The Media Column

HUBS KILL SUBS
30-09/01-10-2006

Big changes afoot in the newsrooms of our leading newspapers as fewer journalists are expected to produce more work - not just in print, either, but on the internet too. The Stirrer's media expert Paul Bradshaw ponders how it will work.

All eyes in journalism will be on the Financial Times next week as it moves to a ‘multimedia newsroom' which will merge online and newspaper editing desks.

The move represents a general trend within the newspaper industry towards bringing print and online operations together, with The Telegraph set to follow quickly as it also plans to move to a purpose built multimedia ‘hub'.

From November the Telegraph hub will see journalists who had previously only written for print, now churning out video, audio, and material for the web.

Sounds like a lot of extra work - so will they be hiring extra staff to produce this extra copy?

Ah… no. Instead, the management of The Telegraph have taken the opportunity to propose cutting 133 jobs, including 54 journalists - and this only 18 months after the group laid off 90 journalists. Strike action is being considered by the NUJ.

Perhaps they just didn't have enough chairs.

It seems the worst possible time to chop staff - a move guaranteed to cause nervous breakdowns in those remaining who, in addition to watching their colleagues leave, will undergo five days of “intensive” training on their new multimedia skills before being let loose in the new building. Don't expect to see any sharp objects left around.

The ‘hub' itself sounds like something from 1984: at the centre is a round table where the various editors sit. Then, radiating out in ‘spokes' from those editors will be the staff from their department. I imagine the sports editor barking some command at the ‘spokee' nearest, and this being passed on down the spoke in some Chinese whisper, until the writer at the end is left wondering how he can make a story from Peter Crouch's “bat crick”.

Of course, it's easy to scoff - and plenty have. But these are ambitious ideas that radically rethink the idea of how a newspaper should work in the new media age. Sub-editors in particular, it seems, are becoming increasingly old fashioned, and the 167 that work across the two Telegraph titles are set to feel the brunt of lay-offs. The idea of what a journalist does is being challenged - print ideas of newsgathering and newswriting will now be joined by principles of broadcast and interactivity as they seek to appeal to a new audience that won't read a newspaper but will surf for news, or download a podcast to their iPod.

The Financial Times will be the first into their multimedia home, but that will be just the prologue: the Telegraph will be the main feature. Expect some great innovations, some bad ones - and some terrible typos.

Related links:

Integrated FT opens for business

Hub or hubris

Telegraph reinvents the wheel

Beyond the integrated newsroom

Telegraph pm launches group's digital revolution

Financial Times launches 'New Newsroom'

FT Merging Online and Newspaper Editing

Newsroom of the future

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Paul Bradshaw teaches on the degree in journalism at UCE Birmingham's media department. He also blogs on online journalism, interactive pr, and web and new media.