technology in journalism.
“A Reporter with Today’s Tools Should Use Them”: http://bit.ly/pAXupm
“The Digital Draw: Pick a Technology Tool, Any Tool”: http://bit.ly/tnhFRD
“Reporting Live from Sports Games”: http://bit.ly/sPjhfs
In addition, members of my reporting staff have experimented with technology and created tutorials on applying such tools as Storify, Dipity, Umapper, Cover It Live, QR Codes, Google Voice and others: http://bit.ly/cDQeUd
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Thanks for sharing these links, Michelle!
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Some great stuff here – very thought provoking.
My one concern – the immediacy of it all without reflection. I get this vision of reporters tweeting, blogging, videoing – creating this non-stop stream of information. And consequently getting caught up in the moment and losing the ability to think about context and consider the story.
Do readers want a torrent of semi-considered stuff rather than a considered blog post a few hours later when the dust has settled a bit? I know what I’d prefer. Just because you can tweet every half hour, doesn’t mean you have to.
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Thanks for your comment, Jeremy. I blogged about this question recently: http://wp.me/poqp6-1LI
I think the answer is not either/or. As I noted in the description of the workflow, the reporter sitting in the courtroom keeps a notebook handy for tips and story ideas that merit further work. I agree that a reporter’s work should be a mix of immediate reporting and enterprise or reflective writing that takes more time. But daily print reporting a few hours later that tells what happened yesterday hardly counts as reflective.
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As someone who has worked at a wire service, a PM newspaper and a financial news service, as well as a traditional AM daily and now at the St. Paul Pioneer Press, I’m used to covering breaking news, as a reporter and editor.
Steve writes, “daily print reporting a few hours later that tells what happened yesterday hardly counts as reflective.”
If it’s done well, it does. UPI, where I spent 10 years, had three styles of daily reporting (more than three, actually, but this was the general rhythm): In the morning, breaking news — the most recent events — for dailies with afternoon editions. After about 1:30 p.m., lead with the most important information — not necessarily the latest — for AM dailies. A good reporter can be reflective on deadline. Then, for a PM dailies with an early first edition, an “oniter,” take a different, quirky or overlooked angle and develop it.
I supervise court reporters. Like Jeremy, I’m concerned that, by focusing all day on the latest events, we may overlook the most important. Steve’s dictum for print — “A summary, noting that complete coverage is available online, will suffice most days” — as in, “We had a trial, details online” — may shortchange the reader and deprive the reporter of the time needed to report fully, and in perspective, on the day’s events.
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I’m not going to pretend that some reporters and some news organizations won’t make some mistakes balancing immediacy and reflection as they start figuring out this workflow. But let’s be honest: Most non-live daily coverage tells us what happened yesterday, without adding much reflection or enterprise. Reporters described that as deadline work.
I think an approach that provides the what-happened coverage live and selectively provides deeper and more reflective coverage will work when executed well. And I think good reporters and good editors will adjust to the challenges and the workflow.
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“Most non-live daily coverage tells us what happened yesterday, without adding much reflection or enterprise.”
In our current mode, we post to the web as events develop on court stories. For the major ones, the reporters convert their Web posts to print, with additional perspective as needed. That version also gets posted before the copy desk gets it.
If a reporter finds a court case that no one else has, and connects the dots for the reader, I consider that enterprise, on deadline.
We have some problems with immediacy in Minnesota courts, which do not allow cameras in criminal trials, much less tweeting. But we have developed workarounds that allow for quick hits when warranted, as with verdicts and sentences.
And I agree: “an approach that provides the what-happened coverage live and selectively provides deeper and more reflective coverage will work when executed well.”
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Is it possible, and I fully confess that I’m just worrying out loud, that simply the act of live publishing will cause the reporter to miss some things?
Publishing something in real time take a lot of attention — much more than writing in a private notebook. In a reporter’s notebook, the thoughts only need to be coherent to him or her, misspellings are fine, and there’s no pressure to fit the idea within a character limit.
I don’t think live blogging adds a lot of value for most events, but if people want it, then I don’t have any problem with reporters giving it to them per se. But I begin to take issue when doing so would compromise the reflective reporting that I value more highly.
