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Avoiding duplication: How we assign for multiple platforms

by Jennifer McGuirePosted: April 18, 2013 2:51 PMLast Updated: May 27, 2014 4:30 PM

Categories:Canada, Journalism

IMG_0408 Toronto Assignment - Large.jpg
CBC News Toronto multiplatform assignment meeting

When I first arrived at the CBC moreyears ago than I care to remember, I was an associate producer on the radiomorning show in Ottawa. At the time, our program was engaged in a heatedrivalry with another news operation in town.

It wasn't one of the daily newspapers,or the number one TV news station.  Itwas the CBC Ottawa Radio Newsroom, located right across the hall from ouroffices on the 7th floor of the Chateau Laurier hotel. And when we weren't giving the cold shoulderto the reporters across the hall, we were ignoring our fellow CBC journalistsat the TV newsroom across town, on Parliament Hill. Or they were ignoring us.We would each follow our own agendas, look for the best stories, and - rarelytell each other what we were up to.

As silly and embarrassing as thatsounds, it isn't that we weren't friendly or invested in mutual success; it'sjust that we had different reporting lines and different masters. We worked fordifferent mediums with distinct and separate news operations. I want to assureyou that it's not the way we do business at CBC News today.

That isn't to say that ourjournalists still don't strive to uncover and tell the best stories they can ona daily basis.  Getting the scoop is partof our nature. What has changed is that we have become much more systematicabout sharing and not duplicating effort. In doing so, we've managed tomaintain the quality of journalism that you've come to expect from us, even inthis time of financial restraint.

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Produced as a learning tool for our staff, this video shows how multiplatform assignment worked on a typically busy day in our Toronto local newsroom.

A few weeks ago, the PEW ResearchCenter in the United States released its annual State of the News Media.  Here are some of the key findings:

  • There are 30 percent fewer people working in newspaper newsrooms than there were in 2000.
  • Weather, trafficand sports account for 40% of local television newscasts, while stories aboutgovernment and politics has fallen from 7% to just 3% since 2005. Only 20% ofstories ran for more than a minute.
  • At CNN, producedstory packages (as opposed to interview clips, and live chats with reporters inthe field) were reduced by almost half between 2007 and 2012.
  • And perhaps mostdisturbing of all, almost one-third (31%) of people surveyed by PEW say they'veabandoned a news outlet because the quality of their reporting isn't what itused to be.

I'm not aware of a similar study inCanada, but we've all seen stories about layoffs at newspapers and broadcastingoutlets across the country. We're hardly immune to that here at the CBC. But byworking together, being smarter about sharing resources, and producing contentfor our radio, television, mobile and online services, we're able to do a wholelot more than we would have been able to if we still operated in the silos wehad 25 years ago. More importantly, we are able to be more consistent with ourcoverage. Gone are the days when we were sometimes mistakenly reportingdifferent facts on different platforms.Our current approach at CBC Newsfeatures integrated teams and what we call Multiplatform Assignment. What itmeans is that senior editorial teams in newsrooms across the country meetregularly through the day to determine which stories deserve coverage, and thenhow we'll cover them on the different services. Ideally, a story will show upon all of our platforms, in one form or another.  That is because we know our audience routinelyshifts their consumption of news across television, internet and radio. Theyexpect to get the content no matter where they choose to consume it.

The video attached to this story issomething we put together as a learning tool for our staff. It shows howmultiplatform assignment worked on a typically busy day in our Toronto localnewsroom.

Gone are the days when we'dautomatically dispatch reporters from our national and regional radio and TVnewsrooms to the same event.  If it's abig story, we may end up sending more than one journalist, but once the eventis over, they can share the task of getting reaction to the news, providing youwith the context and balance required for quality journalism. 

And now that more of our journalistsare comfortable working in radio, television and digitally, we can send (ifnecessary) one reporter to cover the story for all our platforms. What thisdoes is allow us to invest in stories that require several days or weeks ofresearch and preparation. Enterprise and investigative journalism takes moretime. It is an investment and we have made it a priority. Stories like taxhavens or foreign workers or diluted chemotherapy drugs a priority: we aredoing more of those than ever before and that is by design. (More on that in afuture blog post). It's hard for me toimagine a CBC supper-hour newscast with 40% weather, sports and traffic, andonly 3% political coverage, but we might have been forced to move in thatdirection if we hadn't made this change.


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