Trinity Mirror’s plans for the newsroom of the future are starting to take shape as the company advertises 20 new roles.
As reported last month, the company is piloting its new ‘Newsroom 3.1′ initiative at its North East titles based in Newcastle and Teesside.
The project, which will be rolled out across the rest of the group’s titles throughout the year, will see a wholesale overhaul of newsroom structures designed to usher in a new ‘digital first’ approach to publishing.
The first tranche of 20 new roles on offer include that of editor of The Journal, though it has been rebranded Editor (Agenda, Business and Entertainment.)
Brian Aitken announced last month he was standing down as editor of the Newcastle-based daily after nearly 11 years in charge.
The advertisement for the newly-rebranded role states: “As Editor (Agenda, Business and Entertainment), you will be responsible for the areas of content which will make us stand out from our rivals online, leading teams of writers who provide the most in-depth coverage of issues and subjects which will make us turn-to websites on a daily basis.
“Reporting to the Editor-in-chief, you will also be the title editor of The Journal, one of the most famous brands in regional journalism.
“The Journal is one of the great brands in regional journalism, trusted and admired in equal measure by the North East’s most influential people. We need someone who can develop the brand for the digital age while keeping it true to its beliefs.”
Launching the plan last month, Trinity Mirror said that eight existing roles would be placed at risk of redundancy while 25 new roles would be created.
It will mean the end of many traditional newsroom roles with the print titles put together by a small team of specialists from content already published on companion websites.
Many of the new roles have titles unfamiliar to the industry such as Advance Content Writer, Planning Analyst, Agenda Writer (Social Affairs) and Content Curator.
Although TM has given no further details of its plans, the job descriptions for the roles offer some clues about what the ‘newsroom of the future’ may look like.
Advance content writers, for instance, will be responsible for providing in-depth content and local information for the websites.
Planning analysts will be tasked with reviewing audience data on a daily basis, spotting trends and suggesting content improvements, although the job spec states that a content background is “desirable but not essential.”
Print publishing editors will effectively lead the dedicated units responsible for producing the Chronicle, Journal and Sunday Sun and will answer to the title editors.
Some of the roles are non-journalistic, for instance that of content curator which is designed to provide support for digital and print projects by “researching, curating, sourcing, organising, formatting and inputting content packages.”
There is also a role of Newcastle United Editor who will be charged with making chroniclelive.co.uk the “turn-to source for NUFC news around the clock.”
Alongside this there will be an Editor (Football, Fan Engagement and Sports Development) who will “establish the priorities around digital sports content, manage relationships with key contacts and sports organisations, and ensure that great new digital content ideas are being invented and implemented on a daily basis.”
Trinity Mirror has declined to identify the eight roles at risk of redundancy in the new structure as discussions with staff are still ongoing.
Launching the Newsroom 3.1 plan last month, it said the new structure was designed to support a “digital first” publishing process, with fresh content created to meet key “digital audience spikes” during the day.
Regional editorial director Neil Benson previously said the changes would mean journalists’ working days were “no longer built around our print products.”
“The new structure gives us the capability to produce more digital content all day and every day, while still producing brilliant newspapers,” he added.
All 20 new roles are now being advertised on HoldtheFrontPage. The full list of new roles is as follows:
Newcastle
Content Editor
Agenda Writer (Social Affairs)
Print Publishing Editor
Business Editor
Story Editor
Editor (Football, Fan Engagement and Sports Development)
Planning Analyst
Newcastle United Editor
Advance Content Writer (General)
Editor (Agenda, Business and Entertainment)
Advance Content Writer (Arts and Entertainment)
Print Content Editor
Social Media Writer
Content Curator
Content Curator (Business)
Digital Producer
Teesside
Editor (Daily Content)
Advance Content Writer (General)
Trainee Multimedia Journalist
Advance Content Writer (Sport)
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No head of values? Right. So that’s all good then.
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It would be easy to dismiss some of these new job titles as ‘W1A’ -style newspeak, but check them out and many are actually the old investigative reporter, health, education and general reporter roles focused towards new audiences and new ways to reach them.
On the face of it TM appears to be having the first really well thought out crack at meeting the challenge and opportunities of digital.
