Digital Forward
How newsrooms are answering the call to innovate
There is no shortage of digital transformation occurring in newsrooms, but the COVID-19 pandemic only accelerated the pace as journalists moved to Zoom video calls and remote work, and readers turned more to online news to receive their information.
To meet those needs, newsrooms around the country have created inventive and engaging projects—from graphic novels to podcasts. Below, E&P highlights some of these newsrooms that are pursuing digital and finding success.
UNLEASHING CREATIVITY
Illustrations have always been a part of newspapering history, but the USA TODAY Network has taken it up a notch with their online graphic novels. To date, the Network has published nearly 10 novels.
One of their more recent ones explained how the Breonna Taylor killing highlights the importance of Sunshine Laws. Some of the panels include animations and links to the Louisville (Ky.) Courier Journal’s reporting on Taylor’s death, and links to other agencies such as US Legal and the Louisville Metro Police Department.
“I chose Louisville’s reporting because it was a textbook example of how a newspaper uses open records to tell a story and to get information that the government (doesn’t) necessarily want to be revealed,” said Mike Thompson, USA TODAY editorial cartoonist.
Reid Williams, senior director of Storytelling Studios, anticipates that the more people who view the graphic novels, the more requests his team and Thompson will get from the Network to create them. He explained that this is the next step
“in a constant journey of exploration and experimentation.”
“Illustration is not new. What’s really new here…is enabling people to use all of the things that the web can do,” he said.
“It’s not just illustrations and text like you see on the printed page, but there is movement and sound.”
Thomson added, “As a visual journalist, it puts more arrows in my quiver. I can produce static drawings but also animations and video, all of which can be used to tell the story more effectively.”
At The New Yorker, visual and interactive storytelling has also allowed the magazine to put immediate matters into perspective. In response to the racial justice protests last year, artist Kadir Nelson painted a portrait of George Floyd for the cover of the magazine’s June 2020 issue. A reader analyzing the painting can see other Black victims of racism and police brutality. When viewed online, the website zooms in on each person and provides a summary on their story.
“For those of us locked down at home, 2020 was often a year of yearning for experiences beyond our doors—and, in the absence of such experiences, a reminder of the power of stories to whisk us away to another world,” Monica Racic, digital director, and Sandra Garcia, editorial interactives director, said in a New Yorker article. “For the magazine’s interactives team, 2020 offered continual opportunities to tell these stories with visuals aimed at imparting additional insight and perspective.”
The Houston Chronicle’s “One Year Later” visual project depicts photographs and videos, sharing the stories of Houston residents a year after the pandemic started. It includes “Then” and “Now” photos of residents and details where they were at in 2020 when the pandemic forced a stayhome order and visits those same people a year later. Once the photos were collected, multimedia photo editor Jasmine Goldband was in charge of putting the project together.
“I had mobile in mind,” she said. “One thing I was going for with the video clips was a similar Stories app like on Instagram and Facebook.”
Photo editor Jill Karnicki explained,
“We wanted it to be a touchstone for our subscribers, so that they could see and relate to the stories of others. We also wanted to produce something that was completely visually driven for Houstonchronicle.com. It didn’t have to rely on a traditional text story to deliver a message.”
The Chronicle did run three of the “Now” and “Then” in print to promote the project; however, the web is a place to enrich stories as well as find new and interesting ways of telling them, Karnicki said. Seeing the subject as well as being able to hear them tell their own stories in their own words is “the added power of digital publication.”
“So often the conversation about digital is focused on disruption to the business model,” Mark Lorando, managing editor of audience, said. “We need to talk more about the creativity and innovation it has unleashed in local newsrooms. The way we tell stories has fundamentally changed— and that’s exhilarating.”
ENGAGING NEW AUDIENCES
The Sahan Journal is a young, digital nonprofit newsroom in Minnesota. In March, the organization launched “COVID-19 Vaccine: Frequently Asked Questions,” a video series to answer critical questions among local immigrant populations.
Each installment of the series is available in four languages: English, Spanish, Somali and Hmong. For the first installment, videos were hosted by familiar faces among residents like Sahan Journal immigration reporter Hibah Ansari and Maxamuud Mascadde, one of the most recognizable Somali broadcast journalists in Minnesota.