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I’m sure the act of live publishing could cause a reporter to miss some things. I’m sure that, like everything, the new workflow will have a learning curve. I think good reporters can provide live coverage while still noting things that require further reflection and inquiry. I see strong enough engagement on liveblogging for lots of events, so I know it adds value. In some instances, people aren’t very interested (but I’ll bet they’re not interested in the delayed print coverage of those meetings either).
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As much as I embrace new media tools, I fail to see the value of immediacy over accuracy. The people who value the live-blogging of events are, dare I say, the same people who will live blog events. We’re preaching to the converted… it’s blogging for bloggers.
How many people with jobs have the time to check the Twitter feed for court updates on a trial? The people who have jobs that deal with computers and the internet, no? What about the other 80% of the population?
Yes, video and audio and community engagement should be a common weapon in a journalist’s modern arsenal. And I think, Steve, you’re right in that the people who aren’t interested in live-blogging would also not be interested in the delayed print coverage. BUT (big but), for the record — for the benefit of the historic record of events that will lay out the foundation of our history for future generations — the delayed print coverage is infinitely more valuable.
Again, I embrace the journalism revolution and the value of new tools. But isn’t immediacy for immediacy’s sake really, when you get down to it, a mere symptom of the instant gratification impulses that plague western civilizations? Not to get overly philosophical, but I think when we get excited about something just because it’s new and available and fun, we need to reexamine the long-term implications of our actions, and not just the short term benefits. We’re missing the forest for the trees — and we might be burning some trees down through over-fertilization.
We tend to see what’s happening now as a foundation for tomorrow, but the fact is, things are changing so fast we have no idea what tomorrow will bring. We should embrace the present, but remember the implications of our actions because what we do — what every person who posts words on the internet does — will define history.
Thanks for your efforts Steve, I’m behind you. But let’s take a step back and examine the whole picture.
David DesRoches
http://savingethicaljournalism.blogspot.com/
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Thanks for your thoughtful comment, David. Let’s be clear: I never suggested that journalists should value immediacy over accuracy. Accuracy was the first value listed in my blog post on Digital First journalism values, I blogged about whether it’s better to be first or right, and I’ve blogged frequently about accuracy. I’m pleased that one of my most-read blog posts of 2011 was my accuracy checklist. My record on the importance of accuracy is strong and consistent.
As for whether we’re blogging for ourselves, your speculation doesn’t match up with the facts. I know of many trials where liveblogs brought hundreds and even thousands of page views. Yes, people at work tune in to read about the trial. All the time. You think live coverage is just a gimmick? Have you ever watched a sporting event live on television? Or a presidential speech? Or a political convention? Live coverage is news coverage. We can do it and still be accurate.
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Steve, thanks for the response. But again, who are the hundreds or thousands of people visiting live-blogs? These are page views, not uniques, and let’s agree that there is no perfect science in measuring web traffic, as I’ve seen figures vary by the millions depending on who is measuring what.
And there are thousands of bloggers out there, if not millions, so let’s be honest about who is reading these, if there is anyway to be honest about something so ambiguous.
Nobody is going to discredit accuracy, and I didn’t mean to allude that you had. I should be clear, too, about speed, breaking news and live coverage — these things obviously have value. Some things will be covered live, there’s no questions about it. I’m not talking about live coverage of important events. I’m talking about play-by-play accounts of stories that would be better served in one piece — for accuracy’s sake.
Oftentimes breaking news or live blogging has more value for media and news people/junkies than it does for the overall society. If a story must be broken because a storm is pending, or there is an accident or fire or emergency situation, or if timeliness is paramount, then speed is important to society, and not just other news outlets. Otherwise, scooping news or breaking it first has more to do with professional egotism than anything else.
Television has served the live news purpose for years. Many of the tools we’re using now with the internet are actually old, but the context is new, the platform is open to anyone.
Again, speed for its own sake feeds the instant gratification beast. I wish you would address my deeper concerns about implications of misuse or overuse of new tools. I’d love to hear your thoughts on that. A nation of ADHD technophiles does not make for a hopeful future. We may disagree on the value of speed or live-blogging, but I’d like to know how this could affect people’s psychology. We should not exacerbate societal problems, especially inadvertently or through our ignorance. We should elevate society and ourselves, in all we do. What do you think?
