Leaked N.Y. Times innovation report, and Nieman Lab summary, are must-reads

It got a bit lost in all the real-life drama of New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson’s firing, but the NYT Innovation Report 2014, leaked last week, was an astonishing look inside the most prestigious newsroom in America. Anyone working in media should read it, not just because it’s a snapshot of where media is and where it’s going, but because it offers insights into the organizational hurdles along the way.  

The New York Times has as much in the way of “legacy issues” to deal with as anyone, but don’t let that fool you. Legacy problems aren’t reserved for newspapers trying to protect the dying but still revenue-producing print edition. A startup in its second week might have trouble getting something done because of the lingering effects of decisions made in Week 1.

What are legacy issues? Nieman Lab’s detailed reading of the leaked report, by Joshua Benton with an assist from Nieman Lab staffers  Justin Ellis, Caroline O’Donovan and Joseph Lichterman, points out a few:

The Times must be willing to experiment more in terms of how it presents its content: “We must push back against our perfectionist impulses. Though our journalism always needs to be polished, our other efforts can have some rough edges as we look for new ways to reach our readers.” (p. 31)

Another way to say “our perfectionist impulses” might be “our old way of thinking.” That might sound terrible, like a loosening of standards. I’m sure that’s how many at the Times read that line. But what I think the report is saying is: “Everything must be perfect before the public can see it” is the right approach for the print newspaper, but it’s not necessarily the right approach for every medium or every project. 

The report calls for increased communication and cooperation between the sections of the company they call “Reader Experience” and the newsroom. In the report, Reader Experience refers to R&D, product, technology, analytics and design. (p. 63)

This is as legacy as it gets. In traditional newspaper thinking, there are the people who create the content—itself a post-newspaper word—and everyone else. Everyone else includes the people who create and sell and distribute the actual product, the newspaper, the people who sell and in some cases create advertising, and the various levels of support, which might mean the IT department or the janitorial staff. The idea that people in, say, technology should be collaborating with writers and editors: Well, let’s leave that to those imperfect digital people. 

You think I’m making this up? 

There have been significant obstacles to this kind of cooperation, however. “People say to me, ‘You can’t let anyone know I’m talking to you about this; it has to be under the radar,’ said a leader in one Reader Experience department. ‘Everyone is a little paranoid about being seen as too close to the business side.’” (p.64)

The report also describes a developer who quit after being denied a request to have developers attend brown bag lunches along with editorial staffers. This sort of rejection can make recruitment of top developers and designers a challenge. (p. 68)

But maybe that’s a uniquely newspaper legacy issue, and if you never work at a newspaper you’ll never have to deal with it. But I bet you’ve worked someplace—maybe you’re working there right now!—where this would sound familiar:

Even the Times, with all its staffing and other resources — its R&D lab, its mobile team, its editors focused on issues around design, digital, or new initiatives — feels like it doesn’t have the time or power to get outside of the day-to-day grind of making a newspaper to think about its future …(p. 72)

“Another [desk head] suggested that the relentless work of assembling the world’s best news report can also be a ‘form of laziness, because it is work that is comfortable and familiar to us, that we know how to do. And it allows us to avoid the truly hard work and bigger questions about our present and our future: What shall we become. How must we change?’” (p. 72)

There’s more. A lot more. I urge you to read the leaked report, or at least the Nieman Lab summary. Then let’s you and I talk in five years, which is about two and a half lifetimes from now in digital innovation time. I bet you’ll say that something you read there helped your thinking.