Convergence Case Study
Florida Today
James Gentry
After a year of experimentation, Florida Today and
WKMG entered a formal, written partnership
agreement in April. Typical activities include:
Primary partners:
Florida Today – 90,000 daily,
Florida Today’s online editor appears on WKMG’s 6
120,000 Sunday.
a.m. newscast to talk about the top two stories in the Floridatoday.com – 106,000
Melbourne area. Florida Today hopes to get on the
unique page views daily
evening newscast at some point. In addition, WKMG
WKMG – Channel 6, CBS
has a bureau located in the Florida Today building.
affiliate in Orlando. Nielsen DMA
15.
During space shuttle launches, Florida Today’s space
reporting team provides live remotes for WKMG. “One Ownership
thing driving the partnership,” explains Osenenko, “is Gannett owns Florida Today and
Floridatoday.com. Posta desire to play off the areas where we have local
Newsweek owns WKMG.
expertise such as space, business, health and local
and state sports.”
Structure
Every Friday, Florida Today’s lead prep football writer Florida Today and
Floridatoday.com are located in
provides a preview of the big high school game of the
Melbourne, Fla. WKMG is
week. And Florida Today reporters do talk-backs
located in Orlando, which is
during the day on significant breaking news.
about an hour’s drive northwest
of Melbourne.
A Florida Today editor or reporter appears on WKMG’s
Sunday public affairs show, Flashpoint.
Driving forces behind
partnerships
Michael J. Coleman, president
and publisher, Florida Today;
Derek Osenenko, editor, Florida
The three Gannett papers in Florida (Florida Today,
Fort Myers and Pensacola) and two Gannett television Today; Henry Maldonado,
general manager, WKMG.
stations (Tampa-St. Petersburg and Jacksonville) are
working together so much that the stations plan to
Making it happen
support the company’s growing state capital bureau
Bob Stover, managing editor,
in Tallahassee, which currently has three reporters
Florida Today; Traci Bauer,
and is managed from Melbourne.
assistant managing editor/
multimedia, Florida Today; Skip
A “signature” creation of the coalition is a state
Valet, news director, WKMG.
government Web site that, Osenenko says, is one of
the “definitive sources of state government news.” It What they do:
includes updates of legislation, bios of legislators,
Florida Today Editor Osenenko
among other things. The site continues to grow with describes the paper’s efforts as
visits coming from all the Gannett properties and
two pronged. First is the
apparently is attracting political junkies from
partnership with WKMG and
throughout the state.
second is what he describes as
a “growing Gannett coalition."
One highlight of the coalition’s efforts was a 16-page
newspaper report on the problems of Florida’s beach
erosion, demonstrating that Florida had ignored
codes designed to protect its beaches. The package features a Web site with a
movie produced by Florida Today and still photos show beaches today and in the
past, among other things. The television stations prepared video segments that
Growing Gannett coalition
broke the newspaper reports to follow. The partners also worked with USA Today to
get the special section inserted into USA Today in the Tampa and Jacksonville
markets.
Strategic focus
News is the primary focus of the partnership. “We wanted to create another
platform to deliver the news,” Stover says. “We think this increases the readers’
reliance on us and increases circulation. And it drives traffic to the website.” Next
comes promotion, Stover says.
Keys to making the partnership work
Understanding the culture in each other’s newsrooms
Florida Today has had to adjust to the speed of the television newsroom, which is
much more spontaneous and not as planned. Newspaper people have had to learn
to be more economical with words when telling a story on the air. And although
Florida Today editors and reporters thought there might be ethical issues related to
the cultures, they have found them to be minor. Stover says, “The fact we’re both
owned by very large media companies that have experience with both media is a
positive factor here.”
Web site
The biggest single thing that helped the TV partnership was the paper’s earlier
independent emphasis on creating a dynamic, immediate, layered news Web site.
This experience taught editors that stories have to be repackaged for specific media
and it got them past the fear of breaking big stories outside the regular print cycle.
The paper now breaks news regularly throughout the day, sometimes having as
many as a dozen fresh news stories on the site by mid-afternoon. Also, even before
signing the partnership with WKMG, the newspaper had emphasized video, Flash
and audio enhancements for the Web. This experience made paper more
comfortable in dealing with the TV stations’ emphasis on video.
