Summary

Today newsroom convergence is one of the most widely discussed issues in our industry, with increasing numbers of publishers seeing the need to address it. One of the pioneers newsroom convergence is the Telegraph Media Group in the UK and this special report is the story of their journey towards newsroom transformation. In the autumn of 2005, the recently appointed CEO of the Daily Telegraph, Murdoch MacLennan was challenged by the Barclay brothers, the new owners of the paper, to bring the publishing house well and truly into the age of digital media. At the time, there were journalists in the newspaper who were barely aware that on a different floor at the site in Canary Wharf in east London, an online newsroom had been producing a Telegraph news website since 1994. MacLennan tasked newly arrived business editor and deputy editor of the Daily Telegraph, Will Lewis, to set up a core project team, and to transform the way the newsroom was run. Two and a half years later, the Daily Telegraph has become the Telegraph Media Group and has moved its entire editorial operation to one floor of a massive building in Victoria in central London. Around 400 journalists have gone through a week-long training programme. Today, everyone working in the newsroom is expected to write for the paper as well as for the website, and to be able to produce audio and video for the online offerings. IFRA Newsplex was part of the core project team from the outset and has gained IFRA a unique insight into the pioneering convergence process at the TMG over the past three years. In this IFRA Special Report Will Lewis, Murdoch MacLennan, Dietmar Schantin and the project team take us through the journey of transforming a traditional newspaper operation into a truly multi-media publishing house.