PREPARING FOR THE NEXT TWENTY YEARS
Our listeners are using new media. We know that.
Everyday thousands of public radio listeners tune
stream news programs. Thousands of others will read a news story from NPR.org on
their IPhone, Others will search for a story in a station online audio archive
or sign up to receive the podcast of an upcoming show. These are some of the
elements of multi-platform news. Every news director is familiar with the
elements, but few of us feel fully prepared to manage--and to build a future
franchise--on these diverse forms of content creation and service delivery.
Over the next six months, the Public Radiio News
Directors (PRNDI) with support from the Integrated Media Association, will
provide public radio news professionals with a series of training and
information webinars about new media news.
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The webinars will discuss case
studies of how existing stations--much like yours--are investing in, staffing
for and delivering news online. And we'll look at the results of their
work: how many people are they reaching? How often?
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In the third segment we will take up the critical
issue of local/national news integration. Very few stations would succeed
as a news outlet if they did not present a substantial schedule of national and
international news programs. Do we think it would be different online?
Currently, the models seem to be suggesting that the best online service
approach is "aligning your on line and off line services." For most
stations, that means increasing their presentation of NPR, PRI and APM news online.
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In the final segment of the webinar series, in
April, we will provide some four training sessions in important new media
techniques, with the content of those sessions to be chosen by the webinar
participants in the early stages of the series.
THE CONTENT AND SCHEDULE
Session 1: What do we know about News Online
today?
Thursday, January 28
We begin with an overview of “news online” with
emphasis on end-user behavior and attitudes: how are people using online news?
What are they looking for? Paul Jacobs, General Manager of Jacobs Media, will
present some news-related insights drawn from the 25,000 respondents to the 2009
Public Radio Tech Poll, conducted last fall for IMA and PRPD. This session will
also provide three 10-minute case studies, providing an initial look at how
three leading stations are investing in, producing and distributing new media
news content.
Session 2: Content
Management, Staffing, Newsroom Organization
Thursday, February 25
In our second session, we will probe more deeply
into the organizational design, software and hardware technology, and staffing
issues that all of us will be facing as we move from audio to multi-format
production. The second session will look in more detail at the investments and
the skills required for efficient workflow in the contemporary newsroom.
Session 3: Leveraging the Power of National News
Thursday, March 25
How can stations efficiently and effectively
expand the NPR franchise online? In this session, we will devote the entire
session to examining how staff from WBUR and NPR re-designed WBUR’s website—and
transformed it from a “companion website (for a radio station)” into a news
destination with a high level of both local and national content.
Session 4:
Skill Development: Expanding Local News Capacity
Thursday, April 29
In April, we will
begin two webinars devoted
skill-set development. These sessions will be shaped around the needs of webinar
participants.
Our featured speaker will be a
veteran of both worlds: Scott Finn, the news director of WSUF in Tampa, spent
ten years working in print at the Charleston (West Virginia) Gazette.
Over the last year, Scott has been
re-purposing strong audio journalism into strong text-based online news
stories--and traffic to the news pages of wusf.org has tripled.
This session is for front line journalists and the people who manage the work of preparing online news.
Scott will provide a set of helpful editing rules and we will follow his
presentation with three concrete examples of daily news stories originally aired
on ME, re-purposed to text and posted to local station sites.
Session
5: Mapping the Editorial Process
Thursday, May 27
In this installment of the PRNDI Online News Series, we move up the publishing process from translating individual stories from audio to text (our April session) for a look at the editorial systems that manage those stories in a multi-platform news room.
Session leaders include Kim Perry, who manages the Knight Foundation multi-media training for reporters and editors at NPR, and Morgan Holm, VP of News and Public Affairs at Oregon Public Broadcasting, who oversees OPB's audio, text and video production for OPBNews.org. Kim and Morgan will provide guidelines for station-based editorial processes, with references to the systems in place at NPR and at OPB.
Topics will include:
* Current process now in place: Advantages and Disadvantages
* Breaking News and Daily Coverage vs. Feature Stories
* Structure: Physical Proximity of Web Producer
* Incorporating Web into Daily Work in the News Department
This session is designed for front-line, station and network journalists and the editors/managers who oversee the work of preparing online news.
HOW MUCH DOES IT COST?
The webinars are free to all PRNDI members.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Call Mark Fuerst at 845-876-2577, write to publicmedianews@gmail.com, or contact PRNDI Training Director George Bodarky at 718-817-5561/gbodarky@wfuv.org.
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