What journalists wish product teams understood about their work

Journalists today are responsible for far more than researching, writing, and editing stories. They must also optimize content for multiple platforms (search, social & mobile apps), engage with audiences, and use audience insights to inform their work — all while pursuing accuracy and fairness in the fast-paced environment of digital news.

My job is to help them do that.

As the product lead for Presto — the USA TODAY NETWORK’s proprietary content platform — I work closely with our journalists daily to align Presto’s product roadmap with the newsrooms’ most pressing needs. I’ve also been lucky enough to visit many of our local properties and see how they operate.

I wanted to share these insights with peers on our product team who might not have as much direct contact with our journalists, so I took the opportunity at a recent internal Consumer Product Conference to bring these groups together, knowing that hearing first-hand from our digital journalists about their work can have a powerful impact on how we build products.

When I put out the call to our journalists for volunteers to participate, I expected three to four at most. Within the hour, I had dozens of enthusiastic responses. Clearly there was an appetite for better collaboration between editorial and product.

The goal of the session was simple: Dig into the daily life of a journalist at the USA TODAY NETWORK, so we might learn more about the processes and the goals of our newsrooms and thereby build better products for journalists and end-users alike.

My questions were inspired by gaps I regularly see, such as understanding the full lifecycle of a story — from ideation to publishing to promotion. Starting with “What do you wish the product organization understood about your job?” our panelists — Lita Beck (Indianapolis), Jennifer Hefty (Fort Collins, Colorado) and Candace Mitchell (New Jersey) — were open and candid with their thoughts.

• They’re math-focused: Beck joked that when she got into the business, she was “promised there would be no math”. In fact, assessing the performance of content with audiences involves a lot more math and statistics than before. The increased focus on measuring success through numbers is a learning process, especially for people who have been in the industry for a long time and are sometimes navigating unfamiliar territory. By understanding how the newsrooms use audience insights, the developers and designers building our publishing tools can help make sure the most important data is easy to find and understand, even for journalists who aren’t digital natives.
• They’re engaged on many platforms: Another topic we discussed with our newsroom panelists was the importance of reaching readers through third-party platforms like AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages). As a product owner, it’s easy to become hyper-focused on your specific corner of the world — whether that’s publishing tools, native mobile apps, or desktop article pages. Hearing how important some of these other platforms are to the newsrooms and our audiences was eye-opening for many.
• They work in newsrooms large and small: Finally, we were reminded of the unique challenge we have in supporting both small newsrooms — like the Farmington Daily Times in Farmington, N.M., with a staff of five — and those with hundreds — like the Arizona Republic in Phoenix. Our panelists reminded us that every additional step a reporter must take to create a story in our system adds up to time not spent reporting, writing or engaging with readers.

We only had 30 minutes for our panel and could easily have used the entire hour. It was encouraging to see the high level of interest from my product colleagues. And for the newsroom panelists, their willingness to lend their valuable time to the conversation, and their candor with our team, showed trust in our good intentions that can only come through great communication and collaboration.

For all of us in the product organization at the USA TODAY NETWORK, journalism matters. My goal for this session was not only to improve communication between editorial and product but also to expose the product group to a small taste of life in the newsroom. Bringing the two teams together to listen and engage in conversation is how we create familiarity, trust, and empathy, which leads to better journalism and more satisfied audiences.