The new flexibility
Commentary by René Worni on multimedia perspectives on Lake Geneva.
René Worni on multimedia perspectives on Lake Geneva.The walls of the departments are falling - conventional editorial offices are a discontinued model. In their place, large-scale information centers, the newsrooms, are growing. There, editors are regarded as so-called information and news managers. Newsrooms are primarily a response to the burden of cost pressure. The new, department-neutral flexibility is more dynamic and reduces costs. Never before have so many newspaper publishers prescribed themselves a restructuring cure as in the current year. "Online first," was the motto at Springer in Berlin last July. Starting in 2007, Die Welt and Berliner Morgenpost will live up to this credo in a multimedia newsroom. As soon as a story is published and prepared, it will first go online and only later on paper. Days later, the Financial Times also announced the construction of an integrated multimedia newsroom in order to merge print and online editorially. Of course, Austria's enfant terrible, Wolfgang Fellner, is doing his tabloid, launched after the summer break, in a huge newsroom. The fusion of print and online is a concept.
In April, the Berner Zeitung newspaper here in Switzerland dissolved its departmental structure and replaced it with a thematic exchange - with ambitious plans for the future. Newspaper, online, radio and television are to be housed under one roof in the media network one day. And Ringier recently launched its cash-daily project, a hitherto unseen combination of newspaper and additional multimedia offerings.
And now Edipresse is also learning the lessons of the Internet invasion. The cornerstone of the multimedia regional newspaper on the Léman, consisting of Tribune and 24heures, will be the new joint online editorial team as of March 2007. Edipresse UL member Eric Hösli already demanded more flexibility from media professionals in July. It is conceivable that the online newsroom on Lake Geneva will one day suck in the two print editorial departments - there is no shortage of role models.
René Worni, Editor
In April, the Berner Zeitung newspaper here in Switzerland dissolved its departmental structure and replaced it with a thematic exchange - with ambitious plans for the future. Newspaper, online, radio and television are to be housed under one roof in the media network one day. And Ringier recently launched its cash-daily project, a hitherto unseen combination of newspaper and additional multimedia offerings.
And now Edipresse is also learning the lessons of the Internet invasion. The cornerstone of the multimedia regional newspaper on the Léman, consisting of Tribune and 24heures, will be the new joint online editorial team as of March 2007. Edipresse UL member Eric Hösli already demanded more flexibility from media professionals in July. It is conceivable that the online newsroom on Lake Geneva will one day suck in the two print editorial departments - there is no shortage of role models.
René Worni, Editor
