With the predominance that online news have achieved, traditional newsrooms have found themselves changing their schemes in order to function as a structure that serves news on different platforms at the same time, not just printed news, as it was for decades.
Now they are configured with the most practical space layout that works on the basis of three subcategories: one is for digital, another for monitoring audiences and another for the newspaper, all of which, at the same time, are the shadowing umbrellas of other smaller units that work collaterally, such as the processing of data, audiovisual production and marketing and sales.
The commitment to the digital sphere has in fact reversed the logistics model for the seeking, planning and preparation of content, which worked years ago with the guidelines that were set for the printed newspaper.
One of the examples of this transformation is the one that the centenary newspaper La Nacion, from Argentina, has undergone. Its head of digital content, Gaston Roitberg, exhibitor at the fifth SIP-Connect Technology Conference 2019, explained how resources, schedules and human personnel had to drastically change to reach this model.
The first opening shift is in charge of the digital team to update the news of the day. At 7:30 in the morning, the delegates of the editorial, photography and social networks meet and decide the priority contents. At noon, in a larger meeting, the development is reviewed, audience metrics are analyzed to determine what is most intriguing to the public, then two hours later decisions are made on the contents of the newspaper, all depending on of these findings first, and finally, at dusk, are decided the news hierarchies and the contents that are approved for the next day.
The main table, which is the digital one, operates with two editors in charge for the opening and closing, with another one in charge of audiovisual news.
Reporters have to work for different platforms. The news go in all formats, with their corresponding characteristics. They have to get all the juice out of an event to then serve it under different “packages”, according to the predictable audiences to whom they’re served to.
In no way does this scheme imply a total subordination of the newspaper to what the audiences dictate, because now we’re working with a more careful planning of the reports, analyzes, research papers and interviews that will appear on the newspapers as exclusive or special contents, looking to harvest paying subscribers.
As La Nacion has gained an important and profitable niche with its podcast series and video stories, the unit has, indeed, turned into a radio and television channel, with appropriate and up to standard technological advances.
– Translated from Spanish by Randy Rodriguez.
Director's Thoughts 