What’s that rumble? Thunderdome, no longer in the distance

Filling one of Thunderdome’s conference rooms for a Thursday meeting (clockwise): Robyn Tomlin, back to camera, Mark Lewis, Julie Westfall, Karen Workman, Chris March, Jim Brady, Mandy Jenkins, Angi Carter, Ryan Teague Beckwith and my empty cupcake wrapper.

Thunderdome is happening, Baby!

I was in our Thunderdome newsroom this week, and we filled a conference room with journalists and creative energy. Our new curation team was working on a long-term project and some daily work. New politics channel manager Ryan Teague Beckwith was brainstorming convention and campaign coverage with the curation team. Thunderdome Editor Robyn Tomlin was interviewing job candidates. We ate too much cheesecake, cupcakes and gourmet chocolates. Digital First Editor-in-Chief Jim Brady and I told funny stories about embarrassing things we’d done. This is feeling like a newsroom.

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A quiz to teach journalists about plagiarism and attribution

The Connecticut newsrooms of Digital First Media have dealt with two instances of plagiarism in recent months.

After the first incident, we encouraged staff members to read my blog posts about attribution and cheating. After the second, Matt DeRienzo, our Connecticut group editor, suggested a quiz to ensure that staff members understand what plagiarism is and how to attribute their research. (After all, plagiarism generally starts with good research; the problem is the failure to attribute.) I developed the questions and Chris March set the quiz up. Matt made sure that every journalist in our Connecticut newsrooms took the quiz, and he discussed the results with them.

We thought the plagiarism and attribution quiz would accomplish several things:

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Leading a digital-first newsroom

Digital-first editors are caught in transition.

Many are longtime print editors. However much they have been embracing and resisting the digital transformation the past couple decades (and most of us have been doing some of both), they understand now that the future is digital and they want to help lead that newsroom of the future. Even the editors who are digital natives who’ve worked more online than in print are caught in this transition because they are leading staffs through the transition.

Don’t look at the suggestions here as an exact checklist for the digital-first editor. We want editors who don’t need checklists, who find creative solutions for their newsrooms. The staff dynamic, size and abilities, the community’s needs and the editor’s own strengths, weaknesses and creativity will determine the right leadership approach for each newsroom. And the challenges and opportunities for each newsroom are unique, at least in their details, and leadership must respond to them with solutions that are unique, at least in their details.

Don’t look at this checklist as a yardstick by which to measure the success or failings of a particular editor. Perhaps some editor excels in all of these areas (I wouldn’t, if I were still leading a newsroom), but that would be a rare editor.

View these as my suggestions for digital-first editors trying to meet the challenges and opportunities this transition:

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Crowdsourcing Hurricane Irene recovery map in Connecticut

Following up on the story of Lon Seidman’s anger about utility response to the power outages in Connecticut:

• New Haven Register reporter Luther Turmelle has written a story about Seidman’s suggestions for improving the power company’s customer service.
• The Register is asking people when their power was restored, how long they were out of power and where they live for a crowdsourced map showing when and where power is restored. The first 20 minutes after the survey went online, we had 120 responses. Kudos to Chris March for developing the survey and map.

These are great examples of community engagement in the continuing Journal Register Co. coverage of the hurricane recovery.

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