Four things I learned at the newspaper of record
The University of Oregon’s Super J in NYC class stopped by the New York Times on Tuesday. Weekend Editor, Ian Fisher, was the first person we met.
Fisher, who has worked extensively overseas — from Rome to Iraq and many other place in between — revealed the Times’ willingness to do whatever was needed to keep its reporters safe and properly equipped in a war zone.
The moral of the story was that the Times has always invested in its journalists and done whatever was needed to get the story. And despite further disruption rumbling in the journalistic distance, the New York Times is continues to place many of the same editorial-led bets.
Here are four key ways that they’re seeking to do this:
- Substance wins the day
Innovation drives us forward; and the implementation of video, virtual reality, social media and, ironically enough, listicles are only effective when they produce quality content that comes from the journalistic principles that have carried us this far.
Every ounce of content under the Times’ banner adheres to the same high standard.
2. The Robots are Coming
The Times is working on a slew of tools to make journalists’ lives easier, including: tables that record and transcribe interviews, data platforms that give real-time feedback and an archiving process that helps hold authority accountable.
These are potentially all great tools that can only improve engagement, but they’re also worrisome for a graduating journalism student with student loan repayments. We would certainly require a larger salary than a robot.
3. Get an internship
We’ve heard it before (and before and before) and we heard it again. Internships are invaluable when on the hunt for a job.
Nearly everyone we’ve met in New York media has climbed their way to their position using an internship as the first rung. The Times is no exception — you have to work before you work.
4. Reader experience matters
The Times has a team working on improving viewers’ visits online. It wants to know how we read the stories at nytimes.com, why — and when — we read them, and if we’d read more if the interface was tweaked just a bit.
The Times has a process to shape these tweaks, interacting with readers to test its ideas before fully rolling them out. Nothing done well in journalism is done without research, dedication and the community that’s being served.
Against a backdrop of industry discussions about layoffs, clicks, revenue, circulation and worries over the next big thing in journalism, the Times is still dedicated to the original big thing: the story.
