I offer mostly curation, rather than fresh commentary, on the New York Times’ move from a daily page-one meeting to a daily meeting focused on digital platforms:
Poynter’s Ben Mullin explains the change, including Executive Editor Dean Baquet’s memo to the Times staff.
Mathew Ingram of GigaOm has a thoughtful commentary on the change, including how overdue it is.
I blogged about newsroom meetings last year when Margaret Sullivan reported the first steps toward a digital focus in the morning meeting.
I blogged some advice on leading newsroom meetings in 2013.
Changing newsroom meetings is hard. As I noted yesterday, I was not successful in changing meetings as thoroughly as I wanted when I was editor of the Cedar Rapids Gazette.
I don’t say this to criticize Baquet or the Times, just to note how deeply entrenched meetings are in a newsroom culture and how hard it is to change them: The Times Innovation report, recommending a digital focus to the meetings, was completed last March. The change is now being implemented 11 months later. Of course, many other changes recommended in the report have already being implemented.
I’m not banging on the Times for taking 11 months to change its morning meeting, just saying this is a big and difficult change. I wish Baquet and the Times well in executing this change and in using it to continue culture change in the newsroom.
[…] Last month, I linked to his post about the New York Times’ effort to focus on digital platforms in its daily meetings. […]
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[…] months later, I praised the Times when it actually adopted a digital-first meeting. I did note in the post how long it took the Baquet to accomplish that, but specifically said I […]
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