The New York Times of the future

An overhaul is taking place, looking toward how news will be covered going forward.

In a memo sent to staffers Friday, New York Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet outlined several steps in a project, announced in February, to remake the newsroom in a bid for “journalistic dominance.” Among them:

A shift away from commodity coverage. “The digital news marketplace nudges us away from covering incremental developments — readers can find those anywhere in a seemingly endless online landscape. Instead, it favors hard-hitting ‘only-in-The New York Times’ coverage: authoritative journalism and information readers can use to navigate their lives.”
A reimagined plan for covering New York City. “What should coverage look like if we are going to hold onto our mission of aggressively covering the mayor and the governor, and yet still produce a report that makes sense given that fewer than half of our readers live in New York?”
Less stilted writing and more visual stories. “[Masthead editors] have been meeting with department heads and others to collect ideas about how to build a newsroom that produces fewer perfunctory articles and a greater array of story forms, including more visual journalism, and conversational writing.”
A new model for copy editing. “[Editor] Susan Wessling is leading a team that is examining whether our copy desks are structured properly for an era when stories no longer move at the rhythms of print.”
Editors won’t concern themselves with the print edition.”Assigning editors, in the very near future, will not worry about filling space. They will worry over coverage, and the best ways to tell stories. The print hub, a dedicated group of designers and editors, will then construct the print paper out of the great wealth of journalism.”
De-emphasis on large “desks,” more “coverage clusters.” “In the past, an editor who ran education coverage across The Times had to convince the metropolitan and national editors to run stories that fit their sections. Now, to be provocative, it could be that some important subjects — climate change, education, health care, to name a few — should function on their own.”

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.