News, Improved

How America's Newsrooms Are Learning to Change

As news organizations adapt to a changing media landscape, strategic learning is critical for organizations that want to increase their audiences and maintain journalistic quality. News, Improved: How America's Newsrooms Are Learning to Change shows how leadership, goal-setting and staff development improve the culture of the newsroom and the content of the news product—both key drivers of audience appeal. Learn how American newsrooms are becoming more adaptive and creative, fueled by continuous, strategic training.

News, Improved focuses on the lessons learned from $10 million in training and research projects funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, including Tomorrow's Workforce, a partnership of major news corporations, more than 50 national journalism professional and mid-career teaching organizations, and one of the nation's most prestigious schools of journalism. The four-year project was conceived to show how strategic investments in newsroom training and professional development can improve the appeal and value of quality journalism. It is based at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.

McLellan and Porter's work in newsrooms and their interviews with hundreds of newsroom executives and working journalists found that even in the newsrooms most committed to professional development, training had little impact on the content. It was often opportunistic and not aligned with goals. It was, in short, non-strategic.

News, Improved reports on how news organizations are learning to change by setting clear editorial goals and priorities, developing training at all levels to achieve those goals, and using professional growth as a way to strengthen readership.