Pocono Record finds success with virtual beats, not traditional newspaper roles

The Pocono Record has shifted from a traditional newspaper model to a new “virtual beat” model that has few traditional newspaper roles and requires every employee to have a hand in the Web process.

“We don’t have a features editor,” online producer John Misinco said. “We don’t have a news editor. Everyone is assigned a virtual beat.”

The 20,000-circulation daily in the Poconos of Pennsylvania switched to this new model for a variety of reasons. Flexibility, however, was the main reason. The Record isn’t a large paper with a staff to match. It needed to be more efficient and flexible to be able to cover more stories on more mediums.

For about the past two years employees have managed virtual beats. This is similar to a beat reporter, except that a virtual beat manager is responsible for getting content on that beat onto several different platforms: online, print, mobile, e-mail, etc. A virtual beat manager is like a beatblogger, except a virtual beat manager will have print content, whereas many beatbloggers only produce online content.

These virtual beats encompass topics like health, local schools, local entertainment, consumer news, home and garden, Pocono outdoors and more. Virtual beat managers not only write stories, but also have a lot of autonomy over which stories they cover. A reporter might write a story, send out a text alert and shoot a video all in the same day.

“That older model where one person writes, one person edits, one person does online, etc doesn’t work,” Misinco said. “With the Web things happen all the time. In this era of the Internet, you need everyone doing it. The thinking is that you have everyone involved that it makes everything easier. It also gets people to buy into the process.”

Not every reporter is assigned to a virtual beat; there are still some traditional employees around at the record, largely focusing on hard news. These employees, however, also produce Web and print content. News has to covered as it happens, not on a print deadline.

Misinco said the Record has a “fireman” approach to news. If there is no reporter around, someone on the copy desk will prepare a brief report for the Web.

“The new doesn’t stop just because you’re not there,” he said. “You pretty much have no choice but to have everyone play a role in it.”

Misinco said, however, there were some hiccups in getting veteran reporters over to this new model. The Record is still trying to get every employee into a mindset of producing content as soon as a story breaks.

The Record also is trying hard to get employees to think of other forms of content beyond written stories. Misinco would like to see more multimedia. Part of the switch has been getting veteran newspaper employees to buy into not only producing content on a different schedule, but also to buy into thinking outside of traditional content.

Print integration

Part of a virtual beat managers responsibility lies with print. Certain virtual beats like local schools have a weekly print section that a virtual beat manager must put together. Other virtual beats generate occasional print stories, but don’t have companion print sections.

The Pocono Record has three sections every day: news, sports and a rotating virtual beat section. For instance, every Tuesday there is a consumer section in print that has the best content, while Wednesday features a local schools section.

Each day of the week features a distinct newspaper. For those interested in education, the Wednesday paper might be a must have, while those interested in entertainment and nightlife might really like the Friday edition. This system creates distinct print editions for each day of the week that appeal to different audiences.

What happens though when big news happens during the week on the education beat when it’s the local sports beats turn in  print? The Record places these individual stories in the news section.

There is a give and take between print and the Web. Many articles are the same between print and the Web, and some appear first online, while others appear first in print. The Web gets breaking news and time sensitive stories first, while the print edition receives second-day, in-depth analysis pieces and some feature stories first.

“We do have a print product, and we have to do something with it to make it different,” Misinco said.

Misinco said this means taking content that works best in print — in-depth analysis and feature stories — and making those the focal point on print. The center piece story in each feature section is usually a print-first story, surrounded by content that originally appeared online.

The rest of the content for a weekly feature section is composed of the most interesting content from the past week from a virtual beat. An emphasis is also placed on evergreen content.

“You don’t have to worry about it being outdated,” Misinco said about using evergreen content in print.

Web analytics improving print and Web content

Virtual beats have been proving grounds for print. If a virtual beat becomes more popular online, more of that content will begin showing up in print.

“You need to pay attention to what your readers want,” Misinco said. “It’s easy to do that online, and your print edition should reflect that. The Web has forced us to be more receptive to what our readers are telling us.”

Misinco said many papers haven’t paid enough attention to what their readers want.

“So many papers are stuck in the mindset that they know what it is best,” he said. “Maybe you don’t really know. Maybe you need to listen to what readers are saying. If more papers did that they would be in better shape.”

Content managers have access to daily analytics, detailing page views to their content and section pages. Misinco cautioned that page views alone, however, cannot drive content.

“Obviously there are stories that many not be that popular, but that are important to get out there,” he said. ”You have to use caution in not letting the numbers tell you completely what to do. But you have to recognize that they are a pretty good measure of what people want.”

The future of virtual beats

The Record would like to see more content producer engaged in audio, video and other multimedia content. The Record will still have a separate photo staff to specialize in photography and videography, but every employee will be expected to be able to shoot audio, video and photos when necessary. For breaking news stories this might mean shooting video with a cellphone or using a compact camera to quickly snap photos.

“We’ll always have a separate photo staff that does the best photos and video, but we need to get everyone involved to get more content,” Misinco said.

The Record wants to make sure it and its employees are on a variety of platforms to expand its reach. This means increasing use of services like Facebook and Twitter. Employees will also be called on to be more social and communicate with readers, and eventually, engaging in two-way communication will be a requirement of content producers.

“Many already have,” Misinco said about content producers using social media. “Like many things, it’s starting to become the norm. As some start doing it, everyone wants to get in on it.”

Here is a video from the Record explaining their new process: