The Touchstone for Innovation
Testing ideas for better newspapers and web sitesNo doldrums: Editors push innovation despite tough times
This article originally appeared online in The American Editor.
By David Stoeffler
Tom Callinan saw an opportunity to get back into a traditional area of news content, but to deliver the information in a totally new way.
Anders Gyllenhaal thought it was important to experiment with delivering news to mobile devices.
Kevin Poortinga hoped to expand reach with a key audience by creating a different kind of experience, not just presenting content.
Jack McElroy believed success in the future required a newsroom transformation and a commitment to continuous improvement.
Dennis Anderson and his colleagues were just hoping to solve a longstanding and common problem with the Monday newspaper.
Naysayers paint a picture of a declining news industry overseen by ink-stained wretches longing for a return to the Watergate era, but these American editors offer testimony to the innovative thinking occurring daily in newspaper organizations. The proof is in valuable new products, such as: CinciNavigator.com; a growing set of iPhone apps for Miami-area sports teams; a web site for moms in Indianapolis that has now grown into a national franchise in more than 100 cities; a trio of news, features and sports web sites for Knoxville, Tenn.; and a fresh, financially successful tabloid wrapping the Monday paper in Lawrence, Kan.
Briefly, here are their stories:
Cincinnati: Mapping the records page
It really started with a recall of dog food.
Tom Callinan, editor and vice president of content and audience development of The Cincinnati Enquirer, remembers the high interest in an online database of tainted dog food as a key to his staff recognizing the power of data online as "an endless well of opportunity." A brainstorming meeting led to a long list of "every conceivable source of data" in the region and the discovery that in many cases, the data was already in-house, being used by reporters and others but not being published.
For Callinan, the Data Center of Cincinnati.com is a throwback to newspapering of the past. "Twenty years ago and more, we had vital statistics," Callinan said, running off a list of records page items like births, deaths, police calls and even schedules for street cleaning. But many newspapers, especially larger ones, got away from publishing that kind of information "and this is a way for us to get back into that," Callinan said.
Under the leadership of Brian Butts, director of online/digital operations, much of that data is now presented through an interactive mapping interface called CinciNavigator. Users can visually search a neighborhood or the region for a vast array of news, police calls, live traffic conditions, property sales, smoking complaints, new businesses and even dog licenses. They also will find entertainment and consumer information, including fish fries, happy hours, garage sales and the latest gas prices.
Callinan said traffic spikes when new data is added to the mapping interface, but generally runs 50,000 to 100,000 views per month, with the average viewer spending 2-3 minutes per visit.
Miami: 'New era' of mobile news
After a surprising 11-5 finish and playoff appearance in 2008, interest in the Miami Dolphins was high and as the 2009 season began, The Miami Herald was ready with a new way to satisfy fans.
The Herald's iPhone application, Dolphins 2009, was popular and profitable -- but also created a template that could be applied across all major professional and college sports teams covered by the Herald, said Anders Gyllenhaal, executive editor. The move is part of a larger effort, Mobile on the Go, that sends an important signal that the newspaper is experimenting with ways to make content available in other forms, Gyllenhaal said. Mobile news is "a clear and obvious direction ... (that) fits well with newspapers in our new era," he said.
Eddie Alvarez, leader of the development team, said the Dolpins app featured easy access to Armando Salguero's blog (the second-highest audience driver on the Herald web site, behind Dave Barry), plus other blogs, news, photo galleries, video reports and even two versions of the Dolphins fight song. An exclusive feature allowed iPhone users to chat among themselves.
The app sold for $1.99 and a new version will be released and sold for the 2010 season. Sales figures have not been released, but Gyllenhaal said it was a profitable and sizable audience. The Herald also has considered developing apps for other mobile devices, but right now just offers the iPhone apps.
Development work was done internally to learn and develop skills, but also in part to ensure that news values -- "depth, precision and reliability" -- are part of the standards, Gyllenhaal said.
