An important aspect of unbolting your newsroom from print is working on a digital schedule rather than a print schedule.
The morning newspaper’s evening deadlines result in most reporters turning in their stories in the evening as the print deadlines approach. The “digital-first” version of that tends to mean posting the stories online in the evening after they’re edited, rather than the late-night or early-morning web dump that used to be standard.
But your digital audience is engaged during the workday. That’s when you should be covering the day’s news. In future posts about Project Unbolt, I’ll address live coverage of events. And most newsrooms understand now that we have to cover breaking news online as it unfolds. But we haven’t done much with providing timely coverage of the routine daily stories.
On lots of beats, most daily stories aren’t events and aren’t really breaking news. They’re other types of stories: (more…)
The Buttry Diary 