Idea Lab

Will There Be a Newsroom in the Future?

by Chris O’Brien
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

The nature of our project at Duke University, the Next Newsroom Project, is to try to design the "newsroom of the future." But the other day on our project site, Leonard Witt of Kennesaw State University, started a discussion around the first, most obvious question we confronted: "Does the newsroom of the future really need to be a brick and mortar newsroom?" You can view the various responses, and some relevant links that got posted there. I wanted to withhold my reply until folks had their say. Naturally, it's not the first time I've heard that question since our work...

• February 14, 2008
• 1 comment

Rethinking Newspapers

by J.D. Lasica
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

I've been reading with fascination the email threads in the Rethinking the Mercury News project, which launched a Google Group discussion this month. In news circles, the San Jose Mercury News is considered one of the top-tier mid-size papers in the country. after its sale to MediaNews last year, the paper has been undergoing a series of cost reductions, resulting in staff reductions, slimmed-down sections and less original news coverage. In other words, like almost every other paper in the country, it's feeling the pain, both financially and journalistically. Not sure if MediaNews breaks out finances by newspaper, but...

• November 19, 2007
• 4 comments

Community and the Next Newsroom

by Chris O’Brien
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

In a world increasingly obsessed with the virtual, I'm leading a project focused on the physical. Our aim is to imagine the ideal physical space that will serve the needs of journalism for the next 50 years. There's no shortage of folks who will immediately say, "In the future, there will be no newsrooms." Perhaps. And there are some news organizations that operate that way now. Check out the New Haven Independent which operates virtually except for an occasional staff meeting in a local coffee shop. But I'm not convinced that's the model for most groups. There's still something intangible...

• October 19, 2007
• 1 comment

A Fresh Start

by Chris O’Brien
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

I could begin by reciting in mind-numbing detail my experience running The Next Newsroom Project. There have frustrations (many); there have been moments of despair (a few); there has been progress (some); there have been unexpected discoveries (lots). But this blog is just getting started, and there will be plenty of time for those stories. For the moment, you can visit our project site for the skinny. Instead, I'd like my first post here to sound a note that's far more hopeful, if not exactly profound: I feel optimistic about the future. And that, more than anything, is the most...

• October 14, 2007
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