David DesRoches
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David, Thanks for your thoughtful response. Your speculation about who is reading liveblogs is kind of interesting, in light of your expressed interest in accuracy. I won’t speculate on who all those people are because I don’t know. I do know this: The questions and comments on several liveblogs that I have seen show that a significant number of people in the community engage with live coverage. If you know that these hundreds or thousands of views come mostly from bloggers, please cite the source of your information.
You lament that “a nation of ADHD technophiles does not make for a hopeful future.” You’d like my thoughts on that, but I’m not sure I understand your point. Traditional journalism provides summarized accounts of news events. Liveblogs provide detailed extended accounts. Who’s catering to ADHD?
I’m not saying that every aspect of digital journalism is an improvement. I think we have a lot to improve still. But I have more confidence than you to in journalism and in the public to continue improving.
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Point taken, Steve, I appreciate you taking the time to engage with me in this conversation. My speculation is just that, a speculation. It’s an opinion, and one that accurately reflects my thoughts. I’ve never claimed to know the facts about who reads liveblogs, and it’s a nitpicky argument that I’ll be happy to avoid.
You probably would know better than me who is reading liveblogs. I’m not a sociologist or psychologist or data analyst, so I have no special insight. I do study people’s behavior, if only because I deal with people so much.
In “Politics at the Margin,” the author Susan Herbst discusses the readership of “The Masses,” which was a fairly radical magazine during its time in the early 20th Century. Herbst notes that it was widely agreed that, aside from a few business and political elites, the only people who read the magazine were people who agreed with its editorial slant. Such is the case, I believe, with many news outlets today — conservatives watch FOX news, liberals watch MSNBC, whatever.
In a study by professors Azi Lev-On and Bernard Manin called “Happy Accidents,” the pair describes online interactions this way: “It is fairly well established by now that intentionality drives segmentation and generates few, if any, contacts with dissimilar people. When users efficiently choose their communicative environment, they tend to build echo chambers as drivers of homogeneity become then dominant.”
They’re talking about the “communicative environment” and not content necessarily. So it appears that both content and its packaging affect how people interact online. That said, it seems feasible to me that the only people reading liveblogs are either lovebloggers or news junkies.
Does this population represent a majority of society? I don’t think so, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have value. It absolutely has value, but for a small number of people. How these people transfer that value to the broader society is perhaps a more important question.
I work in a newsroom that uses modern and traditional tools. We were lucky to have two reporters cover a local political debate — one of us live-tweeted the debate while the other took detailed notes. The effect was superb. Certainly one person can do both tasks, but the value of each is stifled because attention is split in two. When it comes down to it, the long-form story is infinitely more valuable because it’s the document of record. It should not suffer because of tweeting or liveblogging.
I’m not necessarily talking about accuracy here, but quality of information. You can tweet and write a story later and be 100% accurate, but what if there are holes in your story that are there solely because your attention was split?
My point is this: Nothing should distract a reporter from doing her primary job — accurately informing the public with as much important information as possible. Not tweeting, not texting, not liveblogging, not phone calls, not daydreams, nothing.
The value to the greater community trumps value to a niche group of people, at least when it comes to news stories. There may be exceptions, but they are rare, in my opinion.
Perhaps a good topic for discussion would be to ask people, who is reading and interacting on liveblogs, and what is its value to the broader society? Or, how is value transferred from the liveblogging community to the broader society?
David DesRoches
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If I can jump back in…
Let’s assume for a second that a lot of people watch liveblogs. It still doesn’t follow that journalists should be liveblogging.
The journalist’s goal, I think, should be to bring the most useful information to the greatest number of people.
Sometimes, providing that information immediately affects it’s usefulness (e.g. when the hurricane’s coming or when you don’t want to be the last person in town to know the local baseball score).
But in many cases, users might want the information now, even though getting it now doesn’t affect its usefulness (i.e. how they can act on it)—and may actually lessen its usefulness if it causes the journalist misses something important. In these cases, I think the journalists should force the users to wait a bit.
To use your example of the jury trial, does it really matter whether the information gets out immediately or as a single online story three hours later? But what happens if the reporter, because he or she is tweeting, misses a subtle cue from the judge to the jury that might have influenced them unduly. That would be a BFD.