Indianapolis: starting a conversation
Like many other newspapers, The Indianapolis Star knew it had a problem reaching a particular group of readers: busy mothers.
At the time in 2006, Kevin Poortinga was responsible for product development in Indianapolis and he recalls the local interest, and the push from Gannett corporate, to find ways to close gaps with key audiences. 
A number of other papers had attempted to close the "mommy" gap with new blogs and web sites, "but a lot of other sites were so content driven," said Poortinga, who is now general manager of product development at Gannett Digital.
Instead, Poortinga's group chose to focus on a relatively untested concept, social networkign, primarily creating a message board space for moms to trade ideas and talk about local needs and issues facing mothers. The group recruited some local moms to get conversations going, so when people began to visit, "they could see what the site was all about," Poortinga said.
Turns out that "moms are perfectly content having conversations with other moms," he said.
IndyMoms.com, now Indy MomsLikeMe, was launched in late 2006 and within a year, it gave birth to a corporate-wide initiative that has now spread to more than 100 cities using the MomsLikeMe.com brand. The sites -- which have proven popular with readers and advertisers alike -- are primarily built to encourage discussions, but also include event calendars, plus photo-sharing areas and other contributed content.
The conversation is local and that's one of the keys to success, Poortinga said, along with keeping the sites simple and focused "on one thing that's really unique," rather than succumbing to what he calls "feature bloat."
Knoxville: the multimedia newsroom
While many talk about web-first publishing and the need for continuous improvement, Jack McElroy and his staff at The Knoxville News-Sentinel are turning maxims into reality through a newsroom transformation that began before the Great Recession but endured through it.
Their web sites, Knoxnews.com, GoVolsXtra.com and Knoxville.com are widely recognized for design and content, particularly among smaller news organizations. For instance, Knoxnews.com was named best overall news site in 2008 in the Newspaper Association of America's Digital Edge awards. GoVolsXtra.com was the 2008 winner of best sports site in the EPpy awards sponsored by Editor and Publisher and Mediaweek.
The sites have been leaders in use of video, including a 2007 Digitial Edge award for RandomThis, an offbeat weekly video column. And social networking is a key component, including a 2008 Digital Edge award for innovative visitor participation program for School Matters.
McElroy credited Multimedia Editor Jack Lail for his leadership in launching and building Knoxnews beginning in the mid-1990s, but said a newsroom reorganization that began 2-3 years ago has transformed his operation. With the help of a local consulting firm, the newsroom has been divided into three major content areas, each responsible for their own web site: News (Knoxnews.com); Features (Knoxville.com); and Sports (GoVolsXtra.com).
A set of metrics was developed, including some traditional measurements (like street sales and online page views) and some new ones aimed at key changes, such as how many news updates are posted online or how many text messages are sent out. "The old adage, what gets measured, gets done is true," McElroy said, noting the sites are updated 80-100 times daily.
An in-house training program was developed and new multimedia and Web 2.0 skills were identified. A matrix was created to track progress in training staff members in all needed skills.
Finally, a continuous improvement program, built on the Japanese principles of kaizen, involves staff from all levels in a monthly re-evaluation of processes and products.
Lawrence: know your audience
The World Company in Lawrence, Kan., has earned a reputation for online innovation, but it was a good old-fashioned print problem that set them to brainstorming in 2008.
Like many newspapers, the Monday edition of the Lawrence Journal-World was weak in terms of advertising and news content, so GO! "was born out of necessity," said Dennis Anderson, managing editor.
Launched in October 2008, GO! was designed to reach out to young families and women. It's a 24-page full-color tabloid (normally wrapped around the main paper) filled with primarily local features, positive news, conversational columns, photos of friends and neighbors, health, fitness, cooking and other tips.
Oh, and it has advertising, 35 percent to 40 percent of the space is sold -- primarily to new advertisers to the paper, and most have been renewing when 26-week or 52-week contracts expire, Anderson said.
