Integrated newsroom at de Volkskrant

Background

De Volkskrant  is the third largest newspaper in the Netherlands after De Telegraaf and Algemeen Dagblad.  Built in 1919, it now (2009) prints some 250,000 copies during weekdays and 320,000 copies over the weekend.

In 2006, De Volkskrant began to integrate its newsroom, aiming at accommodating multimedia news – text, video, audio.

The reasons behind the newsroom integration were:

·       Tight competition among the media

·       Behaviour change from the readers

.      Young readers prefer to have a colorful, technology friendly and customized media to read/watch

·       Convergence technology, which allows readers to access news from mobile phone

Changing process

De Volkskrant started the newsroom integration as it moved from the old to the new office building.  It placed all news desks – newspapers, website, and video – at the same floor and designed a lay out where the internet desk is surrounded by all newspaper desks.  This design made De Volksrant newsroom have an efficiënt and faster communication and information flow.

The change is implemented gradually. De Volkskrant did not force its editors and reporters to change from newspaper journalists to multimedia journalists. It sent the journalists to get online journalism trainings and introduced that the new platform benefited them in many ways such as more readers reading their news  and the immediate publication via the internet. De Volkskrant also recruited a new website team from those who have experiences with internet along with one person from the newspaper.

´´We wanted everyone to be comfortable with the change,`´ Jan´t Hart, deputy editor-in-chief of De Volkskrant, said. ´That is the fastest way to succes.´

The integrated newsroom employs a total of 200 journalists including some 20 newspaper editors, and few  video and website editors now. The final product is multimedia.

Newspaper editors produce newspaper daily including supplements at the weekend. The website team produced content for the website (www.volkskrant.nl) with the reportings from the newspaper reporters, video reporters,  and the team itself.  The website itself contains not only news but also other channels such as film review , blog, lifestyle, travel. However,  the website team doesn´t handle all the channels, it only manages the news channel.

Video team produces a number of videos such as feature news, new cars review, columns presented by the writers,and  film reviews.

News production

The newsroom begins at 7 a.m. when the first member of the website team arrives at the office and uploads news for the website. They update latest news for the website and select important news from the newspaper to be published on the website.

The main news production plan is made during the morning editorial meeting  at 10.30 a.m. The meeting is attended by between 10 and 12 editors including a representative from the website team. In the meeting, editors deliver their daily plan and the website person monitors whether the newspaper editors plan match with the website plan. Further coordination is made after the meeting between the website team and newspaper editors should news plan from the newspaper editors be good to be posted to the website first. Another consensus is that most exclusive news are only for the newspaper .

The second editorial meeting is held at 5.30 p.m.. It decides what news should go to the newspaper frontpage.

The website team also holds two editorial meeting. The first meeting is at 9.00 a.m. and the second is at 2 p.m. A weekly meeting is also held to evaluate what has been done during the week.

During the day, reporters send their news immediately to website editors although it is not obligatory and later they write stories for the newspaper.

The website team also updates news by monitoring TV stations, radio, wires, and other online publications.

All news in the newspaper are also published in the website in form of e-paper, which could be accessed only by subscribed readers (pay service).

The website news is also available via mobile service.

Integration controlled by news manager

De Volkskrant newsroom integration is a unity from all news deks. One chief news manager is appointed to be responsible of all platforms.

No Backpack Journalist

De Volkskrant has shortly tried to implement a backpack journalist mechanism, where a journalist could write stories, take photos, and video at the same time, but it did not work.  The result was the quality of news declined as reporters spent too much time on photos and videos but fail to produce high quality of photos and video and they could not produce articles for the newspaper as good as before.

´´The reporters have no focus if they act as backpack journalists. We did not use it anymore,´´ ´t Hart said.

However, he said, it was still possible for De Volkskrant journalists to write stories with pictures for the website.

´´…But not with video,´ he added.

Special video reporting

Video reporting is conducted by one special team as it requires different skills than those in newspaper such as video camera shooting and editing techniques. Video interview, which is short and direct, is also different from newspaper interview, which tends to be a conversation between the reporters and the source.  The video team produces some 10 videos per week, the rest comes from a wire.

