This is a workshop for the New York Press Association on managing the changing workload in newsrooms.

1. Manage Your
Changing Workload
Steve Buttry
New York Press Association
September 19, 2014
#NYPA14

2. Read more about it
• stevebuttry.wordpress.com
• slideshare.net/stevebuttry
• @stevebuttry
• stephenbuttry@gmail.com

3. Who’s in the room?
• Publishers?
• Top editors?
• Other editors?
• Reporters?
• Visual journalists?
• Digital specialists?
• Others?

4. Your workload challenges?

5. What can you stop doing?
• Spell out your priorities (yours & the
organization’s)
• Analyze your workload
• What doesn’t match?

6. What can you stop doing?
• Can you just stop doing it?
• Do you need permission? Then make
your case?
• Can you do less of it?
• Is someone else doing? Link or partner
• Is free or cheap alternative available?
• Can you accept a lower standard?

7. What can you transform?
• Did your newsroom “bolt” digital
operations onto your print processes &
duties?
• Is digital-first operation more efficient?
• Should you “unbolt”?

8. Why “unbolt”?
• Increase digital content
• Increase digital audience
• Increase digital revenue
• Digital is the future
• Work more efficiently

9. Unbolt your newsroom
• News coverage & storytelling
• Processes
• Engagement
• Planning & management
• Mobile
• Standards

10. Unbolting news coverage
• Breaking news
• Event coverage
• Daily coverage
• Enterprise coverage

11. Breaking news
• Breaking news team completely
independent of print product, deadlines
• Publish as soon as we verify
• Update frequently
• Liveblog big, breaking stories
• Tweet, Tout & update from scene

12. Event coverage
Livetweet & liveblog everything:
• Sports events
• Meetings
• Trials
• Festivals
• Press conferences
• Need a compelling reason not to

13. Live coverage
• New Haven Register more than
quadrupled engagement minutes by
liveblogging more events
• Berkshire Eagle murder trial: 25K
engagement hours

14. Gettysburg engagement
• More than 1,000 uniques daily, peak of
6,462
• 5 days > 2K page views, peak of 7,728
• 5 days > 35K engagement minutes, peak
of 96K+

15. Why to liveblog
• Immediacy
• News value
• Storytelling
• Traffic, revenue, sponsorships
• Community engagement, loyalty
• Interactivity
• Saving time

16. Liveblogging situations
• Breaking story
• Meeting
• Event (festival, march, concert, trial)
• Daylong (Election Day, weather)
• Sporting event (can use fans, bloggers,
HS journos)
• Live chat

17. Liveblogging prep
• Get names (confirm spelling), titles in
advance (ask, get program, etc.)
• Set scene, saying what you’re covering &
that you’re live-tweeting
• Describe your circumstances, vantage
point: at event, watching on TV, curating
tweets

18. Tips, techniques
• Short, frequent takes
• Space isn’t an issue; engagement is
• Liveblog becomes notebook for story
• Consider links, polls, photos, audio, video
• Use hashtag
• Promote live & replays
• OK to step away for question, video, etc.

19. Liveblogging issues
• Accuracy (stress verification, ask
questions, seek links & documentation,
correct quickly and candidly)
• Rough copy
• Sports credentials, court access
• Multi-tasking
• Learning curve

20. Live-tweeting tips
• Don’t transcribe; observe & report
• In sports, mix play-by-play & commentary
• Use hashtag (& check & engage)
• OK to pause for checking facts, names
• Note significant pause (halftime, lunch)
• Fun interludes, exchanges, anecdotes
• Check facts before you hit “tweet”

21. Liveblogging tools

22. Feeding liveblog into site
• Embed in story on your site (w/ intro)
• Feed in your staff members
• Feed in (and use) hashtag
• Police and look for spam, mischief
• Remember to turn it off
• Can you livestream video (yours or from
event organizer)?

23. Sponsoring liveblog
• Banner ad on liveblog page
• Work ad unit into embed frame
• Insert clearly labeled ads in flow
• Thank sponsor

25. From live to print
• Will a brief suffice (plugging live
coverage?)
• A summary story, shorter than you’ve
been doing?
• Reporter can write faster
• Bring back “rewrite” editor?
• Should print coverage look ahead?

26. Routine daily news
• Setting early deadlines (11 a.m., 2 p.m.)
• Starting work earlier
• Write routine stories as they unfold, as
we do w/ breaking stories (initial post
followed by updates)

27. Unbolting from Sunday story
• Plan enterprise stories for digital
platforms (crowdsourcing, data, social,
video, photo, interactive, engaging)
• Publish for digital audience (during work
week)
• Sunday story (if any) comes second

30. Five Satins, unbolted
• Story published online Monday
• Text story twice as long online (60” in
print)
• Loaded with links
• Videos
• Audio clips
• Use Sunday story for more engagement

31. Can you do more?
Commissioned obituaries:
• Offer reported life-story obits
• Family commissions writer/videographer
• More revenue for journo jobs
• More satisfied customers
• Not just obits: retirement, anniversaries,
graduations, what else?

32. Your ideas
• How can you do more & make revenue
that gives you more staff time, not less?
• What can you stop doing (or do less
frequently or more efficiently)?
• How are you working more efficiently?