Things that bug me about news: it’s in boxes

By Julie Starr | Published: March 27, 2009

Thinking out loud for a presentation I’m working on…

News has traditionally come in boxes.

The newspaper comes in a box whose dimensions are defined by number of pages, available space for stories once the ads are sold and how much time there is to work on it before the printing deadline.

The radio bulletin box is defined by a set amount of time scheduled at an appointed hour. Same goes for television news programmes.

The trouble with boxes is that they always have to be filled. The newspaper can’t publish with empty pages. It must always have a lead story on the front page even if nothing much has happened. Stories must fit into the space allocated to them. The newspaper columnist must write a weekly column regardless of whether he or she has anything much to say.

The radio bulletin must be filled every hour regardless of whether nothing much has happened since last hour. The television programme must likewise be filled and can only run stories for which pictures can be found.

Which means that sometimes the paper runs a front page lead that’s not worthy of the big headline. Crime stories are elevated to the front page because not much else has happened. A columnist dashes off a piece that’s much the same as one from last year. The radio bulletin tells us things we already know, like how especially rainy it’s been lately, and the television news programme does the same but with pictures.

‘The news’ is not so much ‘the news’ as ‘some news we’ve selected from what we saw kicking around today that fits into the box’.

This bugs me. It bugs me because I want to stay informed but I don’t want to wade through crime, celebrity and other stories that add absolutely no value to my life before I can catch the couple of stories that interest me.

The internet does away with boxes.

Radio news doesn’t have to be delivered at 2pm on the dot, 2.08pm or 2.23pm will do just as well online because people don’t have to tune in at a scheduled time to catch ‘the news’. It’s always on.

Newspapers don’t have to publish editions online. They can publish stories as they become ready. There doesn’t have to be a front page lead. Any story can be given as much space and hoopla as it merits – for five minutes, five hours or five days.

Columnists don’t have to write a column every week, they can write one when they’ve got something to say.

Readers don’t have to catch ‘the news’ at a particular time. They can keep half an eye on it all day, or spend an hour on it at a convenient time, or just be happy to bump into headlines as they move through their online world of, say, email, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, games and blog hopping.

Readers don’t have to catch ‘the news’ at all. They can choose for themselves from a variety of sources what kind of news they want. That might be chess news, quilting club news, local politics and badminton. It might be politics, politics and more politics. It might be sport and business and crosswords. It might be showjumping, agriculture, biotechnology and surf reports.

Internet news doesn’t come in boxes. It’s always on. It’s available in myriad combinations. It’s interactive. It’s a different product for every reader.

That’s what makes internet news so difficult for traditional news organisations.

How does a morning newspaper shift from having a singular focus on the 9pm print deadline to rolling deadlines 24/7? More importantly, how does it do both?

How does it shift from seeing every published story as ‘finished’ to seeing stories as installments that live on and are updated and fleshed out over time?

How does it make sense of the fact it can no longer be ‘all things to all people’ and figure out what it can be?

How does it square the knowledge that news audiences used to be defined predominantly by geography – the people in your town – but can now be defined by any number of commonalities in which geography may play only a small part, if any.

It’s not easy. There are so many questions. Can traditional organisations manage this kind of change quickly enough? Can they make the changes at all? How will a columnist live if they only write when they’ve got something to say? Will online advertising sales ever be enough to cover the cost of a full newsroom? Do we still need newsrooms? Who will pay the journalists of the future?

I don’t know the answer to these questions yet. I don’t know anyone who does.

But I’m guessing we won’t find the answers in a box.

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  • http://www.blog.yearinamerica.net Fiona Leonard

    Nor do journalists come in boxes any more. Over the last few years we’ve seen newspapers rationalise their reporting capacity and rely more and more on wire services and other people’s reporting. Journalists have become synthesisers rather than gathers of raw information.

    Perhaps rationalising the machinery of news production will allow for a return to what news should be about – the collection of information and analysis.

  • http://evolvingnewsroom.co.nz Julie Starr

    I hear you Fiona. I’d like to see more grassroots newsgathering too.

  • http://accessibility.net.nz Nic

    Wonderful post! Thank you.

    I generally stay clear of newspapers, tv or radio news. I just can’t be bothered. And your explanation about having to fill the boxes just made me realise what it is I avoid: pointless stories about crime and disasters and misery…

    Thanks again.

  • http://evolvingnewsroom.co.nz Julie Starr

    Thanks! This is just one angle on the big picture that is news and information, but it’s been rankling with me for a while.

  • http://billbennettnz.wordpress.com Bill Bennett

    This is an interesting and thoughtful post.

    You are, of course, quite right. The news doesn’t come in boxes. Though oddly, journalists working on online media tend to get managed as though the boxes still exist. I know of one youngster who is expect to file a particular kind of story with a set length by a fixed time each morning. Another newsroom expects journalist to write x stories per day and (lord have mercy on their wicked souls) “process” x press releases.

    Perhaps media managers need to stop thinking in boxes too.

  • John Denney

    Are you not confusing “boxes” with “time?”

    The internet is full of boxes. Let me tell you about the “unpacking” I did this morning.

    I wanted to read a column by a newspaper writer. First, I went to the box called the paper’s homepage. Then click to the box “Columnists.” Then to the box with the writer’s name. Then to the box with her most recent column.

    Why don’t more newspapers treat columnists as separate brands?

  • http://evolvingnewsroom.co.nz Julie Starr

    I was thinking of boxes bound by time, yes, and available space. It was just a literary device, though, a way to articulate a few thoughts.

    I know what you mean about having to work to find what you want on news sites. Did you try searching for the columnist by name? Was that any quicker? Also, do you subscribe to her RSS feed? It’s the simplest way I know of getting a particular writer’s work delivered whenever a new piece appears – delivered to your feed reader, that is.

  • http://evolvingnewsroom.co.nz Julie Starr

    I agree with you Bill that media managers should stop thinking in boxes.

    Mind you, I wrote this post largely from a reader’s point of view. If I were running a news site I’d want plenty of content going up there every day too. News sites are hungry beasts that need constant feeding – the more you post, the more people come to see it, the more easily you can sell advertising. And there are viewing peaks – news sites get surges of visitors at around 8am, lunchtime and 5pm and they try to make sure there’s plenty of content up there for those readers to keep them coming back.

    The question is whether flogging journalists in a traditional newsroom is the best way to keep feeding the beast over time. Another is whether selling advertising is the best way to support the operation.

    A third is to consider how news audiences might change as more people spend more time online immersed in the sea of information that is the internet. We go to news sites for news because we’re familiar with the news companies and with the concept of ‘the news’. But what about the children growing up now who will never read newspapers or watch the 6pm TV news, what will their concept of ‘the news’ be?

  • http://sarahhartley.wordpress.com/2009/03/29/links-for-2009-03-29/ links for 2009-03-29 « Sarah Hartley

    [...] Things that bug me about news: it’s in boxes | The Evolving Newsroom Internet news doesn’t come in boxes. It’s always on. It’s available in myriad combinations. It’s interactive. It’s a different product for every reader. (tags: news journalism internet) [...]