The Evolving Newsroom

If you've ever wondered how many trees will be sacrificed to keep you in newspapers during your lifetime, wonder no more.

National Geographic have come up with a nifty multimedia feature called Human Footprint, which lets you see how much you use of given commodities in a lifetime. You can see a lifetime's worth of milk bottles, the eggs and potatoes you'll eat, the petrol you'll use. Each comes with some useful comparators to help give perspective.













It turns out I'll be responsible for 220-odd trees getting pulped so I can read the paper each day, although I'm not too sure what to do with that piece of information just yet. There's a 'behind-the-scenes' video about what happens to all those newspapers after they go in the bin. At least I think that's what it's about, the video lapsed into a weird staccato when I tried to watch it - that'll be my local broadband infrastructure straining at the seams again. Sigh.

Viewing problems aside, the interactive feature is nicely done and worth a look.

The ever-readable Paul Bradshaw kicked off a series on online journalism basics recently with the importance of brevity - both for writing and for multimedia.

It's a good point that can't be made too often so here it comes again - as succinctly articulated by Paul:

• The web is different. It is not print, it is not television, it is not radio. So why write content for the web in the same way that you might write for a newspaper or a news broadcast?
  

• Shorter articles tend to work better online because most people struggle to read long documents on screen, or find scrolling too much hassle if they’re looking for something specific or succinct.
  

• Within the article itself, paragraphs should be succinct. Stick to one concept per paragraph. Once you’ve made your point, move on to the next par.
  

• Brevity is equally important when producing multimedia material. For the medium that brought us YouTube, anything over three minutes is too long.
  

• Brevity works well online because it allows for more effective distribution: others can link to the specific element they are commenting on, or even embed it on their site.

• What’s more, it provides the raw material for further journalism: a user might decide to re-edit the material to provide a different narrative; or mash it up with maps or databases; or they might incorporate it into further investigation into a particular issue - all of which further distributes your good name, and provides further material for you to build on.

Anecdotally, I have been hearing more about reporters putting up their hands to go over to the digital desk, which is heartening, and not a bit surprising given the doom hanging over the future of print and the fact that online is so much fun.

Also starting to see more posts along the lines of this one from Melissa Worden, in which she notes the online desk can get a bit cliquey in some newsrooms and hard for others to break into.

It's a good point for newsroom change agents to be aware of: make sure that once you've explained how great online is, and given people a taste of it, that they can actually do some of it when they walk out of the training room and go back on the floor.

I like Melissa's point about sharing the toys. She's absolutely right. Ultimately, we want to get useful kit into as many people's hands at possible. Yes, some people will be better at some things than others - maybe audio, maybe visuals, maybe graphics, maybe Flash. That's all good. If you don't give people a chance, you'll never realise the talent you're sitting on.

While you're at it, why not give everyone a point and shoot video/camera/writing tool like an N95 or JasJam or HTC Tytn and show them how to upload, tag, assign categories, write abstracts etc. Give them a bit of time once a week to play and work on stories that need a bit of technical stretching. Make sure they know how to use the CMS and the appropriate workflow - who signs off on what. Then sit back and watch morning news conferences get more interesting.