N.C. newspaper gets it--and gets it fast!

When folks in Shelby, N.C., wanted to see election results this week, they had a trusted source, the Web site of The Shelby Star. However what they saw on that site was rather unusual, certainly for a newspaper.

The Star had taken its Star Car live unit to a fire station where results traditionally are displayed. Web visitors could see live, streaming video of the results as well as the crowd who had gathered to see them. In its first official week of operation, the Star Car is making its presence known in Shelby.

The Star Car is a news vehicle that is designed to facilitate getting information and multi media content quickly back to the newspaper and its Web site. It is not a TV live truck, but it does many of the same things. In the words of Star Publisher Skip Foster, "It is good enough." (Read more>)

The Star, which is owned by Freedom Communications, is one of the most innovative newspapers in the United States. It has engaged its community with relevant, multi media content. Its series on an unsolved murder is journalism at its finest--and an example of why convergent journalism is more powerful. (Read more>) The series has led to an arrest in the 40-year-old case and is the subject of a documentary on the Oxygen cable network.

When big newspapers tell me they don't have the resources to implement a convergence strategy, I smile and point to Shelby, which has fewer than 20 journalists in its newsroom.

In the months ahead, I predict you are going to be hearing a lot more about the Shelby Star and its Star Car.

A Korean perspective

One of the bonuses of working in a facility with an international client base is the opportunity to interact with journalists from all over the world. This week, we are working with--and learning from--a group of media executives from South Korea.

The Korean journalists are here as part of a Newsplex executive study tour. They are members of a leadership class at the Korea Press Foundation, which includes newspaper, television and online journalists.

In many ways, the news media in Korea are among the most progressive in the world. Mobile technologies are quite advanced and there is almost universal Internet access. The online community is robust and thriving. OhmyNews in Seoul, with 50,0000 citizen reporters, is the gold standard of citizen journalism.

Yet, the structure of Korean news organizations typically is quite traditional According to the group, many Korean journalists fear change, this in a country that prides itself on innovation.

We did a conference call with an editor at London's Daily Telegraph, where last year's reorganization and move into a new newsroom rejuvenated this venerable daily. The Koreans were fascinated by the lessons of the DT.

It really doesn't matter where you are or what language is being spoken, the issues are universal. Journalists demand change from those they cover, be they politicians, coaches or business leaders. But when it comes to their own newsrooms, that's different story, even in Korea.

Tragedy and New Media

Tragedy has struck here at the University of South Carolina and it is interesting to see how both old and new media are contributing to coverage of the story.

Seven college students died Sunday morning in a ferocious fire at a North Carolina beach house. Six of them attended USC.

Authorities did not release the identities of the victims for more than 48 hours. Yet thanks to the social networking sites, especially Facebook, we not only got to know their names, but we also got to know them as people.

Traditional media organizations withheld the names Sunday, even though they were available online. But by Monday, as grief stricken friends were creating message boards online and relatives were stepping forward to give interviews, news organizations posted the names on their websites.

To date, the professional coverage has been thorough, but restrained, respectful of the lives that were lost. As I have monitored that coverage, talked to students and compared this story to others like it, here and elsewhere, I think a few conclusions are fairly obvious:

The best pictures, once again, came from an amateur, a neighbor with a video camera. As the BBC pointed out after the 2005 terrorist bombings in London, they could not aspire to be every place in the world where news happens. But real people with video cameras and camera phones are everywhere and are capturing truly newsworthy images.

The social networking sites like Faceback are playing an increasingly important role. One newly-created Facebook group, RIP Students Who Perished On Oct. 28 2007, already has more than 11,000 members. The online community has provided students a way to share their grief. It also has provided reporters a rich source of information to bring texture and depth to their stories.

The role of traditional media is just as important as ever. The best coverage of the fire has come from professional journalists, not amateurs. Plus in the always on, always connected world, we need editors more than ever. Some message boards inaccurately identified some as victims who are still alive. Fortunately, I am not aware of any of these mistakes being published.

I think this story reflects something we will see far more of in the future, with citizen journalists playing an increasingly important, but still supplementary role to professional coverage. We both have jobs to do and both are important.

Don't forget ethics

One of the benefits of academia is being able to teach and interact with bright students. While Newsplex is a professional training facility, located in a different building from the USC School of Journalism, each semester I typically teach one undergraduate course, Freedom, Responsibility and Ethics.

At this point in the semester, my students are trying to understand the Communications Decency Act of 1996. It all makes sense in theory, a website that simply posts user comments is a conduit, similar to the phone company, and not liable for those postings.

However in practice, as news organizations encourage reader comments, such unedited postings can take on an ugly, unprofessional tone. Things we would never allow in print routinely can be found on the websites of reputable news organizations. By surrendering our journalistic standards to the dark side of the web, aren't we inviting laws and regulations that will erode our journalistic freedoms?

Lessons of Tampa

Gil Thelen now heads the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. However as executive editor and subsequently publisher of The Tampa Tribune, he has been on the frontlines of the convergence battle.

Thelen spoke Friday (19 October) in Newsplex to a seminar on change management. He outlined 12 steps that are necessary for a successful convergence strategy. They include:

1. Put together a team that buys into both the problem and the solution.
2. Implement your strategy relentlessly.
3. Work from data and an outside perspective.
4. Change the conversation in the newsroom, starting with editors and managers.
5. Tell the staff to get on the bus or get off. The challenges facing newspapers today are too crucial to delay or wait.
6. Change the culture. Attack with facts and big ideas.
7. Demand involvement.
8. Geography is destiny. The architecture of a newsroom will help or hinder what you are trying to accomplish.
9. Bet the farm. Don't be afraid to jump into the deep end of the pool.
10. Help the business and editorial sides of the organization understand each other. Their traditional isolation is not helping today.
11. Look each day for levers or points of leverage for change.
12. Demonstrate hope. As Thelen describes it, the optimist is the new maverick.

This is quite a list and it puts the arguments we hear so often into a broader framework. If you are willing to embrace the things Thelen describes, then this is quite an exciting time to be working in journalism.

Why change?

There are lots of reasons for news organizations to change and some of the best ones can be heard this week in Newsplex. Fourteen journalists from across North and South America have gathered for a two-day seminar on change management. Dietmar Schantin, director of Ifra's Newsplex initiative, presented an insider's look at the change process at London's Daily Telegraph.

The Telegraph, a big newspaper with 460 journalists and 900,000 daily circulation, made significant changes in its newsroom organization and workflows when it moved into a striking new newsroom in October, 2006. The DT reorganization is viewed as the convergence story of the year worldwide. Dr. Schantin explained how the changes were implemented with strong leadership from the top of the organization.

The story stands in stark contrast to so many newspapers, where change is approached timidly and in small, incremental steps. This lesson of Newsplex is that change takes a lot of commitment from the top.

Death of journalism as we know it?

Janet Kolodzy says it's about time, suggesting that we listen to our audience and stop trying to do journalism the way we always have done it.

Kolodzy heads the journalism program at Emerson College and is the author of Convergence Journalism, an excellent textbook on writing and reporting across media. Hers was one of many provocative insights to emerge here at the University of South Carolina from the just concluded conference on Convergence and Society.

Speaking of convergence, Kolodzy suggests that:

Those who have never tried it are the biggest detractors.
What works for one organization may or not work for another.
There is no right way to do it.
The fundamentals of journalism do not change.

Anything you would add to the list?