If it is well-resourced and where possible, staff at risk can move into these new jobs, it could be good.
‘And I’m not being funny here but…’
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Intriguied to see ‘content curator’ posts described as non-journalistic.
What are they then – rebadged copy-takers or copy-tasters?
(Forgive the old-school references. I guess no-one who joined print media in the last decade has even encountered such folk)
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Well, there’s the future. It certainly ain’t in print.
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What’s happening here is that Trinity Mirror is putting all the other regional UK publishers to absolute shame.
It’s clear that they at least are serious about digital journalism and are putting real effort and resources into it.
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Bluestringer’s absolutely right. The job titles may sound a bit weird but at least they’re having a go, and actually investing in the future. The only thing I would question is Neil Benson’s suggestion that they would “still (be) producing brilliant newspapers,”
In fairness, I don’t believe a small team of specialists putting the print titles together from content already published on companion websites will result in ‘brilliant newspapers’,. no matter how hard they try
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As I said when this was first announced, TM finally seems to be ‘getting’ the future. It’s a shame it’s taken them ten years to do it. As long as they resource it properly, which they probably won’t, this ought to work.
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It’s a pity they had to jargonise all the names, though. What’s wrong with “reporter” & “news”?
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Positive to see TM being bold with digital experimentation and new ways of working. And the job titles reflect the fact you can’t simply transfer old roles and ways of working from print to digital, you have to restructure if you are going to be authentically digital-first.
But, coming in the week that cost-cutting claimed DFM’s Project Thunderdome across the pond http://www.niemanlab.org/2014/04/the-newsonomics-of-digital-first-medias-thunderdome-implosion-and-coming-sale/, I hope this is a genuine and deep-rooted attempt to rebuild the newsroom – not a project which the bean counters will be eyeing up some months or years down the road.
Best of luck to everyone involved in this work, will watch with great interest.
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At last a grown up approach to digital instead of reporters doubling up and doing neither web nor paper properly. JP please note as papers bleed sales and web income fails to impress in hard cash terms.
Good luck to TM. But it MUST be adequately staffed and not run by bean counters.
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It was phrases like Newsroom 3.1 which depresssed the hell out of me in the last months of my time labouring under the Trinity Mirror banner. Yes, credit to the company for striving for a digital future, but does it really need to come hand in hand with such Orwellian jargon? It smacks of managers justifying fat salaries by conjuring up magic Power Point presentations and rebranding exercises when the simple truth is that the digital future requires only what the analogue past had…..good journalists given the resources and freedom to use their talents. My bet is that the bright new digital future will end up being a 21st century version of the sweat shop which my generation of hacks thought had been left behind in the 1970s.
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It’s a good job Trinity Mirror has found the Holy Grail of how to turn the bright, shiny digital future (putting newspapers second) into big fat profits… ahem.
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OK bold move etc etc but EIGHT of the new roles have Editor in the title. Will there be anyone on the Journal without the title? It’s not exactly a huge newsroom.
And why the need for the Birt speak? Editor (Agenda, Business and Entertainment), or as they have to remind everyone, ‘the title editor’ sounds like they’re in charge of three supplements.
And of course they remain under the Editor-in-chief. Just in case we thought there weren’t enough editors.
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I admire TM for giving it a go and will be interested to see how this works out.
They appear to be the only regional publisher actually thinking about what it’s doing and has had some success with its digital brands. Us vs them and ampp3d, while not genuine news websites, have at least shown a publisher attempting to create medium appropriate content, rather than taking a ‘one fits all” approach of w*nking out guff onto the internet for the sake of it.
However this goes, at least there’s clear direction and seemingly an attempt to be up front and move ahead of the times rather than just be reactionary.
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Newspapers websites are still relying on content produced for print to fill their sites.
Much of this does very little to attract visitors and I imagine some actively turns the audience off.
Just whacking up school visits, charity guff and community news to increase story uploads is nonsense. The web is another channel and should be treated as such. It demands breaking news, live blogs, traffic updates, daily court stories, on-the-minute sport.
The audience wants to know what’s happening now not last week. Until the attitude towards the web changes dramatically and people start looking at the most read column of their site, many news websites will fail along with print.
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