Manage your changing workload
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The document discusses strategies for managing changing workloads in newsrooms, emphasizing the need to reassess priorities and analyze tasks to improve efficiency. Key techniques include 'unbolting' digital operations from traditional print processes, enhancing live coverage and engagement through liveblogging, and adapting content for digital platforms. The goal is to increase digital audience and revenue while fostering stronger community connections and more effective storytelling.
Manage your changing workload
- 1. Manage Your Changing Workload Steve Buttry New York Press Association September 19, 2014 #NYPA14
- 2. Read more about it • stevebuttry.wordpress.com • slideshare.net/stevebuttry • @stevebuttry • stephenbuttry@gmail.com
- 3. Who’s in the room? • Publishers? • Top editors? • Other editors? • Reporters? • Visual journalists? • Digital specialists? • Others?
- 5. What can you stop doing? • Spell out your priorities (yours & the organization’s) • Analyze your workload • What doesn’t match?
- 6. What can you stop doing? • Can you just stop doing it? • Do you need permission? Then make your case? • Can you do less of it? • Is someone else doing? Link or partner • Is free or cheap alternative available? • Can you accept a lower standard?
- 7. What can you transform? • Did your newsroom “bolt” digital operations onto your print processes & duties? • Is digital-first operation more efficient? • Should you “unbolt”?
- 8. Why “unbolt”? • Increase digital content • Increase digital audience • Increase digital revenue • Digital is the future • Work more efficiently
- 9. Unbolt your newsroom • News coverage & storytelling • Processes • Engagement • Planning & management • Mobile • Standards
- 10. Unbolting news coverage • Breaking news • Event coverage • Daily coverage • Enterprise coverage
- 11. Breaking news • Breaking news team completely independent of print product, deadlines • Publish as soon as we verify • Update frequently • Liveblog big, breaking stories • Tweet, Tout & update from scene
- 12. Event coverage Livetweet & liveblog everything: • Sports events • Meetings • Trials • Festivals • Press conferences • Need a compelling reason not to
- 13. Live coverage • New Haven Register more than quadrupled engagement minutes by liveblogging more events • Berkshire Eagle murder trial: 25K engagement hours
- 14. Gettysburg engagement • More than 1,000 uniques daily, peak of 6,462 • 5 days > 2K page views, peak of 7,728 • 5 days > 35K engagement minutes, peak of 96K+
- 15. Why to liveblog • Immediacy • News value • Storytelling • Traffic, revenue, sponsorships • Community engagement, loyalty • Interactivity • Saving time
- 16. Liveblogging situations • Breaking story • Meeting • Event (festival, march, concert, trial) • Daylong (Election Day, weather) • Sporting event (can use fans, bloggers, HS journos) • Live chat
- 17. Liveblogging prep • Get names (confirm spelling), titles in advance (ask, get program, etc.) • Set scene, saying what you’re covering & that you’re live-tweeting • Describe your circumstances, vantage point: at event, watching on TV, curating tweets
- 18. Tips, techniques • Short, frequent takes • Space isn’t an issue; engagement is • Liveblog becomes notebook for story • Consider links, polls, photos, audio, video • Use hashtag • Promote live & replays • OK to step away for question, video, etc.
- 19. Liveblogging issues • Accuracy (stress verification, ask questions, seek links & documentation, correct quickly and candidly) • Rough copy • Sports credentials, court access • Multi-tasking • Learning curve
- 20. Live-tweeting tips • Don’t transcribe; observe & report • In sports, mix play-by-play & commentary • Use hashtag (& check & engage) • OK to pause for checking facts, names • Note significant pause (halftime, lunch) • Fun interludes, exchanges, anecdotes • Check facts before you hit “tweet”
- 22. Feeding liveblog into site • Embed in story on your site (w/ intro) • Feed in your staff members • Feed in (and use) hashtag • Police and look for spam, mischief • Remember to turn it off • Can you livestream video (yours or from event organizer)?
- 23. Sponsoring liveblog • Banner ad on liveblog page • Work ad unit into embed frame • Insert clearly labeled ads in flow • Thank sponsor
- 25. From live to print • Will a brief suffice (plugging live coverage?) • A summary story, shorter than you’ve been doing? • Reporter can write faster • Bring back “rewrite” editor? • Should print coverage look ahead?
- 26. Routine daily news • Setting early deadlines (11 a.m., 2 p.m.) • Starting work earlier • Write routine stories as they unfold, as we do w/ breaking stories (initial post followed by updates)
- 27. Unbolting from Sunday story • Plan enterprise stories for digital platforms (crowdsourcing, data, social, video, photo, interactive, engaging) • Publish for digital audience (during work week) • Sunday story (if any) comes second
- 30. Five Satins, unbolted • Story published online Monday • Text story twice as long online (60” in print) • Loaded with links • Videos • Audio clips • Use Sunday story for more engagement
- 31. Can you do more? Commissioned obituaries: • Offer reported life-story obits • Family commissions writer/videographer • More revenue for journo jobs • More satisfied customers • Not just obits: retirement, anniversaries, graduations, what else?
- 32. Your ideas • How can you do more & make revenue that gives you more staff time, not less? • What can you stop doing (or do less frequently or more efficiently)? • How are you working more efficiently?