Newspapers' reverse-publishing idea flawed
Newspaper production teams scored a big win when technology allowed for stories entered into a print publishing system to be sent automatically to their online CMS. No longer did they need multiple employees to copy and paste text from one medium to the other. And everyone gets the same content, be it online or print.
So the concept of reverse publishing, or publishing stories first online that will later be sent to the print product, will only improve things, right? Not quite.
The feeding of stories from print to online on an automated basis worked for a Web 1.0 world. This technology was a crutch for newsrooms to limp into online journalism.
But as most of us know by now, you can't change how folks use the Web by vomiting print-centric stories online. The two mediums are used in a different manner: 1,000-word stories don't translate into bytes.
Granted there are steps that can be taken to make those print stories amenable on the Web. You can break them up using subheads or with multimedia such as photo galleries, audio, video or interactives. But unless you're hacking paragraphs off that story, it's still going to be a problem -- users don't read long stories online (unless it's a really relevant story to that user).
So why would we want to employ a reverse-publishing model when it doesn't address the problem of not producing content appropriate for the medium?
Most newsrooms have separate print and online staff with some, such as The Roanoke Times, utilizing a combined newsroom. I think that although print and online newsroom staffs need to be merged, there needs to exist different responsibilities for each medium.
Online content producers should concentrate on collecting and disseminating information for that medium. Things like breaking news, database creation and multimedia should be their raison dêtre.
The print content producers will be deployed on stories that play well on paper. Examples of this are long-form storytelling and in-depth perspectives of issues. This will not be the inverted-pyramid approach to the previous days' news.
I'm not suggesting that the online team shouldn't produce content that is in-depth. To the contrary, much of their content will require an approach similar to the print content. It will be disseminated for the Web however.
A newspaper that employs this theory probably won't be able to produce a daily newspaper; a weekly would suffice. And that's OK. This makes sense with the media audience shifting from print to online.
So the only positive benefit to using a reverse-publishing model for newspaper content is perhaps the cost-savings associated with one system into of two. Though I think this would quickly be negated when you consider the complexity of such a system, and the size of the IT staff required to support it.
I think this method would improve content for both print and online while taking into account the wants of both the users and journalists alike. What's not to love?
Six comments
Well said Patrick. I attempted to write an entry on this after our discussion last week but it didn't turn out as I had hoped. I'm still trying to find my writing voice.
As a newbie to the media world, I can't help but think that if newspaper's employ this kind of strategy, their bundled print product will become more diverse, thus bringing on new demand. As Jack Lail said, this is a golden age for newspapers to wake up and realize they have 2 revenue generating products, not just 1.
@Casey
Don't let me stop you from writing on the same topic yo!
I agree that should newspapers take this approach it would open their print product to a more interesting array of content. And they could probably charge for that content as well (gasp).
Hey:
I'm working on a book about social media and journalism right now, and the last section is entirely about what a modern newsroom should look like.
I completely agree that online organizations need to focus on developing medium-appropriate content.
It's amazing how such a simple idea seems so revolutionary to others.
Brad www.themodernjournalist.com
Thanks for the comment Brad!
It might be kind of dangerous to write about the "modern newsroom" when that definition is changing every year. Heck, there might not even be a newsroom as we know it in 10 years.
But good luck with the book. I'll keep an eye out when it's published!
Hey Patrick:
Well, the point about the modern newsroom is that it will look completely different. I think that it's likely it will come in different flavors, but there will be some similarities.
I put it in tech terms: you can use Mac OS, Windows, Linux, Solaris, ect -- they each are good for different things, but they are operating systems that allow you to interact with data through technology.
The goal is to find what those similarities are in a modern newsroom, I think.
I love the idea of reverse-publishing. That is always a part of every presentation I make -- why run a newsroom based on tomorrow (traditional printing) when you are asking your people to publish today (online).
@Brad
> I love the idea of reverse-publishing. That is always a part of every presentation I make -- why run a newsroom based on tomorrow (traditional printing) when you are asking your people to publish today (online).
While I agree with your point earlier about the modern newsroom, I'm not sure your final point coincides with my entry.
I don't think reverse publishing is a good thing for newspapers (reverse publishing meaning entering all content for Web-first publication before being sent to print). The better option is to start differentiating between what content works best online, and what works best in print -- puking everything online is not the answer.
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