Slides for WAN IFRA Newsroom Summit panel

on culture change October 13 2014

Planet Internet, 2008 ● Alive with discovery and exploration ● Home to nearly 187m websites - 31.5m of which sprang

to life in that year ● 133m blogs, and 900,000 new posts published every

day ● 100m active Facebook users● More than 3m tweets sent every day ● More than 3m photos on Flickr ● 15 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every

minute of the day in 2008

Planet Newsroom, 2008● Focused on a single platform● Working towards rigidly set deadlines● Enslaved to historic design, production and distribution

methods● Holding back news to fit a schedule, or page space ● Watching company revenue charts dive floor wards ● Sending reporters to sit in court ALL DAY to file a 350 word

lead, published the next day...● …oblivious as to how many people read said court report● Believing print is king, while fact-checking via Google

The fact we still discuss whether print and digital need to slug it out for

supremacy is a blocker for change; it means we are still only thinking in terms

of platforms, not audience and user demands.

We have to get past this - and fast

Beating the blockers● Build your business around a digital-first, audience-foremost newsroom● Provide engaging content, when your audience wants it● Be accessible - operationally, via platforms and culturally in how you

engage and interact ● Experiment, collaborate, innovate ● Be committed to engagement with communities ● Understand and anticipate what audience demands● Embrace social media - it’s your communication system, newswire,

distribution platform, contacts book, playground. Also your judge and jury● Innovation is not restricted to the newsroom - what’s your system for

managing ideas?

Trinity Mirror’s Newsroom 3.1 model

Workflows built around audience data Multi-platform: Print, desktop, mobile web, app, tablet, e-newsletter, social media Digital-first, and responsiveNo deadline - only audience spikes and streams Deeply informed by analytics Allowed to fail - with an understanding we learn from failure

When it comes to audience we want local - although it’s great that we also have global reach with our brands - we want retained, and we want engaged. These are not mutually exclusive goals.

Quick wins for newsroom leaders ● Positive results win hearts and minds better than any explanation

of strategy● Share the knowledge - training is the lifeblood of a digital

newsroom and no one should feel left behind● Put real-time analytics at the heart of the newsroom● Know the audience spikes - staff accordingly ● Ensure your newsroom knows an active, engaging social media

presence expected, not requested ● If something doesn’t work, learn from it, move on● Be the biggest exponent of digital in your newsroom● Smash any lingering ‘them and us’ mentality between digital and

print teams

Alison GowEditor, Digital InnovationTrinity Mirror Regionals

Twitter: @alisongow