Monday circulation has stabilized around 18,600 since the launch of GO! and Monday web traffic has increased from 29,000 unique visitors in Sept. 2008 to 36,000 now, Anderson said.
Anderson's advice for editors looking for innovative ideas: "Make sure you know your audience well and be committed to it."
Online offers new opportunities, challenges for investigative reporting
This blog entry was originally posted on the Readership Institute's Get Smart blog.
OK, so stories about the First Family's new dog, Bo, probably drew more Web traffic on Easter weekend than an Associated Press investigation into the detention of U.S. citizens who have been mistaken for being illegal immigrants, or a Los Angeles Times look at how investors are benefiting from a federal program aimed at helping poor families buy homes.
Does that mean the future is dim for online readership of investigative journalism or that in-depth or explanatory reporting is not valued by digital users?
In a recent Presstime article, Charlotte Hall argues that one of the strengths of the print newspaper is its ability to help readers step back and assess bigger-picture issues.
Hall, editor of the Orlando Sentinel and outgoing president of the American Society of News Editors, says the newspaper can offer "the kind of in-depth and analytical work that the 24/7 breaking news world on the Web cannot provide. Print is good at the things the Web is not good at - watchdog, explanatory, enterprise, narrative storytelling. The two media complement one another. One is the flowing river, changing constantly; the other is the rock on the shore, fixed and solid."
I agree that the two media complement each other - and I'd like to see print editions put more emphasis on long-form journalism, good storytelling and strong use of photos and other visuals. Too often these days, the newspaper is simply a summary of what was already reported online, rather than a unique product.
That's one reason I am interested in the experiment under way at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. Editor Nancy Barnes explained in this post why the organization is breaking in-depth reports in print first, and then publishing them several days later on the Web.
I'm not sure delaying publication is the right answer, but at least it is an effort to differentiate the print and online products.
What I'd rather see is more effort by newsrooms to create different versions of the story for different audiences. You'd create a long-form version for the print edition, displayed with photos and graphics. And, while you could make the full text available online, you'd develop a shorter text version for prominent display online, supplemented by video and audio, plus maps, satellite images and interactive graphics, as well as tie-ins to searchable databases. Online versions would be full of links - to original source materials and to related stories (including from competitors). And, of course, readers would be encouraged to participate in improving the online content and commenting on it.
In these ways, online can be a powerful ally to in-depth and investigative journalism.
Need proof it can be done by a mid-size news organization? Check out "I Didn't Do That Murder," from the Times Herald-Record, of Middletown, N.Y. This Ottaway paper, which has a strong online track record, was recognized for its work with a 2008 Sigma Delta Chi Award for online investigative reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists. The report uses online storytelling techniques, mixing in videos, a crime scene map and an interactive timeline.
Another good example comes from USA TODAY and its special report on toxic air near America's schools. In addition to the text, the online version of the series included several video reports, plus an interactive map and an exhaustive, easy-to-use database. You can search by state and then by city/county or by school name to find out how your school or area rank in terms of air quality. And once you've identified an area, you can look at details on local sources of pollution, and learn more information about potentially dangerous chemicals in the air.
Imagine the amount of newsprint required to provide the same amount of information.
Investigative journalism in the public interest is the mission of ProPublica and the site has a cleverly done Investigations section that helps readers keep track through a simple feature called This Week in Scandals.
Talking Points Memo won a Polk Award for its use of crowd-sourcing that helped lead to the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
Of course, there are many other good examples of how online journalism is developing. But don't take my word for it.
Jay Rosen, the deep thinker from New York University and ubiquitous PressThink blogger, recently engaged his Twitter followers with the following observation about Charlotte Hall's Presstime comments.
"It's 2009, and the president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors is saying 'the Web is not good at explanatory?'" Rosen wrote. When asked for more details, he responded: "One example is 538.com, which does a better job explaining the polls than all newspaper stories about polling combined."
For more online investigative reporting, I urge you to check out the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism's web site, WisconsinWatch.org.