Making time for innovation

(This post is my latest contribution to the Carnival of Journalism, which is hosted this month by Ryan Sholin. Ryan asked the participants to answer this question: What should news organizations stop doing, today, immediately, to make more time for innovation?)

Time is a scarce commodity in newsrooms these days, so the question of what to throw overboard to make room for innovation is pressing and real. But as a starting point, I’d argue it’s the wrong question. The right question is: What do we want to do? Decisions about how to assign resources are much easier when you have a great idea.

I’m quibbling (sorry, Ryan), but I think this is an important point. Conversations about what to stop doing are inherently difficult and divisive, especially when the goal is something as vague as “innovation.” Conversations about the best ways to pursue a specific project are much more fun and productive. If you have something worth doing, you’ll find a way to make it happen.

The truth about most newsrooms is there’s no shortage of ideas bouncing around. You don’t need to give everyone the equivalent of Google’s famous “20-percent time” to start doing something exciting and new. We’re not living at the bleeding edge of technology, where change takes months or years of hard-core programming. The tools to be innovative are out there. We just have to listen to our newsrooms, pick good ideas and execute them.

Here are three examples from our shop at The Star-Ledger:

*Pharmalot — If anyone had suggested last year that we cut back on the number of reporters covering the pharmaceutical industry for the newspaper, they would have been rightly shouted down. But when we decided to build a niche site that offers one-stop shopping for the latest industry news and conversation, it was immediately clear this would become a full-time job for one of our pharma reporters. As a result, the immensely talented Ed Silverman almost never contributes directly to the newspaper — but his work on the growing (and profitable) Pharmalot has clearly improved our overall coverage of this important industry.

*Morristown Green — Kevin Coughlin is one of the smartest technology writers in the business, and the tech industry in New Jersey offers plenty of opportunities to find and break important stories. So it would have been hard to persuade anyone it made sense to take Kevin off his beat. But after we decided to try a hyperlocal experiment in Morristown, N.J., it was immediately clear he was the person to lead it (he’s a longtime resident, a former reporter in our Morristown bureau and an early adopter of social media tools). His tireless efforts at Morristown Green have already made the site a success, and produced a model we can use elsewhere. (Next stop: Newark.)

*Helping Hands — Carly Rothman was a bright young reporter covering local news in an important part of our coverage area. Cutting back on local news is not on anyone’s agenda here (or anywhere, for that matter), but when Carly proposed creating an online platform for news and information about the vastly undercovered world of non-profits, philanthropy and volunteerism, it was an easy call to free up some of her time to make it happen.

In each of these cases, the inevitable conversation about what to stop doing was specific and fair: It allowed for proper consideration of the pros and cons, and a realistic discussion about the potential value to our newsroom. There was nothing arbitrary about it.

When it comes to execution, I agree with those who argue you have to approach each project like a start-up would. Involve advertising and marketing in the early stages. Give the principals freedom to be creative and even to fail. Make sure they have the support they need to get the job done. Be patient, but set measurable targets and be willing to pull the plug if something isn’t working.

For me the bottom line is this: Innovation is not magic. Like just about everything else, it’s the result of collaboration, decisiveness, discipline and hard work.

All of which newsrooms are quite good at when they try.