Tory leader David Cameron was yesterday given a tour of the Nottingham Evening Post newsroom after it was “dramatically remodelled” to meet the needs of the digital age.

The fully-converged newsroom, in which all journalists work for both the paper and the website simultaneously, was considered the first of its kind in the UK when it went operational last year.

Yesterday Mr Cameron saw how key editorial staff are seated around a central hub to enable the quick and efficient turn-around of breaking news throughout the day with all staff trained to handle multimedia material.

Editor Malcolm Pheby and his deputy Martin Done described how the business had been transformed over the past 18 months into one that was growing a new audience online with more than 360,000 unique visitors last month.

David Cameron is shown around the Evening Post offices yesterday by deputy editor Martin Done, left, and editor Malcom Pheby, right.

Said Martin: “David Cameron was extremely interested in how a traditional newsroom had been dramatically remodelled to serve the fresh demands of a new online audience while maintaining the quality of the printed product.

“He recognised how important it was for regional newspapers to change the way that they worked to be more relevant to new generations of readers.”

The Evening Post’s political editor Charles Walker interviewed Mr Cameron to produce both audio and video for the website yesterday and a more in-depth report for today’s newspaper.

His audio and video clips can be seen and heard here.

Comments

regionalhack (11/02/2009 11:47:52)
The link currently goes to a story on the Evening Post site headlined “Cameron: Topless pictures councillor wrong” Ho ho.

councilworker (25/02/2010 12:19:15)
Hmm, I can see how he’s just got the Director of Communications post at Notts County Council….