Thursday, October 11, 2007

Extreme Makeover - Newsroom Edition

For years, journalists have wrangled with rampaging change, especially the online revolution that brought vast new duties and the accompanying downsizing that left fewer people to accomplish them. Now these changes are rushing toward a threshold that seems likely to remake the homely print newsroom into a multimedia center fighting for survival and success.

While much attention goes to some new-agey titles (Atlanta has a "director of culture and change") and techy reconfigurations, the editors' intentions go far beyond cosmetics.

Read all about it in Carl Sessions Stepp's comprehensive article in the October/November issue of American Journalism Review. The full story is available here: http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=4402

You'll read about Politico.com; about dramatic changes at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution; and a lot about tbhe new Information Centers replacing traditonal newsroom structures at Gannett newspapers.