CoPress and the problem of turnover at college news outlets

As I’ve risen through the ranks at the Daily Nebraskan, I’ve come to realize one major problem that is inherent in any college news organization: You will have a complete staff turnover roughly every four years. And, in most cases, turnover in top positions occurs at the end of each semester or academic year.

What that means is by the time you’ve settled into your new job and identified problems, you have only a short time to come up with a solution and get it implemented. That is if you can even figure out what that solution should be.

So how do we stop this frustrating cycle?

We share out knowledge and resources. And we do that through groups like CoPress.

What is CoPress?copress_300x300

If you’ve never heard of CoPress, stop right now and go poke around their site.

The guys behind CoPress are some of the most forward-thinking young journalists I’ve come across. Like most journalists today, they want to find a way to make news organizations sustainable online.

The difference is they are specifically focused on college news outlets and they’re working hard to provide resources to those who need them.

And believe me, we need all the help we can get.

A need for collaboration

The group’s recently redesigned site includes a message board that I hope will grow into a one-stop shop for tips from fellow student editors.

Last week’s discussion on the forum centered on how student news outlets need to collaborate. I could rework my original post, but I like how I said it the first time. In short, we need:

…A place to crowdsource a solution for a particularly difficult problem

For instance: How is your newsroom structured overall? Who works what hours? What is your copyflow like and when does stuff go up on the Web? How do you motivate print-centric reporters to think multimedia?How do you keep content fresh during the day when most of your staff is in class?

A source for tips and tricks that have worked for other young journalists

If you have a success story that I can learn from, I want to hear it. On the other hand, if you thought big and failed even bigger, why? I want to learn from that mistake now, not later when I risk making the same one.

My Google Reader is full of blog entries that help fit the bill, but it’d be nice to have one central place to start looking when I’m on a quest to find tips on making an in-depth Flash project, for instance.

A source of inspiration so we can stay innovative amid all the doom-and-gloom talk

Journalists who break the rules and make their own can be the perfect fix for a crummy disposition.

CoPress can help fill each of those voids. Have your own thoughts? Add them to the thread.

While you’re at it, open up your Twitter account and start following CoPress and its team members:

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  • john_baskins24
    Sounds like an interesting program for college news network. If CoPress does present ways on keeping the news flow smooth and the news itself fresh, I'd be curious enough to give it a try. One of the challenges I face in running a college news organization is getting everyone's thoughts on an issue at any given time.

    online associates degree
  • Andrew, you took the words out of my mouth: "What I find to be the hardest thing is simply getting enough people on the staff to care and even think about web."

    Our sports staff members have been the most Web-friendly so far. They seem to be motivated when they see what other newspaper and TV stations in our area are doing. For them, it's all about doing things better than the "bigger guys."

    For instance, they wanted to put video tidbits from the Huskers' post-game press conferences rather than the full thing. One of the area newspapers posts the them from start to finish, but our sports reporters say they get dull to watch.

    What strategies have worked in your newsrooms? I'm always open to tips.
  • I totally agree that it's important to get the whole staff thinking of ways to innovate web coverage.

    What I find to be the hardest thing is simply getting enough people on the staff to care and even think about web. I think so many (in our paper at least) simply think of the website as something that happens. They think people will just read it and don't think of ways to innovate or facilitate that process.

    Good post and it's always great to see the guys at CoPress getting coverage.
  • Ryan, you're absolutely right about the need for experiments. I especially think it's important for those experiments to come from a diverse group of people within your staff.

    This is something I struggle with at our paper, but ideally, I want to have news reporters and graphic artists and sports beat reporters and everyone else coming up with ideas for how to shape Web coverage.

    Innovative ideas shouldn't just be coming from the Web department.
  • Because student journalists have short shelf lives, it is important to make hundreds of small experiments and to have a large community to bounce those ideas off of.

    There were a number of big picture issues I tried to address while working as photo editor at my old student newspaper, but I wasn't aware of any networks like CoPress. It would have been great to have at the time.
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