Presentation delivered to World Editors Forum, Turin, June 2014

1. The uses of spaghetti:
how to make people think in
newsrooms
George Brock
City University London
World Editors Forum
Turin, June 2014

2. Everyone talks about “throwing
spaghetti at the wall”
• …to see which bits stick
• Fewer people ask what kind of spaghetti you
use
• What sort of sauce sticks best
• What recipe ensures that the largest number
of pieces stick to the wall
• In short, you need to care about the quality of
experiment as well as the quantity

3. Journalists don’t like experiments
• Failure isn’t seen as useful
• In experiment, failure is often educational and
illuminating
• Media businesses become operations companies
• Today’s deadline and emergencies take precedence
over exploration of the future
• Journalism is seen as a mission and a vocation: heresy
is punished (by other journalists)
• Ordered to “innovate” or “think outside the box”,
people (usually) freeze.
• The “box” isn’t there any more

4. 10 ways to throw spaghetti
1. Distinguish between innovation and
experiment
2. Get outsiders inside: use anthropologists,
technologists, inventors
3. Gather data relentlessly; get the best brains
to use it well
4. Evaluate fads; don’t chase them

5. High grade spaghetti 5 - 9
5. Make people read books
6. Set up a “best failure” award
7. Demote/fire people not prepared to have the
newsroom be a laboratory
8. Drive it from the top
9. Check: why should anyone see value in this
(given what they kind find out in an idle
moment with their thumb)?

6. Item 10
10.You can’t judge
experiments if you
haven’t fixed what
success looks like (aka
what you believe in)

7. www.georgebrock.net @georgeprof