We love it, sir, we really love it
BLOG #518: When the big boss from Montreal scheduled a visit to The London Free Press, editorial employees were told exactly what to say if he asked what they thought about the proposed changes to the newsroom.
Friday, Sept. 16, 2011 – London
More change is coming to The London Free Press.
Editorial management at the daily paper is exchanging the tough questions and solid facts of a previous generation of writers for something they call “the mobile multimedia journalist.” This new journalistic bird will work out of a “mobile newsroom.”
The idea, apparently, is reporters don’t need permanent desks and lots of filing cabinets to store their background material. Give them a laptop and a cellphone with a built-in cam and a little shared spot to put then down on occasion and they can tweet, blog, video and occasionally even write a short newspaper story anytime and just about anywhere.
There’s nothing wrong with the concept, one which newsroom futurists have been kicking around for more than a decade. The tools have now arrived to enable multimedia journalism to work successfully, provided everyone understands the goal is to be better, not simply to be more.
From long experience I can confirm journalists by nature do not like change which directly affects them. Therefore you might expect this one isn’t going down well at 369 York Street.
One newsroom veteran says the redesigned newsroom, which will feature ‘landing strips’ instead of regular desks, promotes “touch and go” reporting. Another describes the new working conditions this way: “We’re expected to drop a turd like a bird.”
Besides giving up their coveted working cubicles, reporters are also being told they must empty their filing cabinets, most of which are stuffed full of old reports, background documents , filled notebooks and the occasional bottle of late-night heart-starter – the kinds of materials you might need to help put a new fact into historic context or to debunk a new allegation.
Now reporters will work out of two small drawers and two medium storage boxes. And, according to one newsroom source, those boxes better be labelled in a prescribed way or a $1 fine will be levied. A large red dumpster has been located in the newsroom to suck up all the filing ‘garbage’ reporters are now being told to purge, this source claims.
All this background is necessary to understand an email which was sent Aug. 26 to members of the ‘LFP Editorial Department’ by Joe Ruscitti, editor-in-chief of The Free Press.
The email is headlined ‘A visit from the boss’. That would be Pierre Karl Péladeau of Montreal, otherwise known to Sun Media employees as PKP, the czar of Quebecor which owns Sun Media lock, stock and landing strip.
Here’s the email:
“Monday morning Aug. 29 930-11ish, PKP will be in the building and it’s my understanding he aims to have a walk about in the newsroom, including chats with staff.
“This would be a good time to look and act sharp.
“This would probably not be a good time to tell the boss how much better we would be if we had this many more reporters or this or that piece of equipment, etc.
“At least for those 90 minutes, you like the new emphasis on the mobile newsroom and the concept of the mobile multimedia journalist. You think the newsroom redesign will help us be that kind of newsroom. Etc.
“Which brings me around to a couple of bits of non-boss-visit news: Laptops have been approved for reporters and the re-do of the newsroom is slated for the weekend of Sept. 24-5, more details to come on that and the weekend may yet change.
“Joe”
How ironic the journalists who hound officials of London’s big hospitals about some dubious financial dealings, who chase mayors and councillors and corporate bosses all over town demanding answers to hard questions, who are always in search of the other side or the inside story or the real truth (or even a leaked email), are in effect ordered to lie to their boss.
What’s this? PKP, owner of more Canadian newspapers than any other person in this country, doesn’t like to hear the other side, get all the facts, engage in a little debate?
As it turned out, his visit to London on Aug. 29 was cancelled. So he never got a chance to hear firsthand from his ever-decreasing gaggle of journalists, multimedia or otherwise, here in LondonOntario what a swell thing is all this change.
By the way, if you’re a subscriber you already got the bill for the impending changes. Home delivery charges for The Free Press went up last week.
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Comments
Journalists are not even reporters.
They are simply repeaters.
We can only presume that the guy who tells them what to say to the boss, also tells them what to say to the readers.
Truth..........not anymore.
If the page views are there to support it I'd pay 50 cents a day to read McLeod, Reaney, Sims, Belanger and Wells.
Why not form a co-op? Adopt nom de plumes and do it as a side project!
Too many are afraid to say what needs saying, so I will. I don't blame multiculturalis m per se but I do blame a rapid influx of immigrants from despotic countries who knew nothing of how to bring to life the meanings of democracy, seeking instead to suck out Canada's life while staging homeland wars from here.
It is they to whom politicians quickly catered as they saw easy pickings of votes by the herd, who sought ethnic and group dominance at the expense of our lost national vision.
Our Fathers of Confederation must surely be weeping.
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