This document discusses the transition from traditional print newsrooms to digital-focused newsrooms. It notes that in 2008, newsrooms were focused on print while the internet was exploding with new sites, content, and users. However, print revenue was declining. The document argues that newsrooms must shift to being digital-first and audience-focused by providing engaging content across platforms whenever the audience wants it. It outlines Trinity Mirror's Newsroom 3.1 model which prioritizes audience data and analytics in building multi-platform workflows without rigid deadlines. Newsroom leaders are advised to share knowledge, use analytics, be actively engaged on social media, and learn from failures to help their newsrooms successfully transition.

1. Slides for WAN IFRA
Newsroom Summit panel
on culture change
October 13 2014

2. Planet Internet, 2008
● Alive with discovery and exploration
● Home to nearly 187m websites - 31.5m of which sprang
to life in that year
● 133m blogs, and 900,000 new posts published every
day
● 100m active Facebook users
● More than 3m tweets sent every day
● More than 3m photos on Flickr
● 15 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every
minute of the day in 2008

3. Planet Newsroom, 2008
● Focused on a single platform
● Working towards rigidly set deadlines
● Enslaved to historic design, production and distribution
methods
● Holding back news to fit a schedule, or page space
● Watching company revenue charts dive floor wards
● Sending reporters to sit in court ALL DAY to file a 350 word
lead, published the next day...
● …oblivious as to how many people read said court report
● Believing print is king, while fact-checking via Google

5. The fact we still discuss whether print
and digital need to slug it out for
supremacy is a blocker for change; it
means we are still only thinking in terms
of platforms, not audience and user
demands.
We have to get past this - and fast

6. Beating the blockers
● Build your business around a digital-first, audience-foremost newsroom
● Provide engaging content, when your audience wants it
● Be accessible - operationally, via platforms and culturally in how you
engage and interact
● Experiment, collaborate, innovate
● Be committed to engagement with communities
● Understand and anticipate what audience demands
● Embrace social media - it’s your communication system, newswire,
distribution platform, contacts book, playground. Also your judge and jury
● Innovation is not restricted to the newsroom - what’s your system for
managing ideas?

8. Trinity Mirror’s Newsroom 3.1 model
Workflows built around audience data
Multi-platform: Print, desktop, mobile web, app, tablet, e-newsletter,
social media
Digital-first, and responsive
No deadline - only audience spikes and streams
Deeply informed by analytics
Allowed to fail - with an understanding we learn from failure
When it comes to audience we want local - although it’s great that we also have global reach with our
brands - we want retained, and we want engaged. These are not mutually exclusive goals.

10. Quick wins for newsroom leaders
● Positive results win hearts and minds better than any explanation of
strategy
● Share the knowledge - training is the lifeblood of a digital
newsroom and no one should feel left behind
● Put real-time analytics at the heart of the newsroom
● Know the audience spikes - staff accordingly
● Ensure your newsroom knows an active, engaging social media
presence expected, not requested
● If something doesn’t work, learn from it, move on
● Be the biggest exponent of digital in your newsroom
● Smash any lingering ‘them and us’ mentality between digital and
print teams

11. Alison Gow
Editor, Digital Innovation
Trinity Mirror Regionals
Twitter: @alisongow