Newsroom to build digital-reporting team
As part of our transition to digital publishing, the newsroom is creating a digital-reporting team, and we are looking for reporters interesting in joining it.
Initially, we plan to recruit a reporter from each the city desk, features, sports, and the digital desk. This four-member team will be supervised by Larry Graham and Mike Walton, with input from other newsroom editors who have ideas for digital stories.
We’re looking at this not as a permanent assignment, but with reporters moving on and off the team every few months based on their interest, skill level, and other assignments they might be better suited for.
We need staff members with ideas, the desire to tell stories through video and other mediums, and a willingness to experiment.
We don’t want this to be an assignment-based team, but a team that looks at what’s playing well on digital, looks for important stories that aren’t being told, and looks for stories that are fun. I’d like the reporters to tell the editors what they are doing each day. That won’t always be possible, but that’s the goal.
The goal is not to increase digital traffic by chasing clicks, but by producing serious journalism that is relevant and that multiple audiences will want to read and view.
The goal is also to attract audiences that don’t read The Blade now and to attract them to our digital publishing platforms. But for me, a personal goal is to spread digital journalism from the digital desk out into the newsroom.
