Benefits of merging print and digital newsrooms at Washington Post

A few years ago, the Washington Post embraced the strategy of having separate digital and print newsrooms. But in recent years, it has gradually merged them back to together.

The impact of that decision was noted this week after the Post published a two-year investigation called “Top Secret America.” The series examines the enormous growth of secretive American agencies since Sept. 11.

This weekend, On The Media host Brooke Gladstone interviewed one of the journalists involved, William M. Arkin.

At one point, after discussing the newsroom merger, Gladstone asked: “Do you think it would have been possible to assemble and present this volume of data before these online tools were available?”

Arkin replied:

“You know, it couldn’t have been done without the digital side. And in the time period that The Washington Post supported this two-year project, Brooke, they consolidated the digital and print newsrooms.

So now all of the people who work at The Washington Post, both online and on paper, work in the same building, on the same newsroom, in the same floor. And I think that this is the product of what that consolidation has meant, and I think it’s a pointer of what’s possible when one conceives of a project digitally from the beginning.”

You can listen to the segment here: