Mark Blevis

…continued from Hot and Cold media (part 3): it’s not the width of the wave…

Issue #4: the risk of wearing people out or, worse, doing too many things badly rather than few things very well

When they first moved to digital, newspaper, radio and television organizations used the Internet as yet another channel to distribute content they’d already produced. There was little in the way of breaking news on the web because the media outlets didn’t have the knowledge or agility to get news on their website quickly. The Internet didn’t drive traffic to their primary channel, nor their primary channel to the Internet. They were competing with themselves and marginalizing both of their efforts in the process.

I’ll hand it to them now; they learned very quickly that the present of media and communications is the integration of digital and traditional modes of distribution and engagement. During a meeting I was in, yesterday, an accomplished and well respected public affairs professional referred to this as digital being part of the marrow of a communications campaign, not a graft on to it.

This recognition is important, yet it comes at a cost. shrinking budgets means fewer staff that are expected to do more. For people that have been in the business for a while, it’s a reinvention of their workflow and a lengthening of their day – I’m guessing at the same salary.

During a presentation he gave last spring, Ottawa Sun sports columnist Chris Stevenson explained that he is now expected to write his column, keep a blog that augments (not competes) with his column and produce a video for the Ottawa Sun website, all from the same fact finding missions. Where he used to carry a pad and pencil to take interview notes, now he seemingly has to write with one hand and operate a hand-held video camera with another. The intent is that each work he produces appreciates the value of the other.

Let’s return to my earlier study of the O’Brien trial. Here, the new normal (the integration of digital and traditional) may have been just a minor change in mindset and tools. Ottawa Citizen columnist Glen McGregor (legally) broadcasted courtroom proceedings over Twitter. It was like he was a digital court reporter for the public and the “tweets” (I’m guessing) became the notes from which he wrote is article. News junkies loved this because they followed unfiltered facts from the courtroom in real time from which they could make their own assessment of the situation. Then they could read Glen’s column the next morning to get some analysis. CBC Ottawa‘s Alistair Steele (radio) and Cory O’Kelly (television) found Twitter’s 140 character limit too restrictive so they tag-teamed short blog posts, focussing their energy on their deadlines and creating strong reports for the evening news. Unfortunately, that approach meant that on many days, digital seemed like an afterthought.

Suggestion: Realign production demands and deadlines. Overloading the journalist could lead to doing too much badly, worker burnout or (worse) diminish the personality of the column or media brand. Integrate digital in a way that becomes part of the existing workflow instead of adding more work to the flow. Or, find a way to spread out some of the work.