The Next Newsroom Project

A few years ago, the Washington Post embraced the strategy of having separate digital and print newsrooms. But in recent years, it has gradually merged them back to together.

The impact of that decision was noted this week after the Post published a two-year investigation called “Top Secret America.” The series examines the enormous growth of secretive American agencies since Sept. 11.

This weekend, On The Media host Brooke Gladstone interviewed one of the journalists involved, William M. Arkin.

At one point, after discussing the newsroom merger, Gladstone asked: “Do you think it would have been possible to assemble and present this volume of data before these online tools were available?”

Arkin replied:

“You know, it couldn’t have been done without the digital side. And in the time period that The Washington Post supported this two-year project, Brooke, they consolidated the digital and print newsrooms.

So now all of the people who work at The Washington Post, both online and on paper, work in the same building, on the same newsroom, in the same floor. And I think that this is the product of what that consolidation has meant, and I think it’s a pointer of what’s possible when one conceives of a project digitally from the beginning.”

You can listen to the segment here:

Beth Lawton of the Newspaper Association of America spoke to her former colleague Rob Curley on our behalf. Curley has gained a reputation as a visionary for his role in integrating the newsrooms at the Lawrence Journal-World News and theNaples Daily News. Now he’s working his new media magic for Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive. Lawton asked Curley for this thoughts on the newsroom of the future.

By Beth Lawton

“I’m not an architect, so that’s kind of a caveat,” said Rob Curley, sitting in his well-decorated corner office at washingtonpost.com.

But for all the modern, techy-feel of the Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive offices in Arlington, Va., Curley said the most impressive newsroom he’s ever worked in was in Lawrence, Kan.

The World Co. building, at 645 New Hampshire Ave. in the hometown of the University of Kansas, was one of the oldest buildings in town, giving it “that feeling of nostalgia,” Curley said. At the same time, the building was chock-full of state-of-the-art newsroom technology. The building housed newspaper, television and online reporters, all working together in the building with hard wood floors and vaulted ceilings. “There was a contradiction when you walked in there,” he said.

But still, he said, even in the best newsroom buildings, the leadership of the news organization is the most important element. “I don’t think a workspace is as important as the person leading that workspace,” he said. “And I don’t think the space dictates the attitude at all.”

However, given the chance to build an entirely new newsroom there are a few elements Curley said would be sure to do: “I’d build a space you couldn’t wait to get to every day. It would pay homage to newspapers past, but doing it in a really new, cool way.” One of his ideas was to have a giant video board showing the 100 or more most important print-edition front pages in history. He also said he would like to build “a space that lends itself to conversations and playfulness.”

But he re-emphasized that people matter more than space.