More praise for Fort Myers

The Fort Myers (Fla.) News-Press, which seems to be an incubator for new ideas at Gannett, won APME's first Innovator of the Year award for its "culture of innovation." This is the paper that has mobile journalists armed with laptops, audio recorders and wireless Web connections out patrolling neighborhoods for "hyperlocal" news. The paper also earned a lot of buzz (on this blog and elsewhere) for its crowdsourced story on sewer problems.

I like the idea of both these things -- allowing community members to get involved with investigating a story and unleashing reporters from their desks. But, man, it seems Fort Myers is getting a lot of traction from one story a year ago and a lot of ribbon-cutting stories. (Have you heard of other crowdsourcing success stories? Know of any people who admit to being devoted readers of hyperlocal news?)

Am I being too cynical?

(Oh, the other finalists for the APME award: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat and Chronicle. The AJC was nominated for its newsroom overhaul. The D&C got the nod for its RocDocs, which gives online users access to data, maps and investigative reports assembled by the newspaper.

'We're no longer a daily newspaper'

"We're a 24-hour information center." So says the managing editor of the News-Press in Fort Myers, Fla., a Gannett paper that adopted the "Information Center" approach early on.

A lot of the things we have in the works here -- most notably the "universal desk" -- bear strong resemblance to what's going on in Gannett. (Insert ominous music here.)

The ME shared some of the lessons she learned during their transition:

• Communicate often. Managers must tell employees that change is coming, even before managers know exactly what the changes will be.


• Expect turmoil as newsroom resources are redeployed. Expect some resignations, and expect staff to express uncertainty of the results. Quality may suffer during the transition, but it will return.


• Be flexible. Great ideas will come from unlikely sources. Capitalize on opportunities. And don't be afraid to make adjustments.


• Train managers to manage the change and to manage staff in their new roles. Train staff on the new equipment, technology and processes they will be using. Ask what they need, and ease their fears that they will be left behind.


• Encourage and reward innovative ideas, and celebrate successes. Host monthly progress parties that celebrate changes accomplished during the month.

Also of note in this Inland Press story, the paper's vice president of human resources offers some advice to help staffers transition from the old model to the 24-hour, Web-centric newsroom organization.

News to Use

So, text alerts aren't just messages about boring traffic reports or sports scores. I just got an alert from the News-Press of Fort Myers, Fla., (for which I thought I'd opted out, but that's another story) that's really important news.

Text of the message:

All four 11:59 p.m. showings of "Harry Potter" for tonight at the Bell Tower Shops have sold out.

The 3 a.m. shift

E&P has a pretty good look at how Gannett's much-touted "Information Center" approach is faring a year after being rolled out. The papers say the approach -- more updates to the Web, a renewed focus to be ultra-local, inviting readers in on conversations -- has generated much more Web traffic. One paper says it's up 72% month to from last year.

• I liked this quote from a Merrill Lynch newspaper analyst:

  "They are giving the reader something rich. People who might not go to the site for news will go to find out home prices. It is an opportunity to serve advertisers better by connecting with the local audience and a number of local advertisers."

• The article does allude to concerns within a few of the operations that each newsroom is being asked to do too much, but there isn't a lot of explanation.

• In Rochester, N.Y., the paper is learning that the online features can drive print circulation. Editors discovered this in September when they prepared a multimedia package on local sex offenders, which included a database of registered felons and various audio and video reports.
  
  The Web package was prominently placed on the home page on Sept. 28 to promote much of the same material in a Sunday print presentation three days later. The effort resulted in the biggest Sunday single-copy sales of the year, with 4.9% more than any other Sunday. That record was broken two months later when the same approach was used for a report on police overtime.

• In Phoenix, the paper partnered with Arizona State University to pay 15 students $10 an hour to cover local news online during early-morning hours.

• In Parsipanny, N.J., where a Web editor works the overnight shift to keep feeding the Web and trying to grow the overnight audience, the editor says the approach has changed the mind-set of staffers.

  "It is less of a print-driven approach," he says while chatting in his office, "being absolutely as local as we can be and getting readers involved as often as possible." The early jump on the Web is key, he adds, noting that the paper's monthly page views jumped from 3.3 million in March 2006 to 4.9 million in March 2007.

Driving traffic in Des Moines

Randy Brubaker, the ME at The Des Moines Register, told me in April about some of the big draws on their Web site DesMoinesRegister.com. They're doing a lot of innovative things there in a newsroom basically comparable to ours. (They've got about 200; the paper has changed some jobs, reassigned and not filled some positions in order to create new online jobs.) I'd especially recommend Juice, their site for 25- to 34-year-olds.

• The data page draws a lot of visitors, especially the state salary database. But Brubaker expects the vital stats database will overtake it in the next year.
• Photo galleries drive big traffic, as long as they're linked from the home page.
• Reader-submitted photos, submitted using TextAmerica, are starting to generate some steady interest, as are the community (hyperlocal) pages.
• The site offers a lot of "interactivity," including quizzes, giveaways and games. The spelling quiz and age game at the top right on this page are examples of the interactive graphics produced by the graphics staff.
• Their fueling Iowa's future page features interactive content such as Google maps to locate biodiesel centers. Obviously, this is a major issue for them, and I think this page shows the value of grouping and archiving related content. Check out all the videos and graphics.
• Finally, on the heels of IndyMoms.com, Des Moines has launched a moms special-interest site. This is a good example of the kind of online community the paper and its site can help create. Once this takes off, Brubaker expects the paper will use some of this new functionality in sports and elsewhere on the site.