While speaking with community organizations and residents, health care reporter Joey Peters determined what questions needed to be answered, according to founding executive director and editor Mukhtar Ibrahim. Managing editor Michael Tortorello added that Peters also found that although the State Department of Health and the CDC provided reasonably good information, it was not easily accessible to people in terms of placement and speech.
In the early days of the pandemic, the
Sahan Journal translated articles containing important information from the Minnesota Department of Health, along with messages from the governor, into Somali, Spanish and Hmong. However, Ibrahim explained that data showed people were not spending time with the content, and it was time-consuming and expensive to produce.
“We felt that in order to reach more audiences—that are not digitally savvy or cannot read English—the quickest and most efficient way was to do this in a video format, where they can really understand what was going on in their own languages,” Ibrahim said.
The Sahan Journal wants to continue the video series at least until late summer, when most Minnesotans are projected to be vaccinated.
Last summer, Reuters furthered its commitment to video by partnering with
Roku, a video-streaming company, to launch a video news channel on its platform. With this initiative, Roku users have access to an editorially curated selection of news content 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The video coverage includes general news, business, politics, entertainment, and more in 30-minute feeds, according to a press release.
Alex Lewin, senior manager, off-platform partnerships, told E&P that joining Roku enables Reuters to extend its footprint and engage a new audience of news consumers.
“We are now engaging new audiences around the world who are watching content via streaming, accelerated in part because of the pandemic,” he said. “During this time of digital disruption, it is important that Reuters editorially-curated selection of news content, served around-the-clock, have a place on platforms such as Roku, connected TVS and premiere streaming services.”
“TEST AND LEARN”
The Las Vegas Review-journal recently saw an opportunity to focus on the city’s organized crime history. Not only did the Review-journal have decades of archived coverage to draw from, but they also had a partnership opportunity with the Smithsonian-affiliated Mob Museum, which had long wanted to produce a podcast. The museum provided the newspaper with access to its audio archives, contacts with sources, its social media following and email list, and interviews with its experts, Review-journal executive editor Glenn Cook wrote for Betternews. In return, the museum attached its name to the project.
The series, “Mobbed Up: The Fight for
Las Vegas,” published a total of 11 episodes last year from May to July. During its launch
week, the podcast reached number 57 on the Apple Podcasts top podcasts charts and number 11 on the Apple Podcasts true crime charts in the U.S.
Originally, the Review-journal had no plans for a second season; however, achieving audience and unexpected sponsorship successes quickly changed their minds. Now, they are releasing the next season later this year. Cook also stated that the paper is also more likely to produce podcasts to accompany future enterprise and investigative work.
“We have learned that high-quality podcasts can still pick up a sizable, committed audience…despite the flood of new podcasts over the past few years,” he said.
At Michigan Radio, their Minutes audio podcast series includes city council meetings from 42 cities around the state (audio comes from videos of city councils posted online). With the aid of the Google News Initiative, the company built a program that can search and download content from the videos, made public thanks to Michigan’s Open Meetings Act. Listeners can subscribe and listen to the podcasts on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. The audio is unedited and free of ads.
Dustin Dwyer is a reporter and producer and co-creator of Minutes. He explained that podcasts might be more convenient than videos that are hours long because they make it easy for people to multitask and fast forward a little more easily.
“Our ultimate long-term goal would be to make this audio navigable and searchable so that people could skip to just the sections of audio that are relevant to them…but we haven’t quite solved that yet, so stay tuned,” Dwyer said.
Minutes is also utilizing speech-to-text transcription technology to create a database. If a reporter is unable to cover a meeting in person, they will have access to the transcriptions where they can use keywords to search for topics and ultimately produce more stories.
“Michigan Radio has a wide coverage area and a small staff. There are a lot of important stories happening in local communities that we just can’t cover,” Dwyer said. “The local papers that have traditionally covered those communities are also struggling. So, we face the challenge of trying to expand coverage with the same, or fewer, resources. That’s where we really have to innovate. Minutes is one way we’re trying to do that.”
Sometimes digital projects also undergo their transformations. Originally launched in March 2020, NPR’S “Coronavirus Daily” podcast was turned into a new podcast called “Consider This” two months later.
“We didn’t know whether (“Coronavirus Daily”) would be around for a few months or maybe a year, but we started to get a little nervous when we saw the audience starting to pull away,” said senior director of on-demand news programming Neal Carruth. “We had been planning since late 2019 to create a general interest daily afternoon podcast, sort of the on-demand counterpart to ‘All Things Considered.’”
