Media Matters

The Guardian newsroom restructure explained by Alan Rusbridger in Press Gazette makes perfect sense as for a media content provider to organise around content and output channels is a no-brainer, whatever you call your groups of linked writers — pods, areas, whatever.

As long as everyone in the matrix understands what’s required of them and that they have balanced scorecard-type targets that include both maximising good things and minimising bad things.

The one weak link is the notion of journalists filing straight to the web.

Maybe it’s the sub in me terrified of raw copy being seen by readers, but there is a real danger to the brand’s reputation if the quality it’s normally associated with isn’t matched by the straight-to-Web filing…unless the audience’s expectations are well managed to expect it to be a bit rough and ready by calling it something like “Stop Press”, “Breaking News” or “First Draft”. Subs can then do a proper job for the final draft, published later.

Then, and only then, can direct publishing work without quality being seen to suffer.

Labels: Guardian, matrix, newspapers, structure

# posted by Unknown @ 8:51 pm