Your hope that “good reporters can provide live coverage while still noting things that require further reflection and inquiry” doesn’t really address the issue so much as brush it aside.
Also, while it’s true that people not interested in the liveblog are likely also not interested in the delayed coverage, those people aren’t who matter—you were almost never reaching them anyway. The people who matter are the ones who want the coverage. And if they want it live, they’ll likely still want it a few hours later, so the journalist’s reach won’t be reduced but his information quality will be increased, thereby increasing his total impact.
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Great post! Thank you so much Steve.
I’ve written two posts on my blog that focus on long formats (and not so much on breaking news or ‘live’ news) and why we must change the way we present our storytelling on digital devices.
You can find both articles here:
http://digital-distribution.org/2011/07/03/narratives-for-digital-distribution/
(or here an edited version of the article on Nieman Storyboard http://www.niemanstoryboard.org/2011/09/08/story-interrupted-why-we-need-new-approaches-to-digital-narrative/ )
And here:
http://digital-distribution.org/2011/12/05/how-to-produce-narratives-for-digital-distribution/
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Thanks for the links, Pedro! I will take a look.
Steve
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Steve, how would you introduce these concepts to a beginning news writing class, where most of the students aren’t j majors?
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I think you still should cover the notion of writing for digital platforms first, because whatever these students to, digital will be the primary platforms. I’d have them do a blog for class and one assignment would be to liveblog or live-tweet an event (skills also helpful in PR and other non-journalism writing pursuits).
Are you the same Bill Norton who worked for the Kansas City Star when I was there many years ago?
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Steve,
Thanks for the ideas. I’ll keep reading and trying things.
And yes, I am that Bill Norton. Now at Bethel University in St. Paul, Minn., and one of two faculty trying to sustain a relatively new major at an evangelical Christian school. A blessing and a challenge.
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Good luck in your pursuits, Bill! I was just in the Twin Cities (our only grandchild lives in Edina). Also planning a return visit in February (when granddaughter #2 is scheduled to debut) for a visit to the Pioneer Press newsroom.
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Steve:
Lookiong forward to your arrival in St. Paul.
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So am I.
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It seems to me that the biggest audience and advertising potential is in putting multiple video and live streaming to the homepages: local/hyper-local breaking news, previews of coming events, human interest briefs, new business openings, raw dramatic emergency and odd events, person-on-the-street spot videos by roaming reporters and videographers. If it moves, it leads. Fifteen seconds, thirty seconds, max one minute. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Keep our audience hungry for more. Twitter could support that. Television journalism would be left gasping in the dust.
Moving pictures are king. Reading, except for in-depth, is SO 20th century.
BIG question: how do we get the resources to get half-way decent video equipment into the hands of every reporter? Do we have enough reporters to cover all the beats for this kind of total local immersion?
Second BIG question: what one, reliable hosting platform can we use across every site to present this onslaught of movement, sound, and color? YouTube? Can we get the kind of metrics on that so we could sell advertising? Our own unique platform? (Be careful of using clumsy 3rd party providers! Like a bad nanny, they keep failing us over and over again.)
Third question: how fast can we move on this and get vital resources working? If we don’t, someone else will and they’ll do it quickly. Are we willing to take those risks or will someone else not only eat our lunch, but our dinner and creme brulee as well.
(Disclaimer: I am not a videographer, visual journalist or even an eager reporter. The last digital video editor I used was something like Premiere 2.0 back in the Bronze Age. I’m just a lowly, lowly web content producer, 40 miles east of the Los Angeles megalopolis — burning, boiling and broiling to see Digital First go beyond, beyond, beyond … )
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Thanks for your comment and for these good questions, Chris. I’ll address them but first: In a Digital First newsroom, a web content producer is not lowly.
First question: At JRC, John Paton equipped all the reporters with Flip cameras and video training and video streams went from 100K a month to about 2 million. Obviously Flip cameras are no longer available and supplying video cameras to every reporter at MediaNews would be more expensive. But yes, clearly, providing good equipment is essential for a Digital First newsroom and will be a priority.
Second half of first question: I don’t think we have enough reporters to cover all possible beats. I am confident that the Digital First approach will allow us to put more people on the streets in local communities. But I think success also lies in partnering with other media and with local bloggers. We don’t have to cover everything ourselves.