By September 2020, NPR was making another bold move. “Consider This” was pivoting again—this time to a localized daily podcast, a first for both public radio and the
podcast industry. The revamped product delivers not only national stories but partners with NPR stations across the nation to also deliver local news. Currently, 10 regions have access to the localized podcast, including Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Portland.
“We need to become digital NPR, digital radio, digital public media, digital memberdriven network,” Justin Bank, senior director, digital news and strategy, told E&P. “I don’t think anyone really knows what that is…all we can do is test and learn.”
WORKING WITH DATA
As the COVID-19 pandemic grew, newsrooms pulled and collected pertinent data to create informational tools for their communities.
In March 2020, The Atlantic started The COVID Tracking Project (covidtracking.com). Since it was started by two reporters, the team morphed to include hundreds of volunteer data-gathers, developers, scientists, reporters, designers, editors, and other dedicated contributors. The tracker counted tests, cases, hospitalizations and deaths by state and several territories.
Later on, the magazine launched the COVID Racial Data Tracker, in partnership with the Center for Antiracist Research, collecting, analyzing, and publishing racial data on the pandemic within the U.S. Additionally, they launched the Long-term-care COVID Tracker to do the same for nursing homes and assisted living facilities.
Throughout the year, the team explained their methods and shared their expertise through blog posts, tweet threads, training sessions, and more. But as more federal data became available, the organization decided to shut down the tracker. The project stopped collecting data in early March, but their work is still available online, and their research and analysis work will continue through the end of this month.
Last April, City Bureau, a nonprofit civic journalism lab based in Chicago, created a unique database for its readers. Called the Chicago COVID Resource Finder (covid. citybureau.org), the database is made of neighborhood, city, county, and state resources. Resources can be sorted by who is eligible (immigrants, families, business owners, students, LGBTQI), what is offered (food, money, legal help, and more), languages spoken, and location. The database is available in 13 languages including Spanish, French, Polish, and Vietnamese. The same information can also be accessed via SMS by texting “covid” to a provided phone number, where they will be prompted to answer a few questions to narrow down their search and sent a list of resources.
“As Covid-related restrictions began in Chicago, our first step was to reach out to community partners and to survey asking social service organizations about information needs,” web developer Pat Sier wrote in a
City Bureau article explaining their process. “We heard that a lot of good information was out there, but people were overwhelmed and sometimes not able to find resources in their language or in a way they could access quickly and easily.”
Through three projects of their own, The Philadelphia Inquirer provided local data to their readers regarding COVID-19 and vaccines. The Inquirer launched a COVID Tracker last year with Spotlight PA, tracking tests, cases, deaths, and hospitalizations in Pennsylvania counties as well as in
New Jersey. Also launched last year was the Local COVID-19 Coverage database, in a partnership with Lenfest Lab, which presented an infographic of a 14-day trend by county. It also automatically sorted the newspaper’s COVID-19 coverage under each infographic. Most recently, the Inquirer launched a vaccine database, which allows people to look up providers in the state by county, and links to a state vaccine eligibility quiz and schedule.
Managing editor Patrick Kerkstra anticipates the Inquirer will continue to track COVID-19 data until the nation returns to “something approaching normal.” Aside from the homepage and certain section fronts, the tracker was the newspaper’s topperforming page. These COVID-19 pages were also used as an opportunity to ask people to subscribe or donate, which yielded numerous results.
Prior to launching these projects, the Inquirer had few data experts, and they didn’t develop work to utilize data, visualization and interactives. But COVID-19 presented an opportunity to develop that muscle, and the newsroom’s investment into data continues this year. As readers become accustomed to receiving information from databases and navigating them, Kerkstra believes they will be important to the future of news.
“It’s been a huge part for the national media, and I think local media is paying attention and really ought to be investing more energy and more time into working with data,” he said.
The Washington Post has named Estefanía Pozzo a contributing writer to its Spanish-language section, Post Opinión. Her writing for the Post will explore Argentina’s economic challenges and their intersection with social issues. She previously wrote for Post Opinión about Argentina’s criminalization of abortion for those in poverty, the country’s foreign debt and its response to the economic and social impacts wrought by the pandemic. Based in Buenos Aires, Pozzo has worked at Argentina’s leading economic news publications such as Ámbito Financiero and El Cronista Comercial, in addition to various radio and television programs.
