|
|
 |
|
| Starting with the story
|
|
Editorial planning tools to take control of the newsroom: Cecilia Campbell reports
|
| When you talk about editorial planning, many editors and reporters think about pages and production. But in this time of newsroom convergence, a more logical place to start the news management process is with the story itself.
|
| It is, after all, from the story that all else springs. The story drives the newsroom activities and increasing numbers of publishers, albeit still relatively few, actually work with one central newsdesk from which all content is generated and all stories managed. Story or event driven news management, as opposed to production/media driven management, is a prerequisite for true cross channel publishing.
|
| Says IfraExpo visitor Per-Arne Fernsund of Swedish newspaper Göteborgs-Posten: "Most newspaper publishers still take a ‘paper or web’ point of view, having separate newsdesks for each medium. We need a cultural change to make true convergence a reality. And this requires a new sort of editor, a story manager, if you like, and reporters who can work across different media platforms. At least in Sweden, however, the union is against reporters working as ‘multi-journalists,’ thinking it will create more work for their members. But all we are talking about is getting down to basic journalism; gathering and presenting information. The media is secondary.“
|
| At the Control Tower
|
| At this year’s IfraExpo it is apparent that some suppliers of newsroom systems are seeing the need for new tools for this new, story based, way of working. One of them is Proxim-IT, who have developed their newsroom management software, Control Tower, in partnership with Ifra Newsplex at the University of South Carolina. Says customer relationship manager Diana Stech: "We have developed Control Tower in anticipation of a future multimedia environment, which is why the system is designed with the story in focus.“
|
| Control Tower is all about creating a central place where all resources are shared so that editors and reporters alike (depending on what access rights they have) can see which stories are being worked on, what channels each story is planned for, what elements the story is made up of (text, graphics, images), who is working on it, for example a reporter and a photographer, which assets, such as background material or a press release (actual files), are associated with a story, the status of each story, which editorial department it belongs to, and so forth.
|
| Control Tower also has a function for listing contacts pertaining to a particular story, these could be staff or outside sources. Reporters can limit viewing rights for sources when they see fit.
|
| The system interface is very straight forward. It is possible to filter the information according to story, elements, dates, reporters and so on. The story list shows titles of stories, departments, outlets (i.e. channels), the elements list shows photos, text, graphics. On a more detailed level, on the story details page, you get a team overview, the tasks involved, the elements associated with the story and the contacts. In the same way, the elements have their individual pages. When an editor assigns a task, the reporter receives notification via e-mail or SMS.
|
| The system is still very new, with one beta site in place in the U.S., and integration with other systems is yet to come. "Firstly, we will be looking at making links to pages in editorial production systems as well as doing version handling in real-time via integration,“ Stech says.
|
| All aboard
|
| Control Tower is an interesting showcase for what is possible. Several other suppliers are showing, or working on, news management tools based on the same story-centric philosophy. EidosMedia will be launching a news management module for its cross-media system, Méthode, sometime next year. CCI, DTI and Anygraaf, among others, already have planning tools that focus on events and assignments.
|
| "It’s all about getting away from the premise of most traditional editorial systems, i.e. that we are producing a printed paper once a day, and moving towards managing a continuous story flow,“ says Fernsund. "Clearly the systems suppliers are picking up on the shift.“
|
| This feature appeared in the IfraExpo 2004 Gazette dated 13 October 2004.
|
|
|
|
|
