Convergence

"Convergence” is an industry buzzword with many meanings, as outlined in the reading "Convergence Defined" (Gordon, OJR).

It applies to corporate strategies (such as the AoL-Time Warner merger); to technological developments (the spread of digital television, for instance); and to several related trends with direct relevance in the newsroom. These include:

* Partnerships between newspapers and TV stations, mostly for promotional purposes.

In the most common version, TV newscasters urge viewers to read tomorrow’s newspaper for more details about a story. Newspaper journalists may also appear on-air to talk about stories they are covering.

But various other kinds of collaboration are being tried, ranging from sharing news tips to having a single reporter cover news for more than one medium.

There have been problems with such partnerships, many of them involving incompatible newsroom cultures. Web sites also tend to be seen as junior partners in this arrangement.

* Changes in newsroom organizational structures, typically in management.

Open communication has been difficult enough that some “converged” operations have seen a need to either create a new position to serve as a sort of high-level go-between, or to assign one executive decision-making authority over multiple newsrooms.

* A growing expectation that journalists will collect information in multiple formats.

This has been controversial – most journalists, particularly print ones, are not exactly eager to learn to be multimedia storytellers – but some outlets are pursuing so-called “backpack journalism,” in which reporters carry a range of tools with them to gather news.

* The emergence of new forms of storytelling.

You know about telling stories in different ways depending on the attributes of the medium
involved. Journalists are becoming more innovative – and more collaborative, with stories increasingly produced by teams whose members have complementary strengths.

About 30 percent of daily newspapers in the United States have partnerships with TV stations, and about half of all TV stations have a news partnership with a newspaper, according to the Ball State University studies.

But the ways in which those partnerships operate vary enormously.

Very few are at the stage of true cross-platform content sharing, let alone proactively planning stories based on the strengths of each medium.

Much more common is cross-promotion of partnered products, along with what the authors call "coopetition." This involves selectively sharing some content -- but not the really good stuff, over which print and broadcast outlets still compete.

Majorities of newspapers in the study:

* Never share their news budgets, or story lineups, with TV partners.

* Do not designate a staff member to promote content on television.

* Never encourage readers to view their TV partner's enterprise stories.

Still, about 40 percent of the newspapers share most or all stories; a third have beat reporters appear on a partner's broadcast at least once a month; and about 12 percent use a common editor or assignment desk to regularly coordinate story planning.

The TV people are more likely to see benefits of convergence -- and the print people agree that TV gets more than they do out of the deal.

In general, TV news directors seem slightly more likely than newspaper editors to report sharing information and resources. And almost all of them put their newspaper partner's logo on their newscast at least once a week (compared with only 28 percent of newspapers that include the TV logo in their news pages ... usually the weather page).

The problems may be cultural more than anything else. Says one TV news director:

"We would like to take the partnership further, but the newspaper people have not warmed up to sharing their work on the TV side. The newspaper leadership is willing, but the rank and file are suspicious ... It may be like a shotgun marriage."

The places where convergence works are not necessarily the biggest operations.

The Lawrence (KS) Journal-World, circulation 20,000, sees itself as being in the information business, not the newspaper business. As its publisher told The New York Times, "We're trying to provide information, in one form or another, however the consumer wants it and wherever the consumer wants it, in the most complete and useful way possible."

Among the World Company's accomplishments:

Lawrence residents got cable programming in 1971, long before almost anyone else in the country.

They got an online newspaper in 1995 -- and cable modems the same year. Innovators again.

The newspaper and TV station began sharing talent in 1999 ... ditto.

In 2003, the company installed about 30 wireless hot spots around Lawrence. Uh-huh.
The news operations are fully converged. Print and cable reporters sit together in beat-oriented pods. Online editors work alongside city editors at a shared news desk. Newspaper reporters regularly appear on television, not just for "talkbacks" but to offer original TV reporting.

Publisher and owner Dolph Simons, 75, sees it this way:

"I'm terribly concerned about readership in the country, and I think we all have to learn new things as fast as we can. Otherwise, other people are going to beat us to it.

"We need to be driving with our brights because if we're driving with our dims, somebody's going to come in from the side of the road and knock us off."

Converged Lawrence reporter Mark Fagan is the only reporter I met (out of about 120 in four different news organizations) whose time was officially and formally split between print and television.

He says the transition was easier than he thought -- or that most journalists fear. Mark's advice about convergence:

* Take advantage of the opportunity.

It's a chance to expand your skill set, reach a wider audience and "bond with a whole new set of colleagues."

* Dress the part.

Forget the romantic image of the "ink-stained wretch." It doesn't cut it on television.

Another reporter (in Sarasota) told me he now had to care, a lot, about "ironing and laundry" -- making sure his clothes go together, avoiding polo shirts because they wrinkle too fast, staying away from dark clothes that make you seem "like hit men from the Sopranos." "It doesn't sound very much like journalism," he said, "but it's part of it."

"TV people are visually pleasing. That's a whole other dynamic," another (male) Sarasota journalist told me. "I need to not be bashful about having makeup in my drawer."

* Don't be afraid.

After a while, print people become comfortable in front of a camera, and TV people learn not to be intimidated by what seem like legions of editors waiting with sharpened (virtual) pencils to tear into a story.

Mark, who started out as a print journalist, told me that although he was scared at first that he would say something stupid, now "my heart rate barely picks up. My biggest fear is that my lips are chapped."

* Learn the basics.

Get to know how each side operates and who the players are.

* Deadlines vary; "timing is everything."

TV people have more deadlines than print people do. Respect them.

* Get to know an expert.

Make friends with someone in the newsroom who is good at the thing you don't know about. "Nothing beats one-on-one tutoring or simple observation."

I found in my talks with journalists in converged newsrooms that formal training was a rarity. Most felt they had been thrown into an environment they didn't know anything about.

So don't expect your hand to be held. Figure out what you need to learn, how to go about learning it -- and get after it.

The New York Times has long been one of the slowest newspapers to change. Its design and its writing style are, arguably, both throwbacks to an earlier age of print -- heck, the paper didn't convert to color photography until 1997!

So it's major news that the Times plans to integate its print and online newsrooms -- and, more important, to meld its print and online products in ways that sound, dare we say ... innovative.

Among the plans discussed by newspaper Executive Editor Bill Keller and online chief Marty Nisenholtz:

An organizational structure that will place one editor -- say, the foreign editor -- in charge of both print and online content.

A physical newsroom layout in which print and online people will literally work side by side ... perhaps sort of like, uh, the 20,000-circulation Lawrence Journal-World.

An organizational culture that will encourage print reporters, in particular, to come up with ideas for online content -- and provide it.

The editors admit, though, that there will likely be a group of "non-adapters." Some (though implicitly not all) of them will be "valuable for the paper for what they do, and we'll live with that." The rest ...?

This last issue -- the cultural challenge of convergence -- is perhaps the toughest to overcome.

I think what we're talking about here is a "resocialization" of, in particular, print journalists. See what you think ...