Hannah Weverka
p. 59 – “Strengthening Our Newsroom”

Stories are typically filed late in the day. Our mobile apps are organized by print sections. Desks meticulously lay out their sections but spend little time thinking about social strategies. Traditional reporting skills are the top priority in hiring and promotion. The habits and traditions built over a century and a half of putting out the paper are a powerful, conservative force as we transition to digital – none more so than the gravitational pull of Page One.

Some of our traditional competitors have aggressively reorganized around a digital-first rather than a print-first schedule. The health and profitability of our print paper means we don’t yet need to follow them down this path. But it is essential to begin the work of questioning our print-centric traditions, conducting a comprehensive assessment of our digital needs, and imagining the newsroom of the future. This means reassessing everything from our roster of talent to our organizational structure to what we do and how we do it.

Stephanie Eckardt
p. 47: “Opportunity: Front-Line Promotion”

Reporters and editors are eager to do what is asked of them, as long as they have clarity on both how and why — as well as some assurance that the extra effort will be rewarded. Right now, they are unsure of whether spending time on social represents doing work or avoiding it.

For example, A.O. Scott said that his film reviews occasionally get an outsize reaction on social. He is torn between engaging with readers and moving on to the next story. “It raises the question, when is pushing it forward the better substitute for doing more work?”

…There is compelling evidence that these best practices can be taught. Many of the reporters who are best at social promotion — such as Nick Kristof, Nick Bilton, C.J. Chivers, David Carr and Charles Duhigg — learned these skills from their publishers as part of their book-promotion efforts. Andrea Elliott said she also received this training after signing her book deal at Random House.

Laura Adkins
p. 44:

At The Times, we generally like to let our work speak for itself. We’re not ones to brag.

Felipe De La Hoz
p. 83 “Digital First: Discussion”

We start by painting a picture of where we want to be 1, 5, 10, 20 years from now – a best guess is fine and we can adjust as we go – and then map out the steps towards realizing that vision.’ […] But to those charged with worrying about the newsroom’s future, it’s clear we’re just a fraction of the way there. And compared to many of our competitors, we’re falling behind. – from new executive director for core digital products

Shira Hanau
p. 37: “Opportunity: Personalization”

We already personalize our content for individual readers in subtle ways: a front-page story about New York may be substituted for a National story, the global home page curates our news report with an international sensibility, and the iPad app grays out the stories you’ve already read. Embracing personalization does not mean flipping a switch that gives different stories to every person. Nor should it. Research shows that readers come to us in part to find out what we consider the top stories of the day… Even with the home page there is an opportunity for a measured approach — in effect, serve everyone the same dinner but at least give them their favorite desserts. For basketball fans who never read about baseball, that means showing them the story about the Knicks game rather than the Yankees game (unless the baseball story has been flagged as important, such as a story on a perfect game). Readers have come to expect this personalization… The newsroom should consider devoting more attention to these new initiatives. And the newsroom should clarify how much personalization we want on our home page and on our apps. Until then, the uncertainty about what is acceptable will limit our creativity and initiative on this front.

Tommy Collison
p. 37, “Personalization”

But personalization offers countless opportunities to surface content in smarter ways. It means using technology to ensure that the right stories are finding the right readers in the right places at the right times.

For example, letting you know when you’re walking by a restaurant we just reviewed; knowing that you prefer to get stories by email; and making sure you never miss a story about your alma mater.

Elif Koc
p. 26, “Discovery”

Improving technology provides us with more and better tools to ensure that we get our work in front of the right readers at the right place and at the right time. But we still ask too much of readers — they must navigate a website and apps that are modeled on our print structure. We need to think more about resurfacing evergreen content, organizing and packaging our work in more useful ways and pushing relevant content to readers. And to power these efforts, we should invest more in the unglamorous but essential work of tagging and structuring data.

Jonny Levin
p. 25, “Growing Our Audience”

Our home page has been our main tool for getting our journalism to readers, but its impact is waning. Only a third of our readers ever visit it. And those who do visit are spending less time: page views and minutes spent per reader dropped by double-digit percentages last year.