Ryan Boland has been named editor of the Fulton (Mo.) Sun. He previously served two brief stints as the Sun’s news editor. Previous editor and reporter Helen Wilbers is moving to Colorado to continue pursuing her career. She joined the Sun as a reporter in 2016 and became editor in June 2019.
Dan Chalk has been named managing editor of the Midland (Mich.) Daily News.
He succeeds Lori Qualls, who retired in February. Chalk has been a sports journalist with the Daily News for 22 years.
The Associated Press has named Anna Jo Bratton as U.S. enterprise editor on the news cooperative’s global enterprise team. She will work with colleagues across the United States to produce high-impact journalism for the country and for international audiences. Additionally, she will identify and help manage a portfolio of collaborations with AP customers and nonprofit news organizations in the U.S. Bratton’s first newspaper job was as an obituary clerk at the Lincoln (Neb.) Journal Star. After working at newspapers in St. Louis and Des Moines, Iowa, Bratton joined the AP in 2007.
David M. Adlerstein, editor of the Apalachicola Times, has been named editor of sister newspaper, The Star. Both publications are located in Florida. He will continue his duties as editor of the Times. Adlerstein began his newspapering career editing the Bellville (Ohio) Star, before moving on to work for the Marion (Ohio) Star, and later was named editor of Medical Business newspaper in Miami.
The Washington Post has named Simone Sebastian as America editor. In this role, she will guide coverage of the nation’s biggest breaking news stories and devising new ways of probing the cultural and political currents that shape American life. Sebastian has served as deputy America editor for the last five years. She joined the Post in 2014 as an assistant editor in Outlook and soon moved to Financial. Before coming to the Post, Sebastian covered the energy industry for the Houston Chronicle and public education for the Columbus Dispatch.
John Torres has been named engagement editor for FLORDIA TODAY. He joined the newspaper in 2001 and since then has served in numerous roles, including Palm Bay bureau chief, courts reporter, sports columnist, special projects reporter and news columnist. In his new role, Torres will focus on continuing and enhancing the FLORDIA TODAY’S engagement efforts with the community. Additionally, he will lead the newspaper’s editorial board and oversee the opinion page.
Ramon Bosquez and Michael P. Silver have joined the Poynter Foundation Board. Bosquez is president of The Bosquez Group, LLC. He is the former president and CEO of World Duty-free Americas, Inc. (formerly Dutyfree International, Inc.), the largest travel retail company in North America. Silver is a partner in the Tampa office of Shutts & Bowen LLP, where he is a member of the Business Litigation Practice Group. He also serves on Shutts & Bowen’s Diversity Committee and Pension Committee.
The Washington Post has named Nina Zafar as a multiplatform editor on the
Stories team. She previously served on the newspaper’s Features desk, where she was an editorial aide working with the pop culture team. She also has written for the TV listings column, Real Estate’s Where We Live feature and the Reliable Source blog. In her new role on the Stories team, she will curate, edit and reimagine the Post’s most timely, topical and engaging journalism for Instagram Stories and Snapchat’s Happening Now and Discover surfaces. Before coming to the Post in 2019, Zafar worked at the Smithsonian Channel, Bumble and Al Jazeera.
Patrick O’shea has been named editor of The Beaver County Times and The Ellwood City Ledger in Pennsylvania. Before joining the Times in 1995, O’shea freelanced for various Pittsburgh-area publications and worked at The Leader-vindicator in New Bethlehem, Pa. He started at the Times’ now-defunct office in Moon Township and served in several reporting and editing roles for the paper over the years, most recently as editor of the Ledger. O’shea replaces former executive editor Lisa Micco, who left the paper in January. He had been serving as interim executive editor following Micco’s departure.
Jenna Pirog has joined The Washington Post as deputy editor of strategic initiatives, working with Lede Lab on new ways to incorporate emerging technologies into the newsroom. In her role, Pirog will serve as a liaison to advertising and lead newsroom initiatives in collaboration with the Post’s revenue and technology teams. Previously, Pirog was the senior director of video and immersive experiences at National Geographic Partners, where she led an editorial team of producers, designers and editors working across a variety of mediums. In the past, she was The New York Times’ first virtual reality editor.
