Mediaboss Marketing

May 29, 2012

Written by Aaron Chimbel

By the time what we now call legacy media was able to present the news it was inherently old.

Times, of course, have changed. News organizations have to change, too.

That's the basic idea behind why at TCU's Schieffer School of Journalism, where I work, were going digital first with our student media and realigning our structure to allow us to make that happen. Weve been converging our student media operations over the past few years and this is the next logical -- and perhaps most important -- step.

We have a four-day-a-week newspaper, the TCU Daily Skiff, a weekly television newscast, "TCU News Now" (which also produces daily updates), Image magazine and our one-year-old converged website, TCU 360.

Since 2009, our student media have moved into a new converged newsroom, began holding joint budget meetings, moved to a single website and switched the copy desk from the newspaper copy desk to copy editing for all of student media. That was just the start.

Now, the separate news organizations are being reorganized into a single news gathering force that will focus on digital and then use the content that is produced to serve the legacy outlets. There is a caveat. Because of its much different cycle, Image will remain largely independent initially. As will the109.org, a community news website that our program also runs.

Rather than centering the newsgathering on a particular media platform, the goal will be to have reporters produce content in real time and digitally. Its not a revolutionary idea, but its one that has to be embraced and sooner, not later.

In our setup, a student general manager will oversee all of student media. Working with that top leader will be a group of journalists focused mostly on content news, sports and visuals, plus an operations manager to make sure the content gets where it needs to go.

See the rest here:
Refocusing student media to align with digital first approach