A News and Information Company

"We can't just be a newspaper anymore. We need to be a news and information company. Online will become the new mass medium, and print will be aimed at settled adults."

Whoa. New concept? Not so much. The above statement from Julia Wallace, editor of Atlanta's Journal-Constitution shows that her paper, along with many others around the world, are being forced to re-think the way their company works.

As Jennifer Carroll, Gannett's vice president for new- media content says, "This is not about moving the furniture around. It is about completely rethinking the way we are going to do journalism."

An article in the American Journalism Review by Carl Sessions Stepp called "Transforming the Architecture" describes what newspapers are doing within their offices to make them more adaptable to this online movement. (Note: the Des Moines Register is mentioned!)

Atlanta's Journal-Constitution is a prime example of this. No traditional desks, no conventional editors, no late-afternoon budget meeting - it's all a thing of the past.

Instead, there are four departments. News and Information, Enterprise, Digital and Print work together to put the paper and the website together. There are constantly informal meetings being held within the departments.

While there are some people with negative feelings about the changes, many others see it as a way of survival. Says the Journal-Constitution's transportation reporter Ariel Hart, who now doubles on the public transit beat:

"This is the key. This is the nexus of everything for me. Thank God we are moving forward. We could be sitting around watching this place be whittled down to nothingness and wondering when we would cease to exist. We have not done that. We have a vision."

I can only hope that we all, as reporters, find ourselves working for a company with a vision.