Comments on: Staffing in the New News Organization

By: Jeff Jarvis

Jeff Jarvis — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 20:02:41 +0000

But Dan what if you are using others’ platforms? Why be in the tech business if you don’t have to? Or be in as little as possible, no?

By: Dan Gainor

Dan Gainor — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 19:32:15 +0000

Clearly, not enough tech support staff. If everything’s on the Web, you need more tech support.

By: Steve Buttry

Steve Buttry — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 16:38:16 +0000

Well, if you had those disagreements, you were injecting an important element of reality into the models.

By: Damian Ghigliotty

Damian Ghigliotty — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 15:39:40 +0000

You’re welcome, Steve. On a personal note, I agree.

Some of the more interesting moments we had while working on this project were the occasional disagreements between those (more often the journalists) who wanted to grow the editorial staff and those (more often the business strategists/analysts) who wanted to slim it down. These numbers were the result of several conversations on how the NNO should operate.

By: Steve Buttry

Steve Buttry — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 15:25:30 +0000

Thanks for the explanation, Damian. I think you’ve described (and will want and need) more databases here than two developers will be able to handle, along with all the other development duties. You will either need one or more database specialists or reporters who are more adept with databases than most reporters are (and reporters will have a heavy workload in this model).

By: Relevant articles found for today | Sustainable Online Media

Relevant articles found for today | Sustainable Online Media — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:10:51 +0000

[...] The Models: NNO Staffing [...]

By: Damian Ghigliotty

Damian Ghigliotty — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 21:57:51 +0000

Steve,

You are right that databases don’t run themselves.

Our NNO model assumes that the organization’s developers will function as database managers under supervision from the editorial staff. (How many staffers exactly depends on circumstances that can’t be plugged into a spreadsheet.)

The research we’ve done for each model assumes that everyone will perform his/her job at maximum capacity. See Matt’s post on talking fantasy newsroom:

http://newsinnovation.com/2009/07/09/talking-fantasy-newsroom/

We’ve avoided getting too granular with some of these figures, as they are likely to change depending on how a real-life NNO is run.

By: Steve Buttry

Steve Buttry — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 21:27:00 +0000

I am interested to see five references to databases as supplementing (“with the help of …) work by staff members. And I would suggest that databases should also be added to local government and education. But I can’t find a mention of a staff person to compile, present and manage the databases. Unless one of the 5 “other editorial staffers” is a database specialist (and one might not be enough), your reporters/community managers won’t work “with the help of” databases.

Databases don’t suddenly appear by magic. Skilled journalists acquire the data (often after fighting/negotiating with public officials who don’t respect public-records laws), clean up the data, analyze the data to spot trends and story possibilities, determine the best ways to present data to make it useful for the public and then work with sophisticated tools to present interactive databases.

This plan requires at least one journalist skilled in analyzing data and developing interactive databases.