Future of Journalism is "Digital"....Integrated Newsrooms need of the Hour

“Today, everything is a media company. A Supermarket, an organization, a NGO etc. all are media companies. They all do media. But, they don't need journalists to tell their stories. They are all telling their stories directly to people”, says Alan Rusbridger, chief editor of The Guardian, one of the oldest British Newspapers. However, Rusbridger said that this does not mean journalists have got redundant. It means that journalists have to adapt to the new ways of open journalism. Anybody who is on twitter or Facebook today is a journalist. "The future of print journalism lies in accepting the importance of Digital Age,” added Rusbridger.
Rusbridger was at the Mumbai Press Club yesterday on an invitation from the club to talk on “The Future of Journalism in a Digital Age.” He talked of how one can get stories from twitter. He proved this point very well through a short video of one of his colleague Jon Henley, a feature writer at the Guardian. Calling him a middle aged reporter who is not technologically savvy, Rusbridger said that Henley was told to have a twitter account before he goes to Greece to cover the crisis. Henley says he got a little worried but, nevertheless too up the challenge and started a twitter account before he left for Athens. All did was twitted asking people to direct him to stories of hope a midst the crisis and to his utter amazement within three days he had 400 followers and before he landed in Athens he had several stories to tell. The Greeks had shared so many stories of 'Hope' which had not merited space in most mainline Newspapers and TV channels. That’s the power of social media. Most publications world over including India are laying focus on online editions of their newspapers and magazines. That's how important digital has become in today's time. Having an online presence is one thing and completely getting out of print publication and having only an online presence is another thing. 'Newsweek', the 80 year old magazine in the US printed its last edition on December 31, 2012 and since the beginning of this year the magazine only has an online presence. Similarly, the Hollywood trade magazine 'Daily Variety' published its last print edition on Tuesday and directing their readers to the newly revamped website. The magazine said for news of what happened two minutes ago keep going to Variety.com. That's how fast the news is delivered  online. No wonder that The India Today Group is also understood to be launching an online Bollywood or Entertainment magazine one hears. Watch out for that one....
All these above happenings also brings me to the point of how world over traditional newsrooms are changing to be an integrated newsroom. It’s to harness the digital power and the power of social media. It’s happening in India too where many traditional print organizations are becoming an integrated newsroom.
In April 2012, BBC HQ in London’s iconic Bush House was being shifted to a swank 8 floor HQ on Regent Street in Central London. The new office block has a very large Integrated newsroom where all journalists across, TV, Radio and Online sit together thereby sharing resources. Over 600 hundred journalists sit in this one building. Similarly, Sky News also has an integrated newsroom. .
The re-organisation of the BBC’s news department sees an end to separate editorial operations for the BBC’s Radio news, News Interactive and TV news Departments as they are merged into two new divisions. Indeed, the integrated newsroom has achieved substantial savings for BBC that helped compensate for declining license fee income.
In India, the India Today Group is moving towards an integrated newsroom. In fact they already have moved into a new building at Noida Filmcity and in Mumbai too to a new office where journalists from across magazines and TV sit in one newsroom. Journalists at India Today have been encouraged to write blogs, twit on important news and events. Senior print journalists from within the Group are called on TV for their expert comments.

So has integrated newsroom become need of the hour or is it is just a cost cutting mechanism?

A senior official at BBC said to me it’s both. While cost is reduced drastically with synergies being drawn from various sections and one journalist doing more than just reporting for TV but also doubles up as a radio correspondent and writes of online....and vice versa. Many across the BBC are being taught new skills so that they can work seamlessly across the various platforms for delivering news.
Also, increasingly important is the ability to combine material from traditional sources with content residing on different media such as mobile phones and tablets, as well as from Internet feeds and inputs from social media.
New technologies has also changed the whole process of news gathering, with increasing incorporation of content from non-professional sources, including smart phone and iPhones, flip cameras and camcorders wielded both by staff reporters and members of the public. In extreme cases, these are the only available sources of news, either from remote events or when there is a major crackdown on news reporting by the state, as has happened at various times during the “Arab Spring.”
Today most media houses encourage their reporters to have a twitter and Facebook account.
Social Media to an extent across the world is being considered as not just a ‘nice to have’ tool for news reporting but, an important tool for survival. The very existence of social media is changing the news reporting landscape and making it harder for governments and regulators all over the world to keep control over dissemination of information.
This fact itself has to be reflected in the configuration of modern integrated newsrooms, which must be as agnostic to technology and as free from barriers as possible, while ensuring there are mechanisms to enforce rights or regulatory controls where necessary.