Bill Albrecht, who had been with the Akron Beacon Journal in leadership roles since 2018, has left the company for a new professional opportunity. Albrecht was most recently regional vice president of sales for northern Ohio for Gannett and the USA TODAY Network. He initially served as Beacon Journal publisher following its 2018 sale to a company that merged with Gannett in 2019. Michael Shearer, Beacon Journal editor and network regional editor for northern Ohio, will continue in those roles and assume the additional role of market leader. He joined the Akron team as editor in 2019 after serving as regional editor for Northeast Ohio and general manager/editor of the Recordcourier in Kent. He has more than 20 years of newspaper experience.
Samantha Schmidt has been named Bogotá bureau chief at The Washington Post. This is a new position that extends the Post’s global footprint and adds a critical post in South America. Schmidt joined the Post in 2016 as a writer on Morning Mix, where she expanded the overnight team’s coverage of Latin America. She joined Metro in 2018 as a gender and family issues reporter. Schmidt began her career with internships at Dow Jones in London, the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the Tampa Bay Times. She was also a James Reston reporting fellow at The New York Times.
Paul Bascobert has joined Column, a startup company that modernizes the placement of public notices, as an advisor. He has more than two decades of management experience across media, marketing and technology. He previously served at Gannett as president and chief executive officer and a member of the board of directors. As a member of Column’s advisory board, Bascobert’s experience will help the company reach new markets and forge relationships with industry partners.
Richard Clark has been named regional advertising director for the Adams Publishing Group’s Tennessee/north Carolina region. In his new role, Clark will be responsible for assisting all 20 newspapers in the region with revenue growth from major/national accounts, local retail, classifieds, and events. Clark will be based out of Greeneville,
Tenn., where he is also the local ad director for the Greeneville Sun and the Rogersville Review. Prior to this, Clark served within
APG as interim editor and publisher in Rogersville, Tenn. In the past, Clark worked in advertising sales and management within Freedom Communications. Additionally, Matthew Wolfe has been named regional audience development marketing director for the APG’S Tennessee/western North Carolina Region. In his new role, Wolfe will be responsible for supporting all 20 newspapers in the region with circulation sales and retention. Wolfe will be based out of Rogersville, Tenn., where he is also the general manager of the Rogersville Review. Wolfe has been in the newspaper business for almost 20 years. From 2014 through 2020, Wolfe held several positions with Mcclatchy, including director of retention, representing all of Mcclatchy’s markets.
The Washington Post has named Sara Sorcher London hub editor. With broad experience as a reporter and editor, Sorcher joined the Post in 2018 to expand and develop strategy for Powerpost, covering Washington power centers and decision-makers. In that role, she edited Power Up and the 202 newsletter franchise, which includes the Daily 202 and offshoots focused on health care, cybersecurity and technology. Before coming to the Post, Sorcher was White House editor at USA TODAY. She worked previously as deputy cybersecurity editor for the Christian Science Monitor and as defense correspondent for National Journal. She began her career as a freelance journalist in the Middle
East, reporting from Israel, Gaza and the
West Bank.
Quartz has named Bob Maund vice president of partnerships, overseeing the global partnerships team. In this role, he will be responsible for achieving the media company’s global revenue target and informing their go-to-market advertising strategy. He joins Quartz from Bloomberg LP, where he led the Bloomberg Media finance vertical sales team. Additionally, Daniel Alvarez has been appointed as chief product officer, where he will be responsible for all product development at Quartz. Alvarez joins Quartz from NBC Universal, where he served as vice president of product and design for local NBC and Telemundo TV stations. Prior to NBC, Alvarez was the head of product and design at Huffpost and held various product and engineering roles at companies including AOL, Nextel International and Motorola.
Corina Curry has been named editor of the Rockford Register Star and The Journalstandard, sister newspapers in Illinois.
She replaces Mark Baldwin who retired in December. Curry has worked as a reporter for the Register Star for 22 years. She has covered everything from crime and courts to city government and education. In recent years, she was focused on watchdog journalism and investigative reporting.
Ann Gerhart has been named senior editor for visual enterprise for The Washington Post. In this role, Gerhart will partner with journalists across the newsroom to develop and elevate work that incorporates a variety of storytelling techniques, especially visual reporting. Over the course of 25 years, Gerhart has written and edited for nearly every corner of the newsroom, including the Reliable Source column and Style features. She has been a Style editor, a National writer, America editor, and deputy Outlook editor. In addition, Gerhart has also been part of the regular rotation as weekend/sunday editor and will continue in that role.