The panel discussion “Scaling Your Global Newsroom Culture in the Digital Age,” consisting of Guido Baumhauer, Federica Cherubini, An Xiao Mina, Julie Posetti and moderated by Adam Thomas, discussed the shift to digital and how newsrooms accommodate both their content and their staff in this new age.
The world of journalism and news is changing to predominantly digital and online usage. More than just a trend, this means that newsrooms must adapt to the challenges of demographics and diverse needs. For newsrooms, or “digital first organizations” as Baumhauer has dubbed them, it is about risk taking, learning from mistakes, and maintaining communication.
To push boundaries is essential when producing content in new forms; more specifically when producing digital content in a traditional newsroom. These risks are about learning, building, and expanding a newsroom to reach the diverse needs of their audience. To reach these needs, however, requires attention on a global scale; attempts at trying to understand issues from a global perspective. Here is where newsrooms must adapt to different modes of communication. Mina mentioned the challenge presented by demographics; how does one maintain communication globally? What tools do we develop for communicating with both clients and within the newsroom?
The answer, it’s a work in progress. Finding ways to effectively communicate is about willing to embrace “change [as] the new normal.” The same idea can be applied when questioning readers’ accessibility to content. Sharing information in today’s digital age has increasingly shifted toward collaboration. Designing for collaboration means recognizing flexibility and expanding the workplace to one that is horizontal. This knowledge sharing is an attempt to make diverse outputs engaging for both the reader and the journalist.
The digital “revolution,” then, has arrived and continues to expand, challenging newsrooms to adapt accordingly. While there is no one solution to adjusting, Baumhauer offers the advice to keep restructuring, to acknowledge change, and to embrace the spirit of collaboration.
Paige Beyer