A newsroom is not a newsroom: Changing editorial realities & media relations

Meant last week to bookmark an interesting article to my web browser to have it as a hook for a future post, Paul Goldberger’s Towers of Babble in the Aug. 6 issue of the New Yorker — which, because of the virtual crash in my offline reading habits in recent weeks, not to mention that I apparently didn’t receive that particular issue of TNY in the post this summer, I only happened across last week via Editors Weblog.

I somehow slipped and posted it to to del.icio.us and it came up on my daily links posting! Ah … the travails of too little time, so much to read and post about!!

I’d bookmarked it because, even though it is brief and focuses on the architectural design aspects of newsroom redesign — of the The New York Times vs Bloomberg newsrooms, to be precise — it provides some interesting insight into the changing working realities of newsrooms. That happens to be one of my bugaboos — for anyone who’s been reading my posts over time, you’ll know that I feel strongly that PR executives need to understand the media and the constant changes therein if they are to effectively relate to the media on behalf of their clients.

One of the most surprising things I encountered after transitioning from journalism to public relations is the near-total lack of comprehension on the part of young PR account executives of the working realities — including newsroom realities — of today’s journalists. Admittedly, these are changing rapidly, but some of the young PR practitioners I’d run up against had proved to be virtually clueless about what editorial responsibilities accorded to which editorial titles, not to mention how the realities of downsizing, advertising downturns and hiring freezes translate into fewer editorial staff shouldering expanded responsibilities on tighter deadlines than ever before.

Goldberger’s article is well worth a read. He explains the reason for the design of the previous NYTimes newsroom:

it was the easiest way to put out a newspaper on deadline. The fastest communication was face to face, and in a newsroom everybody could watch the same clocks, use the same news tickers, and keep an eye on one another. Everything depended on the flow of paper.

He compares it with the Bloomberg, which I’ve had occasion to visit and can’t say, as Goldberger does, that it’s one of the most exhilirating workplaces I’ve ever seen:

a newsroom truly designed for the electronic age … four thousand employees sit in uniform rows at identical, white-topped desks bearing custom-built Bloomberg flat-panel computer terminals … workers are in much closer quarters than those at the Times, and you might expect the atmosphere to be one of a sweatshop, but sweatshops don’t usually have rotating displays of contemporary sculpture or the tanks of tropical fish that are a feature of Bloomberg’s bid for corporate cool.

He also takes a swipe at the NYTimes new newsroom design:

it is vastly more sophisticated than any workplace the Times has ever had, but sleekness has brought a certain chill (though the effect will be pleasanter when the birch trees go into the still unfinished courtyard). You also don’t get much sense that anyone has really rethought the idea of the newsroom in the electronic age.

Clearly, a newsroom is not a newsroom is not a newsroom. And, beyond major daily newspaper and wire-service newsrooms, there is a tremendous variance in the physicality of editorial operations — or lack thereof, with so much downsizing of editorial real estate and many, many more contributing writers and editors working remotely in this age of telecommuting. That’s particularly true when it comes to the editorial operations of vertical industry news publications, both print and online.

I used to think the only way a new PR exec could truly be aware of all these configurations and the editorial responsibilities and changing realities faced by newsroom staff would be to have spent some time working in a news operation … as I did. Lately, though, I’ve changed my mind on that, because the realities are changing so quickly that I’m not sure past newsroom experience is as relevant as it once might have been. But, also because any young PR account executive simply can take the time to investigate, if they really so desire.

My unsolicited advice to any young PR practitioner who seeks to understand the media they are relating to would be simply to be inquisitive, to ask friendly questions of their friends and acquaintances in the media, to take the initiative to actually visit newsrooms, to try and get a handle on who are these people in the media with whom they are dealing on a daily basis and what are the working realities they are facing. The payoff in terms of improved media relations will soon become evident.

See: A newsroom is not a newsroom: Changing editorial realities & media relations, Part II

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