This video content still could not yet compete with TV stations in term of immediacy and human resources.  It also could not really boost visitors for the website although video content is one of the website character .

Bureau Parlementaire Redactie : Branch Office in Den Haag

The branch office in Den Haag is one of the most important newsroom as it covers the parliament. Led by Martin Sommer, the office is just few meters away from the parliament building. With eight reporters, the branch office main task is to cover news in the parliament.  It sends about 10 stories a day to the central office in Amsterdam.

The Den Haag office is also obliged to attend the 10.30 a.m. meeting through a teleconference. After that, Sommer will lead a local meeting with his reporters.

Some part of the news from this branch office are exclusive news, which are only prepared for the newspaper, some are latest news that could be posted to the website immediately by the website team in the central office.

There is also a plan to give the reporters blackberry so that they can send news quickly to editors from the parliament building and the news can be posted to the website faster.

“The reporters have no focus if they act as backpack journalists. We did not use it anymore,´´ ´t Hart said.

Back Home Action Plan

Tempo

·       Redesign the integrated newsroom with more emphasis on multiplatform news. It can be done by assigning a chief news manager, who will manage the flow of the news  and distribute them to various platform.

·       Preparing training for video team and routine training for the website team. These trainings are aimed at producing editors that could produce news for the website, which has different characters from the newspaper.

·       Redesign the news update frequency. From our finding, online media in the Netherlands begin to upload news at 6-7 a.m. and stop updating news at 11 p.m. at the latest. In Indonesia, online media do it 24 hours a day although readers are not so many after midnight. A back home discussion is needed whether or not to maintain the 24 hour a day news updating mechanism.

·       Developing a markeging strategy that is inline with the newsroom concept. Marketing division must sell channels or news that are highly hit by readers.

The Jakarta Post

-            Proposing an integrated newsroom to change the work flow of the news from newspaper news to multimedia news

-            Preparing a multimedia journalist curriculum and training with the emphasis on text, photo, and audio, but not with video due to budget constraint and low internet connection speed back home

-            Starting journalist and readers blog to boost visitors for the Jakarta Post website

-            Proposing an interactive mobile service where people could post comment to the website and upload stories and photos to their blog at the jakarta post website through mobile phone

EU president mixed response

IPJ News – Although the US welcomed Herman van Rompuy as the first permanent European Council President, there has been some dismay at the choice.

Onur Oymen

Turkish member of parliament Onur Oymen said he was concerned about what Van Rompuy’s presidency could mean for Turkey’s aspirations to join the EU.

According to EU Observer on its independent Web site from Brussels, Van Rompuy said in 2004 that he strongly opposed Turkey’s EU accession.

FIFA refuses Ireland

 

FIFA won’t change the result of match for France versus Ireland. It’s the final and no more replay. The score keeps 2-1 for France.

The FIFA states all finished. “As is clearly mentioned in the laws of the game, during matches, decisions are taken by the referee and these decisions are final,” he told.

FIFA has refused the Football Association of Ireland’s request for a replay of France’s World Cup play-off win over the Republic of Ireland.

The FAI’s chief executive John Delaney originally lodged a complaint asking for the match to be replayed to preserve the game’s “integrity”.

Oil price fall dragged equity market

Nymex building, most famous trading in the world flickr/Shiny Things

IPJNews – A global sell off on equity markets dragged crude prices by nearly 3 percent, the first decline this week.

The price for a barrel of crude dropped by more than $1 instantly when US markets opened. Markets in Asia and Europe fell in the day.

Also pushing oil prices lower was a strengthening dollar. Because oil is bought and sold largely in dollars.

 

Miss Dorothy, a learning approach with cartoon style

Miss Dorothy characters

IPJ News – Miss Dorothy Com, created by Sharon Doughty, is a new and unique approach to learn about personal behaviour and safety. It’s designed to handle behavioural issues including bullying, crime and disorder, social exclusion and racism.

 With its cartoon style character, the website teaches seven to eleven year old children to be good citizen.

Oil price weaken

Oil price tumble IPJ/boy

IPJNews- Oil prices fell after a rally above 80 dollars following news of falling US energy inventories, as traders banked profits.

