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Gannett Shifts to ‘24-Hour Converged’ Newsrooms

Gannett Co. Inc. plans to shift all of its newspapers to 24-hour converged newsrooms, which most Gannett editors believe will require a marked change in approach and will require a restructuring of newsrooms.

The initiative, titled Information Project, requires each newsroom to submit a plan for a fully 24-hour converged newsroom by mid-November, with implementation to happen by May. Three papers, The Des Moines Register, The (Sioux Falls) Argus Leader and Melbourne, Fla.‘s Florida Today, have been implementing the approach in recent months as test sites, writes Editor & Publisher.

The convergence of online and print will likely mean an increase in daily web updates for Gannett. For example, the Observer-Dispatch in Utica, N.Y., has seen an increase in daily updates online from about three last January to between 12 and 15 today.

Karen Magnuson, editor of the Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat and Chronicle, has had her newsroom shifting priorities in the past year, practically eliminating its online department and shifting pieces of it to the main newsroom.

Magnuson, who is also president of Associated Press Managing Editors, points out that as circulation of the print product declines, people are looking to receive their information differently.

The Gannett project comes during a time when newspaper companies are struggling to discover exactly where the future of newspapers lies.