Today the NUJ released a comprehensive report on the future of integrated digital newsrooms.

Called ‘Shaping the Future’, the lengthy document contains a series of recommendations and findings gathered from research and interviews conducted by their Commission on Multimedia Working.

The key elements and recommendations are summarised below:

Union agreements

Only 31 per cent of respondents said their house agreement accommodated new media working.

Changes to terms and conditions from the integration of online practices have been negotiated by the NUJ in only 33 per cent of cases.

The Commission said that regional newspaper management had tried to brush the union aside in the rush to go online but negotiations were being resumed in some groups.

Pay

The Commission’s survey found few journalists are financially benefiting from their new skills contributions required by companies for multimedia working.

Just 22 per cent of chapels said their members had received extra pay for applying themselves to new media.

Just over half of respondents said that staff were expected to work in new media yet their pay remained the same despite increased workloads.

Working practices

Few companies seem to have matched the expansion of their online operations by recruiting extra staff to satisfy the appetite for new media despite much of it being more time consuming to deliver.

The Commission survey showed 25 per cent of respondents said new media working had resulted in shift pattern changes. A total of 37 per cent said journalists covering all media now worked longer hours.

Staffing and jobs

The commission survey found that in 45 per cent of offices there had been editorial redundancies since web operations were introduced but most felt redundancies would have happened with or without online working.

Some local papers are expecting reporters to make a video report on a story as well as writing two different versions – for print and online.

On others, reporters are being transferred away from the print edition to put together video reports for the website.

Training

Demarcation between NUJ members with different skills, who have done different jobs, will become increasingly blurred and the NUJ will need to deal with this.

The commission has found that at present there is a real gap between what journalists are expected to do and the training they are receiving for carrying it out.

The biggest area of training currently being undertaken by NUJ members appears to be video reporting among staff journalists on newspapers.

Chapels should be encouraged to negotiate agreements covering training, to secure new technology training for all staff who want it. Nobody should be expected to undertake any task for which they have not been trained.

Health and safety

There are two main health and safety issues are: the use of cameras and other equipment by lone reporters shooting video for websites, and an increase in stress and the risk of “burn-out”, RSI and eyestrain among journalists undertaking more online work.

Fewer than a quarter of survey respondents said that online training in their workplaces included health and safety.

The NUJ wants chapels to elect health and safety reps and ensure health and safety training for all involved in video and audio reporting.

Freelances

With multi-media working, freelance casuals become especially attractive to managements who want flexible workers who can be shifted from desk to desk. Many casuals are former staffers made redundant, hired on the cheap as the need arises.

Publishers are likely to want stories for their websites in video, and there is concern among freelances that without these skills they will not get work.

User-generated content

The 2005 London bombings and the appearance of footage filmed on camera-phones by members of the public all over the media that highlighted a fundamental change in the relationship between the media and its consumers

The issue of user-generated content is not an issue of technology; it is one of defending quality journalism. This is not to say that all user-generated content is bad or that there are no quality blogs, but professional journalism, adequately funded and resourced, plays a role in society and democracy that needs to be defended.

Few citizens, however enthusiastic, will be keen to sit through council meetings or in court all day in the hopes that they will find a story without being paid. Few bloggers, even if they manage to monetise their blogs, will have the resources to carry out major long-term investigations and research that could amount to nothing.

Professional standards

Unsubbed copy being posted to website, which was reported by members at national, regional and magazine titles, is the most serious threat to standards, compounded by the pressure of time and volume of material.

The commission recommends that chapels should strive to ensure that decision-making is in the hands of qualified and experienced editors with the time to devote to all media and that editorial considerations are given priority in setting news priorities.

The practice of reporters taking photographs is becoming widespread, to the detriment of the quality of images in many cases.

As publishers seek desperately to secure advertising on their websites to replace that lost from their traditional media, there is evidence of greater pressure to make editorial concessions to advertisers

One of the biggest dangers lies in the ease of copying and pasting text from websites and emails. Quite apart from questions of copyright, journalists under time pressure may be tempted to simply lump text across without proper consideration of its quality or reliability.