New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for December delivery, fell 51 cents to 79.07 dollars a barrel. Brent North Sea crude for January delivery also dropped 51 cents to 78.96 dollars a barrel.

Analysts feel the US is key to lifting oil demand, affected by global economic slump; and say falling inventory levels was exacerbated by Hurricane Ida. This caused the closure of some petroleum installations in the Gulf of Mexico.

Indonesian Muslims urged not to watch film 2012

2012 The Movie/Source:Flikr/Blackout14*

IPJ News-The Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) called on Muslims not to watch 2012 movie. Muslims should ignore the ancient mayan prediction about doomsday in the movie.

“Islam believes that no one but God knows when doomsday come,” said Chairman of MUI, Amidan, Thursday afternoon at Indonesia time.

In Indonesia the movie itself  has attracted huge crowds in theatres. Since playing in 150 countries, 2012 became a top box office movie such as in America, France, and  the Netherland.

Belgian prime minister becomes EU president

Herman van Rompuy and Catherine Ashton

IPJ News – The heads of the 27 EU nations finally settled on Herman van Rompuy to be the first permanent European Council President.

The other top job has gone to the EU Trade Commissioner, Baroness Catherine Ashton from the UK as foreign minister.

The choice has been made over dinner in Brussels, Thursday, after the UK government no longer pushing for former PM Tony Blair to get that post. Van Rompuy had crucial French and German support.

“We look forward to working closely  to address bilateral, regional and global challenges together,” said US President Barack Obama.

Karzai wants international forces out in five years

Hamid Karzai: “We will decrease the role of international forces”

Hamid Karzai has been sworn in as Afghan president for a second elected term. He wants the Afghan forces in charge of the nation within five years.

In his inauguration speech, Mr Karzai announced a conference to tackle corruption and a national gathering to help bring peace to Afghanistan.

He also invited his defeated rivals to join him in working for peace.

 

Local Dutch police prioritize vandalism and drugs

Hans Post gestures as he talks to IPJ News reporters at his office in Bussum. Photo by Ruslan Ramli/IPJ News

By: Ruslan Ramli and Aán Suryana

IPJ News – Just like other cities in the Netherlands, vandalism and drugs had been pressing problems for police force in the Dutch city of Bussum, said a local police officer. 

Hans Post, local police officer, blamed ignorance for increasing vandalism in the city. “Many shopkeepers let underage teens consume alcohol despite a national ban against this practice,” the police officer told IPJ News at his office located at the heart of Bussum, Hilversum.

Under Dutch law, alcoholic drinks can only be sold to people above 18-years old.

According to Post, the problems of teenage drinking abuse peak on Friday and Saturday nights when many people flock to night clubs and bars in the city at weekends. “People are getting aggressive after they drink alcoholic beverages too much, and it is usually followed by fights,” said Post. To keep the situation under control, Post and his colleagues regularly do the night shifts that start at 8 pm and last at 5 am at the next morning.

 Drugs

Meanwhile, regarding drugs, the police officer said that people mostly smoked marijuana, while others consumed ecstasy and cocaine. Under Dutch law, coffee shops are allowed to sell certain amounts of marijuana, but in practice, due their ignorance, many sell sold too much marijuana. Consuming too much marijuana often leads teenagers into crime problems.

“Those include breaking into people houses; breaking the cars or stealing bikes,” Post said.

Having been with the police force for 25 years, the police officer said that the biggest case that he has handled was a murder case. “It was about the murder of a man connected to a powerful person living in Amsterdam,” said Post.

The man was shot dead inside his car in front of a hotel in Bussum. Post said he has been part of a team investigating the case, but so far, the perpetrator is still at large. The motive behind the murder is also still unknown, said Post.

Post says that in doing investigation into the case, he cooperated with other police officers stationed outside Bussum. The cooperation also occurs during his efforts in tackling major cases related to vandalism and drugs. Post is one among 700 people working for one of the country’s 25 Netherlands’ regional police forces, namely Gooi en Vechstreek region.

A house becomes a subject of vandalism in Bussum city. Picture by Daru Priyambodo/IPJ News