Second question: I’m no expert in platforms. I trust that my colleagues who are will provide us with the best platforms to execute a strong Digital First strategy.
Third question: I think you’ll see us moving pretty quickly.
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Steve, I couldn’t be happier than to hear our reporters will have access to video cams of any kind!
I concede that “covering “all beats beats” is a bit ambitious, if not hyperbolic on my part. But the serious issues I see in the newsroom every day is that reporters are being pulled in too many directions and that makes hyper local reporting thin and spotty at best. At worst it makes coverage anemic and not worth the Tweet that quides us to it.
I can’t wait to work with multiple video iclusions, the more the merrier, the happier the party!
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[…] charge, and focusing on the web first and the paper second. Steve Buttry of Digital First Media has a good overview of what this means in practice — and some writers at the NYT like Brian Stelter are already doing […]
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I get it Steve, and I see the value, but it all comes at a cost – whether it be the equipment, the time spent on digital that isn’t spent on print, the wear and tear on workers who must master more disciplines and juggle them all. Where is the payoff? Where is the revenue to justify all of the costs? Is it more advertising that is drawn to the sites and social media by the vibrant content? If so, is that happening now where news companies are producing like this? Or, to a degree, are we going on blind faith that it will materialize?
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Here’s the payoff, Scott: In 2011, Journal Register Co. (one of two companies operated by Digital First Media) will have a greater increase in our digital revenue than the decrease in print revenue. Yes, this is a proven growth strategy. And we’re just getting started.
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I’m a multi-platform business journalist, so the events, in terms of meetings, that are available for me to live-tweet are few and far between. When they exist, however, I feel like the tweets become my notepad. I hardly need to write anything down on paper. (ex: http://storify.com/laurenboyer/the-yorktowne-hotel-goes-to-sheriff-s-sale)
To increase my digital and face time with the community, I’ve been trying to get out of the office every so often and use the whole coffee shop newsroom model to tweet things like this (http://www.yorkblog.com/biz/2011/10/13/mobile-reporting-from-the-papertown-dairy-bar-restaurant-in-spring-grove-where-should-i-visit-next/) around the community.
My editor recently brought up the possibility of doing live chats with people in the business world whose advice might draw folks to our site, like real estate professionals and stock brokers.
Because my beat lacks realtime events, I feel like I need to take charge and create them myself. But it’s been an experiment trying to strike a balance between interacting outside the office while finishing stories for daily publication.
Do you any suggestions for ways, as a business reporter, I can increase my digital presence?
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Thanks for the links and the response, Lauren. Actually, I think a business beat includes some real-time events: annual meetings, product rollouts, press conferences, Black Friday shopping. Data analysis and visualization also is important for business reporting. I agree that live chats play a role. Curation of social media also should play a role in business reporting. A business reporter should have a beatblog. I cover this in more detail in the News U course I linked above. But I may blog about it someday as well. And I invite any business reporters who are working a Digital First approach to share links to their blogs here.
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Steve: As much as anyone, I get that this is the required workflow for journalists in the digital-first age. I do worry, though, that by demanding this you’re courting quick burnout of reporters. Perhaps because I now work at a university, my thoughts on reading this turned to the need for every reporter to have an assistant to help them juggle and execute all these tasks. Journalism-program interns! (This actually could be a nice apprenticeship opportunity.)
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Steve, thanks for your comment and for raising an important issue. But I have to say this: You could say the same thing for traditional reporting, and I saw a lot of reporters burn out during my career. It’s always been a demanding job, and I don’t think Digital First reporting is any less demanding. I think and hope that the new challenges will be more invigorating than exhausting in the short term. Over the long haul, reporters will need to multi-task effectively to stay efficient and fresh. If some of them burn out, that will be a familiar situation, not something new.
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and in addition, by harnessing the power of your local community, you can actually gather more information with less boots on the ground
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Or gather even more information with the same number of boots on the ground.
