Extended News Desks Bring Breaking News to the Net
By Sarah Colombo
Fellows attending the seminar listen to Mike Young and Bob Hawkins. |
Before union representative Mickey Kasparian had finished his announcement that an agreement had been reached to end the months-long
supermarket strike, SignOnSanDiego had already published the breaking news story on their Web site.
While Kasparian was holding the press conference, SignOnSanDeigo staffers were already shaping the package. The end result,
which included an audio sound bite, was posted on the Web while Kasparian was still fielding questions.
“We were moving at the speed of thought,” said Robert
Hawkins, SignOnSanDiego’s morning news supervisor.
Within six minutes, the site’s breaking news subscribers were sent e-mail or cell phone alerts.
Hawkins joined Michael Young, editor of the Los Angeles Times’ extended news desk, in a discussion with about 30 journalists
attending a Western Knight Center seminar on ways to structure a newsroom to better respond to breaking news online.
Both panelists agreed that providing quick and accurate online coverage of breaking news is especially critical in Southern
California because recent stories—such as the gubernatorial recall election and trials involving Kobe Bryant and Michael
Jackson—often appeal to a broad national audience.
To bridge the gap between the Los Angeles Times’ newsroom and the newspaper’s Web site, the extended desk acts
as an additional news desk with a staff of seven full-time reporters and editors. Although they sometimes generate their own stories,
they mostly work with content created by the newspaper staff in order to package photo galleries and additional research documents
along with breaking news.
On occasion, said Young, weekend editors have even held back stories until multimedia packages were ready to be published
on the Web.
Young noted that the Times’ extended news desk was charged with competing head to head with Web sites published by The
New York Times and The Washington Post. And to that end, Young’s office has a large-screen “Web scroll” that
monitors developments at its two competitors every 10 seconds.
Young said his staff relies heavily on the paper’s news judgment while publishing breaking updates throughout the day.
And he noted that most national and foreign reporters are happy to file their stories with the extended news desk because they
don’t have to wait for a morning edition to see their work published.
“We call them FOW’s, Friends of the Web,” said Young.
Although SignOnSanDiego is the online edition of the San Diego-Union Tribune, Hawkins said that it does not receive direct
support from the newspaper.
“My story is identical (to Young’s) without the money, without the people and the cooperation of the paper,” Hawkins
joked.
The site’s biggest expense, Hawkins said, is paying the salaries of its small staff of reporters and editors. The site
uses inexpensive software and freeware to create multimedia packages, he added. SignOnSanDiego also publishes Weblogs along with
breaking news stories. |