Savannah O’Leary
p. 53, “Opportunity: Events”

Our events are typically built around industry issues that are of interest to both sponsors and corporate audiences.

Events can be about connecting with readers as much as they are about making money… this is more urgent because in recent years the events industry has shifted in ways that mirror changes in the newspaper industry: away from a total dependence on advertising and towards readers willing to pay.

…Our best effort on this front is Times Talks, but we’ve made little effort to scale them. Those who have studied the industry say that the most successful approach is to take such events on tour, with multiple stops for the same line up, or to hold a single large annual event. Instead, we’re building each of ours as a one-off.

Many executives and editors at competing outlets said that The Times is in a unique position to increase and retain subscribers by shedding its modesty and putting forward its best asset: its talent.

Shawn Paik
p. 54, “Getting To Know Our Readers”

To provide more relevant and meaningful user experiences, we need to first better understand our readers — who they are and how they use our site.

Currently, our capabilities for collecting reader data are limited. The information is dispersed haphazardly across the organization and rarely put to use for purposes other than marketing. And the newsroom, which is perhaps best positioned to champion this effort because of its close connection to readers, has not played a leading role.

Readers, though, are eager to share information if they think it will help us or them. In stories where readers are encouraged to leave their email addresses to signal that they would be willing to speak with Times reporters, almost 90 percent agree. Our competitors have pursued this strategy to build up reader databases that can be used for both reporting and promotion. We should pursue this in a scalable, organized fashion in consultation with the business side.

Elisabeth Turner
p. 91, “Winning The Talent Wars”

The only way to ensure that our report keeps space is to build a newsroom with a deeper and broader mix of digital talents: technologists, user experience designers, product managers, data analysts and, most of all, digitally inclined reporters. Or, to set aside those labels and put our needs in more basic terms, we want makers, who build tools to streamline our newsgathering; entrepreneurs, who know what it takes to launch new digital efforts; reader advocates, who ensure that we are designing useful products that meet our subscribers’ changing needs; and zeitgeist watchers, who have a sixth sense for the shifting technology and behavior.

Wendy Shyu
p. 23-24, “Growing Our Audience.”

Audience Development is the work of expanding our loyal and engaged audience. It is about getting more people to read more of our journalism. The  work can be broken down into steps like discovery (how we package and distribute our journalism), promotion (how we call attention to our journalism) and connection (how we create a two-way relation-ship with readers that deepens their loyalty).

Audience Development needs to be a goal for the  whole company. But the newsroom, in particular, must seize a leadership position.

At our new and traditional competitors, Audience Development is seen not just as the responsibility to draw readers into a story.

“The hardest part for me has been the realization that you don’t automatically get an audience,” said Janine Gibson, editor-in-chief of The Guardian’s  website. “For someone with a print background,  you’re accustomed to the fact that if it makes the editor’s cut — gets into the paper — you’re going to find an audience. It’s entirely the other way around as a digital journalist. The realization that you have to go find your audience — they’re not going to just come and read it — has been transformative.”

Jay Rosen
p. 3, “Introduction”

The New York Times is winning at journalism. Of all the challenges facing a media company in the digital age, producing great journalism is the hardest.Our daily report is deep, broad, smart and engaging— and we’ve got a huge lead over the competition. At the same time, we are falling behind in a second critical area: the art and science of getting our journalism to readers.

p. 82, “Digital First”

Around the newsroom, this phrase often is used to refer to publishing articles on the web before putting them in print. But outside our walls, digital-first is an all-encompassing strategy.

Digital-first means the top priority is producing the best possible digital report, free from the constraints of the newspaper. The last step is repackaging the best of that digital report for the next day’s paper. This transition requires rethinking staffing, structure and work processes from top to bottom. Companies with no legacy platform have the advantage of being able to focus entirely on creating the best digital reports. For newspaper companies, making this transition can be so challenging that several of our competitors have handed responsibility for the daily paper to small, stand-alone teams so that everyone else can focus on digital.