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[…] How a Digital First approach guides a journalist’s work […]
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[…] Comments « How a Digital First approach guides a journalist’s work […]
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[…] is a pretty detailed explanation of what “Digital First” really means for a reporter or editor. His piece is interesting because it lays out the nuts and bolts of what a journalist’s workday might look […]
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[…] is the third in a series of posts about Digital First journalism. I wrote earlier about how we work and what we value. Tomorrow I will address leading a Digital First newsroom. 0.000000 0.000000 […]
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[…] How a Digital First approach guides a journalist’s work […]
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[…] INTERESSANTE post de Steve Buttry sobre o que quer dizer “online primeiro”: Whatever your job, you need […]
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[…] is the fourth post in a series this week on Digital First journalism. Earlier posts addressed the workflow, values and thinking of Digital First journalists. Tomorrow I will write on why Digital First […]
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[…] on his blog this week detailing some of the practical changes of this approach, starting with how it would affect the ways a court reporter, photographer or sports reporter might do the job. (Dare I say this might be the first time anyone has written something suggesting a link in any way […]
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Hi Steve
I would love to see a post in which you get into more specifics about a beatblog. Who should have them? How would they start one? What are some good examples of beatblogs within Digital First? Thanks!
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[…] week’s series of blog posts about Digital First journalism. The previous posts covered the workflow, values and thinking of Digital First journalists and leading a Digital First […]
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Steve, thanks for the post. It’s exciting in a way that we can embody a sort of “wild west” mentality here. And I say wild west because other than what you’ve outlined in your post…”there are no rules.” But, this is going to be a cultural change and with that we’ll need to see strong examples from the leaders in each of our newsrooms. I am happy that the change is from the top down. I am hoping it filters down effectively. Thanks again and see you on your next newsroom tour.
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I’m going to post this series as a single pdf, including comments. If you’d rather not have your comment included, please let me know: stephenbuttry (at) gmail.com.
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[…] How a Digital First approach guides a journalist’s work […]
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Thanks for such a detailed post Steve. You have managed to capture both the challenge and the enormous opportunity that digital tools bring to journalism in a really thought provoking way.
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Thanks for the kind words, Nick.
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[…] notable posts of the year were a series I wrote the week before Christmas, explaining aspects of Digital First journalism. The piece on the workflow of a Digital First journalist became my second most-read blog post ever […]
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[…] industry. (If you’re a journalist and haven’t read them I highly recommend you do so: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 […]
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[…] I’ll elaborate on them, but need to acknowledge up front that I’m not involved directly with statehouse coverage now, so some statehouse editors and reporters could certainly explain any or all of these points better than I could. This continues the discussion I started last month with a post on the workflow of a Digital First journalist. […]
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[…] I wrote about how a Digital First approach changes a journalist’s work, people asked for more […]
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[…] en el primer post de la serie –“How a Digital First approach guides a journalist’s work”– explica Buttry ampliamente las prioridades y procesos de trabajo a que debe enfrentarse el […]
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[…] neither. It just makes sense. Buttry outlines a typical workflow for various reporters on his blog. This includes live-blogging, use of Twitter, and the posting of photos and videos (depending on […]
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[…] networks with community bloggers, encouraging the community to participate in conversation and linking to sources with relevant information. Furthermore, it is important for rookie journalists to emulate the qualities exhibited by Digital […]
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[…] digitales de los medios impresos sino que a todos los departamentos. Desde el avisaje hasta la cobertura periodística necesitan ser actualizadas con […]
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[…] On his blog, The Buttry Diary, Steve Buttry, Director of Community Engagement & Social Media for Digital First Media, discusses how he encourages the new generation of journalists to proceed as part of Digital First. […]
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[…] and have started to integrate social media into their reporting. What Steve Buttry suggests in his blog is that journalists write for the online version and social media before the actual paper. His […]
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[…] Digital First workflow, noon Tuesday (will add live-chat links for this and other workshops later). […]
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[…] How a Digital First approach guides a journalist’s work […]
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[…] into the full work of a reporter in my earlier posts that addressed the work of reporters covering courts, sports, statehouses and other beats. Other helpful resources would be the BeatBlogging website (no longer […]
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[…] archival content has lasting value. My posts from last year on how a Digital First approach guides a journalist’s work and on different revenue sources for news organizations both had more than 500 views last month, […]
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I respect Steve Yelvington but his quote in this case (perhaps out of context) is meaningless and even ridiculous. “Making the future your first priority.” That’s not possible for the court reporter or the sports reporter or the “visual journalist.” If anything you are asking them to produce content in the present and get it plugged into a distribution system ASAP, with no mention to speak of as to how to leverage platforms beyond Twitter.
