The future is crowdsourcing
By Andrew Grant-Adamson • Nov 6th, 2006 • Category: Convergence, Journalism, NewspapersIn a move that makes the Telegraph’s new integrated newsroom look like a toe in the water, Gannett in the US has changed its newsrooms into what it rather inelegantly calls “information centers”.
Gannett publishes USA Today and 90 other daily newspapers. In the UK it owns Newsquest publishers of 18 dailies from the Herald in Glasgow to the Dorset Echo, and nearly 300 weeklies.
Starting Friday, Gannett newsrooms were rechristened “information centers,” and instead of being organized into separate metro, state or sports departments, staff will now work within one of seven desks with names like “data,” “digital” and “community conversation.” The initiative emphasizes four goals: Prioritize local news over national news; publish more user-generated content; become 24-7 news operations, in which the newspapers do less and the websites do much more; and finally, use crowdsourcing methods to put readers to work as watchdogs, whistle-blowers and researchers in large, investigative features.
Not sure that I like the new names for the desks but “crowdsourcing” has a ring to it.
(via cybersoc)
Andrew Grant-Adamson is Andrew Grant-Adamson is a journalist who now teaches a new generation of writers, subs and editors at the University of Westminster.
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