One of the most aggressive and radical reorganizations of a newsroom recently has been that of Gazette Communications in Cedar Rapids, Iowa — a local media company serving Eastern Iowa primarily through The Gazette newspaper and KCRG – TV9, an ABC affiliate, along with numerous niche print and online products. Just two weeks ago, staff members at the Gazette agreed to a dramatic role-change and wild transformation of the newsroom from a traditional print company into a forward-focused digital-only startup. Now, former editor Steve Buttry will be the “Information Content Conductor.”

Information Content Conductor — What IS it?

The title, quite frankly, sounds like it requires a uniform of blue overalls, a whistle and a red bandanna tied around the neck: “All aboard!” What does information content mean? And how on earth do you go about conducting it?

The easiest way to understand Buttry’s role is to understand what has been frustrating the staff members over at the Gazette. According to Buttry’s blog, for too long newspaper companies have needed to transform their organizations. First, they acted as factories of skilled workers who each had a separate assignment and “always gathered more information than their newspapers published.” Then, newspapers moved online and new positions were added, new digital content was published, niche products were unveiled and events were covered live.

“But our organization remained structured and focused primarily on the newspaper product,”Buttry said.

Finally, the Gazette decided that they had to change their company completely. Under the leadership of Chuck Peters, Gazette Communications CEO, the company will transform into an independent organization that will focus exclusively on developing content from their professional journalists as well as from the community.

“We will publish this content digitally without editing and without the limitations of products,” Buttry added.

At the same time, an entirely separate organization will plan and edit products, such as the Gazette and GazetteOnline. Still lost? The basic idea is that the separation of content creation from the making of products will lead to deeper, more meaningful content.

The products will still remain, but the responsibility of handling them will be under a separate team — not messily sandwiched together as it used to be. So now, when you read “Information Content Conductor,” you slowly begin to feel comfortable with its meaning: It is the task of making sure that databases, videos, audio, slideshows, text messages, blogs, tweets, interactive multimedia, comments, questions, live chats, interactive maps and more are under surveillance by creative people who are looking for factual news. Furthermore, it is the duty of keeping the staff motivated while making sure the people — the original creators of content — are happy, too.

Transformation out of necessity

I think I was right about needing a whistle. All this conducting sounds far too challenging. What about a business model — that word that is kryptonite to online-only companies? Buttry believes that the economic challenges that forced The Gazette to reduce its staff underscores the necessity of its transformation.

“I would worry way more about not being aggressive enough,” said Chuck Peters, CEO.

He is calm, collected, and confident with the new plans for the company. And yet, every part of their strategy is untested. There is no inspiration for their new business or existing model that they are using as a launch pad.

“There’s nobody that we’re following,” Peters explained. “This really started because I was talking with tech leaders of different companies, and it was apparent that we were not organized for developing local information that was comprehensive, that could be viewed on any device in any way we want. You think about that, and it leads you to a certain conclusion. It was about 18 months ago that we realized we needed to separate product from content.”

Peters calls it the C3: Complete Community Connection.

“If each individual in the community has exactly the information they need, when and where they want it, and can develop stronger relationships with those in their defined communities, each of those communities will be stronger,” he said.

His PowerPoint from the NAA MediaXChange in Las Vegas explains it best:

And as Information Content Conductor, Buttry is responsible for creating another C3: Content Creation & Collaboration, a networked set of blogs and information organized around topics or micro-geographical areas. Take a look at Peters’ rendition of what a conduct producer’s (”superblogger” for now) job might look like (click the image for a bigger version):

Daniel Conover, a journalist who is passionate about the future of the industry, recently wrote a piece in Xark! that outlined “what’s next” in news, and supported the type of change The Gazette is attempting.

…Watch for companies and startups that build their news platforms on informatics-friendly systems. These are the companies that will grab the first sizable newsmedia profits from sources other than advertising and paid subscriptions. Smart outfits, no matter their funding or model, will redefine their primary product as semi-structured data, with narrative storytelling as a subset of each file.

Michele McLellan, journalist and believer in the downsizing of print newspapers, was overjoyed at the news of Gazette’s reorganization. Having content that is not edited, Wikipedia-style, and using the Newsgarden, a social news mapping platform that enables intensely local news and advertising, “opens wide the likelihood of a nimble, Web first and Web savvy culture,” McLellan wrote. She supports their efforts and added that “…reorganizing does more than just change the way the jobs get done. It communicates priorities. It redefines culture – ‘The way we do things here.’”

McLellan even has her own definition for “conductor.” Unlike my railroad metaphor, she says the best description “…is the idea of the symphony conductor, taking disparate voices and forms and weaving them into a melody that makes sense and engages and encourages others to play along.”

Caroline Huber over at EditorsWeBlog.com explains Peters’ vision for the company:

It includes the transformation of the Gazette into social media rather than communications media, improving interactions with the community, creating a collaboration model and changing the company culture to a ‘startup mode.

And even Martin Langeveld praised Gazette’s innovation in an article for the Nieman Journalism lab, citing that even though newspapers are claiming to be focused on digital media, most of them favor print:

The notion of a news enterprise consisting of a set of collaborating units operating in startup mode also suggest the potential for other online-only news startups to fashion a Cedar Rapids model by entering collaborations with printers and others to find additional distribution channels and revenue streams.

Maybe there is a business model at the end of the tunnel, after all.

Time will tell

Thanks to the active blogging by both Buttry and Peters, we will be able to closely follow the successful and perhaps not-so-successful adventures that Gazette Communications is embarking on. Just like any media organization in 2009, there is no telling who will win or who will lose. All we can do is sit and wait for the Obi Wan Kenobi of journalism to lead and guide us to victory (minus the whole lightsaber duel, body disappearing thing, of course).

Tim McGuire of Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, sums it up best:

For the record, I think Steve Buttry is to journalistic innovation what pre-steroid stars are to baseball — the real damn deal. If Buttry thinks an Information Content Conductor is worth a try then I am going to cheer like hell. I am at the point where if publishers and editors want to call themselves Fred and dress in clown suits it’s okay with me if they can figure out ways to reinvent the content models and the business models for newspapers.

We also have a separate Q&A with Steve Buttry.