A regional newspaper’s office will be shown off next month as a model for the future of multimedia operations.

The Nottingham Evening Post’s new set-up will form part of study tour run by IFRA – the global research organisation for the news industry.

In the past 12 months the Northcliffe daily has been developing an all-bases-covered newsroom with 80 journalists trained in delivering news through print, audio and mobile phone mediums.

The finishing touches are now being put to the refurbished newsroom with staff currently piloting the new layout in one corner as the makeover is finally completed.

The new look sees a newsdesk at the centre of the hub, working in close proximity to each department. There is also a studio for editing audio clips with a dedicated video editing area due for completion soon.

Evening Post deputy editor Martin Done told holdthefrontpage: “It’s more about how people’s jobs have changed. There isn’t one person with a web job title.

“No one is specifically responsible for just the paper or the website. We’ve changed the culture of the newsroom.

“Everyone plays their part and it works right across the newsroom.”

The IFRA study tour – ‘Multimedia Newsrooms in Europe’ – promises delegates an insight into how journalists are managing the switch to fully-converged multimedia newsrooms.

The Nottingham Evening Post is just one stop on the seven-day tour which will take in the Telegraph Media Group and BBC in London as well as newspapers in Paris and Düsseldorf.

Martin added: “We’ve been working alongside IFRA over the last year and we expect to be one of the first, if not the first, fully converged newsrooms in Europe.

“A fairly substantial amount of money has gone into the project, for example to build a dedicated audio studio.

“There are also going to be sophisticated big screen TVs that are going to have the ability to record and play local news outputs throughout the day. The whole newsroom puts us ahead of the game.

“Any breaking news, we’ll use whatever channel we can to reach people. We have one aim and that’s to be first.

“Perhaps, the only exception would be a genuine exclusive. Then we’d give it some considerable thought whether to put it in the paper first.”

Comments

Damocles (13/05/2008 21:43:02)
Nice newsroom – shame about the copy
http://www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=133942&command=displayContent&sourceNode=229136&home=yes&more_nodeId1=133951&contentPK=20616466