Are you deep enough?

Paul Bradshaw

Paul Bradshaw was talking about the 21st century newsroom on a conference I’m attending in Fredrikstad, Norway. Instead of retelling all – head over to his blog and read his post about this topic. He’s managed to put a lot of all the problems we are struggling with in system.

My reflection after listening to Paul wanders around his perspective on speed versus depth. It seems like traditional media are good on speed, while the blogosphere is better on dept.

As Paul sees it, a news story could be told this way:

• You get an alert (SPEED)
• You publish your first draft (SPEED)
• You make your article/package (SPEED)
• You give your story context like hypertext and put in on a portal (DEPTH)
• You make an analysis/reflection (DEPTH)
• You add interactivity like flash, chats, forums or wikis – (DEPTH)

This work is not necessarily done by one person. The old fashion journalists manage the parts regarding speed.  Often you will have specialist in the newsroom taking care of the rest. In my opinion traditional media often stop after making the article or package. I think the biggest problem right now is that too few traditional journalist understand the new possibilities on the web. The result is that we get a new line of producers, not necessarily journalist. In that sense, by not learning the news ways when they surface, we diminish bit by bit.

EDIT: On Nieman Journalism Lab, you can also read this interesting story about truth versus speed. So maybe a part of Bradshaws model should take this aspect in consideration also. It then seems like we goth three axis. Speed and depth as our ‘x’ and ‘y’ – truth as our ‘z’.