I'm excited to participate in a live blog forum for the APME convention at the Poynter Institute in beautiful St. Petersburg Florida. As a native of Florida I'm often taken back by the beauty of this state. The institute is located off the water across from USF St. Pete campus. I'm honored to be here.
Jennifer Conklin is speaking on behalf of the Mcclatchy Southeast virtual newsroom which consist of 4 newspapers combining information to deliver news as a single virtual outlet. The outlet provides news to Biloxi, Bradenton, Columbus, and Macon. The newspaper has 2 designers that design for the 4 newspaper outlets which cut cost. They now have a special session, Bradenton had a pink page of newspaper for Breast cancer awareness. One news outlet completed the section and then shared it amongst the other outlets. Other outlets had the takes of putting their own advertising which saved money and time.
In just about every business, corporations are looking to deliver the same great quality work while operating with a more cost efficient budget. The theme of the convention today circles around that concept. How can media continue to thrive, especially newspapers, while operating with a smaller budget? The answer....convergence. Not only are newspapers now discussing virtual print but they are also figuring out ways to deliver news to the same areas but at a cheaper cost. The Newport Daily news was able to save money while cutting some jobs by sharing some of the job responsibilities of their daily operations with the Chicago Press. Chicago produces, designers and outputs the paper for the Daily Press. The Daily Press will no longer have to decided which nation world articles to report. Chicago Press produces 80% of the Daily Presses information. Chicago handles the editing, final slotting, and content. Newport News Daily Press produces 20% of the papers outlet which save on cost and time.
Up next is Media General
There is a virtual consolidated editing center. They are installing CCI which went live in Tampa last week. All copy editing will be done in Tampa and Virginia for all media generals companies. All editing teams can communicate with each other when editing for multiple outlets. Media General is relocating the Richmond center to become a remote editing center. The idea is to get papers out at the most cost beneficial ways. They will be testing AOL video camera's so the news organization can have virtual meetings about. All print articles for Media General will go through the two editing centers.
The convention is being held to protect the journalism from suffering the effect of the downward economy as well as the growing the growing use of online news people. The fact is that people are choosing to get their news from more immediate sources such as web content. News paper sales are dwindling and newspapers have had to come up with more ways to stay afloat.
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