Routine converged activities
Dave Larimer, a former Florida Today managing editor, is at the eye of the
convergence operation. As online news editor, he starts his shift at 6 a.m. In this
role he updates the web site with breaking stories until mid-afternoon. A reporter
works for him to provide fresh local stories, following up on stories and making
checks with local police agencies. At 6:20 a.m. Larimer goes live on the WKMG
morning newscast, giving highlights from Brevard County and Florida Today. He
also tells WKMG’s assignment editor about stories the station might want to have
itsreporters pursue. Larimer is expected to start giving a similar update on the noon
news broadcast in the near future. Editors say Larimer is perfect for his
convergence position because, as an experienced print editor, he understands the
topics that are important to local readers and has experience making judgements
about news play.
The television station gives the newspaper a bureau, of sorts, in Orlando. This is
helpful because local readers see Orlando news on their Orlando-based TV stations
and expect to see something about the major events in the local paper the next
morning. Prior to this partnership, Florida Today was at a disadvantage because
much AP copy from that area doesn’t move until the day after the Orlando Sentinel
prints it.
Florida Today features WKMG’s weatherman on its weather page and used the
station’s expertise in the pages of its annual hurricane guide.
The partners freely repackage information from each other’s web site and link to
WKMG’s video. Newspaper credits TV; TV credits the newspaper.
Florida Today communicates regularly every day with the TV newsroom, sharing
story ideas and information.
Noteworthy examples
Billy’s Journal: Billy Cox, a features writer and columnist, frequently repackages
his stories into two- to three- minute features for the news broadcasts. The
segments are called Billy’s Journal. Cox writes the script and works closely with a
WKMG photographer to completely repackage his story with video, interviews and
voiceover. He works with the photographer to edit and produce the finished piece.
Statewide project: The “Paradise at Risk” project, an investigation into the cost of
beach erosion in Florida, was a landmark initiative that showed how we could use
multiple platforms on a statewide basis and serve our local markets at the same
time.
Florida Today decided to pursue the topic because beaches drive tourism and
development, and provide an important part of the Florida Lifestyle. Gannett
newspapers in Brevard, Fort Myers and Pensacola joined with Gannett television
stations in Tampa-St. Petersburg and Jacksonville to examine the economic and
political issues of beach erosion. Tallahassee and Washington bureaus also
contributed. Among the findings: The state has allowed almost 5,000 homes,
condos and hotels to be built in areas that are subject to erosion. More than half of
them are inside a state-designated critical erosion zone. Editors also had some fun
with the topic. For instance, the special section included an article about readers
testing the sand from 20 beaches statewide.
Using a pool of editors, reporters and photographers from all our properties, we
produced:
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A 16-page report that not only demonstrates how serious the issue is, but
explores the topic from a comprehensive statewide perspective. The report
was distributed in the Sunday editions of the three Florida papers – a
circulation of about 300,000.
A Web site was especially built to support the project. The site is rich with
extra content, including video and audio presentations by our online staff
and broadcast segments prepared by our television partners.
Broadcast segments in the two Gannett TV markets were used to advance a
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reprint of the section on July 29 inside USA TODAY in those markets. The
USA TODAY distribution – a company first – added 42,000 copies to the
circulation of the section.
A GNS article based on the project appeared July 29 in all editions of USA
TODAY.
A Sunday morning talk show on the day of publication dedicated to the
subject on WKMG. In addition, part of the Web site for the beach project
included a pop quiz for readers about beaches. And for a week leading up to
publication, WKMG included a question from the quiz on its morning news
program.
Polling Opportunities: WKMG and the Gannett television partner in Jacksonville
have computerized polling resources and have used them to produce stories on a
statewide and regional basis. For instance, WKMG polled central Florida residents
about their views on education funding and the newspaper used it as the focal point
of a special section on that subject. WKMG also produced a poll that measured the
space exploration knowledge of central Florida residents. And Gannett’s Jacksonville
station had its polling firm conduct a statewide poll about election issues
surrounding the governor’s race.
References:
About us: http://www.floridatoday.com/content/services/welcome/about.shtml
Mobile: http://www.floridatoday.com/content/multimedia/pda.shtml