Los Angeles Times plan to reinvent the newsroom

From: Maharaj, Davan 
Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2015 12:22 PM
To: yyeditall
Subject: Moving forward

Comrades,

Over the last several years, our newsroom has embraced change -- a lot of it. The ways that our readers learn about their communities, this state and the world continue to change even faster. To stay vital to their lives, we need to accelerate our evolution.

Over the next couple of months, we will begin organizing our newsroom to meet that challenge, drawing upon discussions and strategy sessions that have been ongoing since early this year.

Our goal is to build a newsroom around the needs of our audience. We must recognize that they are mobile, diverse and voracious consumers. That means being faster and more flexible in making coverage decisions. That means publishing news in real time and employing varied forms of storytelling, including narrative, analysis, video, photography and graphics. That means recruiting everyone, not only newcomers to the newsroom but also our best and most experienced reporters and editors, in putting our work online when readers are looking for it.

Organizing ourselves for the online world also means realizing that nearly all the world’s journalism, the stories we read every day, are available through a variety of news outlets and accessible to readers with merely a click. That’s a liberating fact. By selecting the stories we must be competitive on, we will be free to use our resources for work that is original, high quality and focused on the interests and needs of California and its communities.

Here’s what will not change: Our commitment to accountability journalism, our determination to be the preeminent source of news for and about California, our ambition to meet the highest standards of quality, accuracy and fairness, and our goal of making readers smarter, better informed citizens.

Here’s what we must leave behind: Stories that have no public-service purpose, routine news stories that merely duplicate work that is available elsewhere -- and publishing practices that no longer serve an increasingly digital audience.

Yes, we have seen a lot of change, and we continue to have one of the country’s great news organizations. Maintaining our tradition and securing our future require meeting these goals with a sense of urgency and determination.

Over the next few days, we will announce changes in how we deploy personnel, schedule stories and plan coverage. I am keenly aware of, and deeply grateful for, how much everyone has done to make this a 24/7 operation. Now we need your help more than ever.

--Davan

h/t LAObserved