Changes at FT to promote thinking 'in digital terms'

The Financial Times is planning "big changes" in the newsroom for 2015 as its journalists "increasingly think in digital terms rather than putting a print product first", said editor Lionel Barber.

"When we think about stories and the way stories are put together, and the way editors talk to reporters, they need to think in a digital form," he said speaking at a Media Society event in London this week.

He said journalists need to consider "text plus" – print, video, images, data and graphics – "in an integrated form early in the process".

The structural changes in the newsroom are yet to be revealed but will reflect this brief and will be implemented in the first quarter of next year, he added.

Steps already taken in this direction include additional training, like coding lessons for journalists, and encouraging collaborations in the newsroom, such as a closer relationship between editorial and commercial departments.

But Barber said he does not believe newspapers are dying, and the FT does not plan to follow in the footsteps of other media organisations which "have spent a lot of time focusing on digital at the expense of their newspaper".

The print edition of the FT sells more than 200,000 copies around the world, out of which 80,000 are read in the UK.

"It [the newspaper] is changing but it's still a very valuable and complementary vehicle for a digital proposition," he said.

He explained that commentary and a strong op-ed section in the newspaper are important, and that journalists should rethink the way they approach news.

And Barber highlighted the two 'types' of news covered at the FT: its original reporting and "fast news", the stories the outlet wants to record but not cover at length.

The original news reporting is sometimes centred around themes, such as the series of news stories on Europe's privacy policies it ran in September to mark the newspaper's redesign.

Barber called this "making news" rather than reacting to it. He said he was careful labelling stories as "scoops" because he'd rather the FT was right than first.

But does the FT hold back stories from the site to be published in the newspaper?

While this idea of a newspaper "weakened" by stories going out on the website first may have been a concern a few years back, the FT does not save anything for the paper any more.

He said the FT uses "the power of the internet" to make sure they have "ownership" over their stories, whether they are published first in the paper or go straight on the website.

"These days what you want to do most of all is brand your story. And you can actually go on television or the radio and [still] get all the credit," said Barber.

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