If anything, the immediacy of what you’re suggesting invokes legmen and rewrite in the old days—days I actually lived through. It also harkens back to multiple editions all day long. Is there a difference? Yes: you are also asking reporters to be sound engineers, videographers, and photographers while they’re busy reporting, re-writing, and everything else. And bloggers.
Did I miss anything?
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[…] For a group of AP digital managers, I will talk about thinking and working Digital First. […]
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[…] Posted on February 23, 2012 by karimarie90 The following post is a reaction to the story, https://stevebuttry.wordpress.com/2011/12/19/how-a-digital-first-approach-guides-a-journalists-work/ […]
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[…] Editor and Publisher Nanya Friend and Managing Editor Brad McElhinny began leading a digital transition in their newsroom. They invited me back for another workshop in February on the Digital First workflow. […]
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[…] a digital-first journalist. We will discuss how to think and work like a digital-first journalist. Here are the slides for that […]
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[…] How a Digital First approach guides a journalist’s work […]
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[…] to the web (and Twitter and text alerts) and turn your attention to the print story. Or develop a Digital First workflow that feeds digital platforms by liveblogging and live-tweeting and also streamlines work for the […]
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[…] the afternoon, I’ll be discussing thinking and working Digital First with another Heritage Media […]
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[…] W’s pieces, posts on new revenue streams for news organizations, tightening your copy and the Digital First workflow combined for more than 1,000 views last month (and several others had more than 100 views […]
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[…] recommend that student media adopt a digital-first approach as quickly as possible. If you’re not digital-first yet, you should make the transition during […]
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[…] for my keynote address, my first thought was that I wouldn’t have much time to tell you about Digital First journalism and my company’s vision for the future of our profession. But we are, after all, meeting in […]
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[…] more on these areas of moving to digital first journalism: How a Digital First approach guides a journalist’s work, by Steve […]
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[…] How a Digital First approach guides a journalist’s work […]
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[…] How a Digital First approach guides a journalist’s work […]
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[…] in Saratoga Springs today. Much of the workshop will be based on my earlier blog posts on working and thinking digital-first and on leading a digital-first newsroom. Here are my slides for the […]
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[…] I’ve been suggesting new ways for Digital First journalists to work, I’ve been aware that my advice for copy desks has been incomplete. I made some suggestions […]
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[…] search traffic and was actually my top post of the year), revenue ideas for the news business and how a Digital First journalist should work. Five other posts from previous years topped 2,000 views each this […]
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[…] editor needs to aggressively lead the transformation to Digital First priorities and culture. In your words and actions, you need to show that your newsroom’s top priority is […]
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[…] also led some workshops Friday at JLMC. I discussed thinking and working digital-first and how student media need to change to a digital-first outlook. Here are the slides I used (though […]
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[…] How a Digital First approach guides a journalist’s work […]
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[…] My most-viewed post that I think people actually read is about ideas for new revenue streams for newspapers. It has more than 15,000 views. My only other post with more than 10,000 views is on how a Digital First journalist works. […]
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[…] here both to the reporter’s questions and to editors who need to lead reporters like this to working and thinking Digital First. This will continue both my #twutorial and advice for editors […]
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[…] How a Digital First approach guides a journalist’s work […]
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[…] news audience from scratch (NiemanLab) -Read Inside Billy Penn with CEO Jim Brady (AJR) -Read How a digital-first workflow guides a reporter’s work by Steve Buttry -Read 10 ways to think like a digital journalist by Steve Buttry -Read NPR’s […]
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[…] news audience from scratch (NiemanLab) -Read Inside Billy Penn with CEO Jim Brady (AJR) -Read How a digital-first workflow guides a reporter’s work by Steve Buttry -Read 10 ways to think like a digital journalist by Steve Buttry -Read NPR’s […]
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[…] news audience from scratch (NiemanLab) -Read Inside Billy Penn with CEO Jim Brady (AJR) -Read How a digital-first workflow guides a reporter’s work by Steve Buttry -Read 10 ways to think like a digital journalist by Steve Buttry -Read NPR’s […]
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