The Cable Gamer has a new fave: Steve Outing. Who? OK, I hadn't heard of him either, but his new piece for Editor & Publisher mag, "The All-Digital Newsroom of the Not-So-Distant Future," is a must-read for anyone interested in the future of news, and that includes, of course, all Cable Gamers, because nobody in the news biz is going to be exempt from digitalization and Convergence.
He asks:
It now seems likely that some newspapers will abandon print, or be forced to. But what might a digital local news operation look like, and what tools and skills will be required?
And here are the most compelling aspects of his answer:
The transformed newsroom will be filled with multi-functional journalists who are comfortable carrying around a digital camera and tiny video camera; who make it part of their routine to record audio for possible use in podcasts or multimedia project sound clips; who are regular users of social networks and understand how to leverage them to communicate with and attract new readers, and share some personal information about themselves as well as promote their work; and who are comfortable and willing to put in the time to engage and communicate with their readers or viewers, including participating in reader comment threads accompanying their stories.
...
So if every reporter is a blogger, each has his/her own blog on their beat or topic specialty -- and that is the core of the reporter's work life from which all else spins off. Their best stuff may show up on the homepage with a mixture of topics, but everything will be on their personal blog page. For the reader interested in health news, he'll follow the Medical News blog of health reporter Jane Smith, for example. Because the blog will be more interactive than traditional newspaper coverage, Smith's readers will leave comments on her stories, and Smith will be required to respond to comments and questions. She'll announce multiple ways for her digital readers to contact her, including e-mail address or a contact form, and addresses on various social networks (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Seesmic, etc.). Smith may even participate in outside healthcare/medical online communities, and will list her address there, too.
A key difference in our newly designed post-paper news experience is that the beat reporter puts herself out there as a personality -- a human being you can get to know by following her, and who is an expert on a topic you care about (like medical news, or crime, state government, and the like). She will communicate with her readers, answer their questions and accept tips about topics she should cover, and accept criticism when she makes mistakes. In my view of the newspaper sans paper, every journalist is a personality, not just an anonymous byline.
...
Every journalist gets a community
To get back to that notion of having to "do more with less," our new digital news operation will offer each reporter/blogger the Web 2.0 tools to create a community of people who are interested in and passionate about the topic, or are experts on it. Just as on Facebook you can become a "fan" of celebrities, brands, products and so on, the reporter can collect fans on her blog. It's a way of collecting individuals to follow your work who are experts on the topic you cover, and you'll find that the niche community experience will turn up story ideas, sources, pointers to relevant external content, and even people willing to volunteer to help out.
...
So imagine a newsroom where each reporter has his or her own passionate community helping out and advising, and you can see how the smaller editorial budget of the digital news operation can still produce a quality product that's actually better than the old newspaper's -- because its reporters have completely cast off we-tell-you journalism in favor of the news-is-a-conversation model, where readers have relationships with their favorite journalists. The print-edition culture is no longer preventing journalists from activities that are mainstream in the pure-Internet media world.
And let me not skip over the revenue potential of a news Web site (and related mobile and other digital services) filled with all these online passionate niche news mini-sites and online communities led by a beat reporter specialist producing content for an appreciative and interested audience. Each represents a valuable niche-advertising venue. Contextual e-commerce product affiliate sales are a no-brainer revenue source. Best yet, each reporter's beat blog/community offers the possibility of selling premium content on the topic; some of it could come from staff journalists, some from (vetted) outside experts or freelancers who can use the new digital news operation as a marketing vehicle and split the sales fees.
There's much more in the article, and here's Steve's blog.
