Open Park Notebook: What is 'your' ideal collaborative news model?

These two articles here below perfectly encapsulate and explain the spirit of the new non-competitive partnership between journalists and news organizations that I envision Open Park as facilitating.

They also raise most relevant questions, although some important ones remain - essentially, what models will emerge from the current shifts in the media landscape, and which ones will be the most successful. But as Poynter Media Business Analyst Rick Edmonds correctly points out, "By definition that is not answerable."
His predictions, though, sound quite plausible - see for yourself in the Biz Blog, the second article.

I also invite you here, in the Open Park Notebook, to have a go at answering Knight Digital Media Center contributor and veteran journalist Michelle McLellan's questions, "What ideas for collaboration is your news organization considering? What’s already working for you?"

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http://www.knightdigitalmediacenter.org/leadership_blog/comments/turning_rivalries_into_partnerships/
News Leadership 3.0
TURNING RIVALRIES INTO PARTNERSHIPS

Ideas for ‘09: Collaborate with the former “competition” so that fewer journalists cover the routine and more journalists develop unique and significant enterprise stories
By Michele McLellan, 01/13/09 at 02:08 am

Poynter’s Rick Edmonds says 2009 will be a time of further pooling of news coverage by major news organizations. I agree. We’ll see more former competitors working together. So here’s idea #3 for the New Year: Consolidate and collaborate to enable journalists to increase news enterprise rather than simply producing more routine copy or cutting staffs - and the journalism they produce—ever closer to the bone.

The duplication of effort across larger newspapers covering the same turf—particularly in government and politics - has been enormous. Sure, it’s important to have more than one watchdog on duty at the statehouse. But too often, the watchdogs became the herd, covering the same hearings, writing up the same turn of screw procedural votes, and capturing the same political skirmishes that never quite enlighten real motivations or inform about policy.

Smart statehouse editors learn In many cases, the contributions of the Associated Press have helped carry the routine load. But as staff numbers have declined and demand for breaking news for online have increased, many editors have found themselves wondering where their enterprise - significant, in depth stories that only their organization has discovered or been willing to take on - will come from.

That’s the idea behind The Miami Herald and the St. Petersburg Times joining forces in Florida’s state capital, Tallahassee, in December, according to Anders Gyllenhaal, editor of The Miami Herald.

“We don’t want to double the number of stories. That’s not the goal,” Gyllenhaal told me in an interview. “This helps us focus on 100 percent more enterprise.”

This merger also calls for adding a staff position in Tallahassee. Miami had two reporters there; St. Petersburg three. Gyllenhaal said Miami will add a position - clerk and database expert - to bring the total to six.

He said the staffs have divided the beats and some have ownership for local issues such as the delegation of each organization’s readership. But he anticipates about 75 percent of the coverage will focus on state issues and the more experienced reporters will focus on enterprise.

“There’s never been a time when either paper has had a six-member staff in Tallahassee,” he said.
He said the keys to pursuing the partnership was that the two organizations had similar philosophies about coverage and that their core readerships are separate.

I asked Gyllenhaal if he anticipated further sharing on coverage. “Not necessarily. These ideas sound great. A lot of work is required. We have to be careful the work isn’t greater than the returns. This is a discrete and logical move. It may not have a second act.”

News organizations in Ohio, North Carolina, and Maryland are among those sharing content. Here’s an Associated Press roundup, “Former newspaper rivals cooperate as jobs are cut” (link via www.contentious.com).

There are lots of opportunities here. The leadership challenge is to make sure the collaboration enriches the news product - be it the print newspaper or the Web site - with more than the sum of its parts.

What ideas for collaboration is your news organization considering? What’s already working for you? Please share your ideas in the comments.

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http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=123&aid=156515
The Biz Blog
WHAT TO EXPECT FOR NEWSPAPER COMPANIES IN 2009
Posted by Rick Edmonds at 1:28 PM on Jan. 9, 2009

What has been hitting my desk and voice mail as the new year begins are variations on this query: Did you ever think we would see the day when ... (fill in the blank)?

Just in the last two months, once-intense competitors have agreed to share content, substantial papers are planning to drop print editions some days of the week in favor of online, the huge Tribune Co. filed for bankruptcy protection and the Rocky Mountain News announced that it may close. Not to mention a number of papers selling their presses and contracting printing to nearby newspapers while outsourcing ad composition and circulation calls to Bangalore.

Under the continued intense pressure of the coming six months, expect more of all of this, plus the usual cuts of news space and news staff. My hunch is that pooled coverage -- like the merging of the Tallahassee bureaus of the St. Petersburg Times and Miami Herald or compacts in Dallas-Fort Worth or Southeast Florida -- will sweep through the industry.

Add this to the stuff of nostalgia: competition among papers for top dog status, scoops and readers on the borders of circulation markets. Those fall, along with editorial cartoonists and movie critics, in the category of good things most newspapers can no longer afford.

I also expect more papers -- but only a few -- to try omitting home delivery or any paper publication certain days of the week while retaining a print product on Sunday and perhaps a few other days. Though such moves would save a lot of money, I don't think that justifies the loss of some advertising and circulation revenue for the great majority of papers that are still profitable. And there is a strategic risk of making the newspaper less available and less essential.

The more interesting question may be, what new twists that we have not yet imagined are coming?
By definition that is not answerable, but I'll place a small bet that one of 2009's headlines will be the emergence of a more motley mix of owners:

At least a few more companies will go bankrupt or end up with lenders calling the shots. If you find current management unsympathetic or clueless, wait until the company passes into the hands of a sharp-penciled "workout specialist."

We will see a paper or two passed on to a civic-minded ownership group, such as the Maine citizens who are currently trying to get financing to buy the Portland Press Herald and its associated publications. Except for carrying way too much debt, Brian Tierney's similar Philadelphia group seems to be running the Inquirer with editorial integrity and some business pizazz. (Disclosure: two top Inquirer editors are close friends.) It would be good to see that ownership form given a wider test.

Conversely, I expect to see a rogue owner or several emerge in the course of 2009 -- capricious, "Let's do it my way" types. Think Sam Zell and his radio guys at their worst. Think Wendy McCaw.

And there are other variations -- a transfer to nonprofit status, a foreign buyer, individuals or companies from different lines of business. Print advertising in free fall is going to scare away even most of those who believe they have a Midas touch as managers. But the price is right, and a whole lot of papers are openly or quietly for sale.

But, as Dennis Miller used to say in wrapping up his rants, I could be wrong. In which case, we would see the same cast of characters trying to muddle through the bad times and get to the other side.