Commenting on my post about the Newspaper Association of America sounding out of touch with reality, GateHouse Media digital publishing chief Howard Owens says: Gannett's Information Center model, unveiled in 2006, is "one of the true success stories in driving online audience for newspapers, yet it gets ridiculed on this blog whenever the subject comes up. There's a lot about the Info Center to admire and learn from (and some mistakes, too). There's a lot of great experiments in the vein of CincyMoms that is worth copying throughout the industry, but all I catch here is flak for people like Jennifer Carroll, who actually had the courage to push through some real change rather than stand pat in the face of newsroom opposition."Join the debate, in my original post.
He has a point. But what I think he doesn't understand, because he has an outsider's point of view, is that all the "good" that comes with Gannett's digital innovations is usually negated - or even outweighed - by both the hamhanded way it executes those plans and overburdens employees in the process.
ReplyDeleteShould we do video? Sure. Should we ask a reporter - who already works 40 hours a week cranking out stories, blogs, etc. - to do the eight-hour task without telling him he can write one or two stories less a week or something else to accommodate the innovation?
That's where the disconnect is. Employees embrace innovation, but usually when it's a replacement, not an addition.
OK, lets give the Info Center a little credit and say they are a good idea. But it is a waste of a good idea when the quality and content of the websites and the newspapers is diminishing every day.
ReplyDeleteI know at my paper the information center mentality causes any and every blurb of a story to be posted as a news update to keep the site fresh. I swear there's some sort of quota that needs to be hit, because New Media posts 2-day old AP entertainment stories and promos to current on-site content as news updates.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to agree with the sentiments: great idea, poor execution, and as usual Howard can't see the forest for the trees.
ReplyDeletePlatitudes and "wouldn't this be great?!" idealism is noble, if shortsighted, though.
From someone in the trenches of Online/New Media I can tell you that the Information Center is a good idea but has no substance --- this is the Gannett way. Remember News 2000!!!! It is still two separate operations. Online is the afterthought. The power resides in the pea-brained print leadership.
ReplyDeleteLeadership is spineless to really embrace robust online delivery of information because everything is done halfway without the real support needed to do it right.
Don't get me wrong, I love what I do, but am handcuffed to be innovative. We are not allowed to take the gloves off and fight for the survival of our industry. There is no entrepreneurial enterprise. To much has to be approved to the highest levels.
Why not let innovative people try things. Develop a robust idea and give it time to germinate.
Take one example, the Data Desks - there are a handfull of people working in our operation doing listings. Readers can now submit the event info online. Why does it need to be processed in locally. Why not outsource to oversees. There are mirror operations like this across Gannett. Even the events taken over the phone could be centralized at least domestically.
Another example is a reporter putting together a mile-long list of events to include in a special event story. All those events should have been captured first in the database of events by our datadesk, then repurposed for her story. Now the information is being input again. Inefficient? Of course. How long have we been doing this kind of stuff? Long enough to know better.
There are so many inefficiencies because the leadership of the organizations does not understand the technology. Their eyes glaze over when something like this is proposed.
Ideas can't be explained simply enough for spineless leaders to comprehend in the old-school print mentality. But give me a 100-inch story idea and the are all ears. They're on it like flies on ...
Anon@4:11
ReplyDeleteI was, technically, a "print'' guy during most of my 20 years with Gannett -- although I was always pretty comfortable with technology, too. I agree with a lot of what you're saying. Unfortunately, much of this won't change until some of the dot-com people are given real authority. I'd like to see at least one Gannett paper where the new Executive Editor -- or the Publisher! -- comes up from the dot-com side of the operation.
This might happen sometime in the near future. A Gannett paper in Florida has a managing editor who was promoted to the position last year from the dot-com side. He had little to no editorial experience and is very young (about 30). He's in charge of the Web operations, copy/design desk and sports. Of course to do this the paper went from one ME to three...with the original ME gaining the title of Senior Managing Editor.
ReplyDelete