Three signs your newsroom isn’t ready to cross the digital divide
According to Michele McLellan of Knight Digital Media Center:
1. The staff still reports to an assignment desk that is focused on print […].
2. News meetings focus on top news for the next day’s paper and meeting times reflect print. […]
3. The top newsroom executives - say the Editor and Managing Editor(s) - are all print veterans […].
I would only change “isn’t ready” to “hasn’t.” Whether or not a publisher is ready or not to “cross the digital divide” has as much to do with knowing what institutional changes need to be made, as having the real inclination to do them.
Scary to think how many newspapers are still set up this way.
While we’re on the topic, I have a couple more. Some of these, I guess, would be considered corollaries:
4. Your print CMS is separate from your digital CMS.
5. Reporters are not trained or encouraged to use social media or blog.
6. The web staff does not have control of the website’s content.
7. The web staff focuses primarily on production, not creating original content.
8. There are more people on your janitorial staff than on your web staff.
Notes
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