The Washington Post.com tour took us on a journey into vast open spaces and corridors complete with empty desks and chairs in its Arlington County, Va office.The website’s news desk is the center of news operations here. Produces monitor and update news around the clock. At their desks are monitors that automatically stroll through competitor’s Web sites to ensure they aren’t missing breaking news somewhere. A designer is always on duty to troubleshoot problems as well as make changes to the homepage if needed.
Ed O’Keefe, who is a breaking news producer for the Web site, walked the class through his typical day at the office. The 2005 American alum says he arrives at the office around six in the morning to read through the paper. At 7 A.M. he heads to morning meetings and then work at the news desk until about noon. “After that point I’m usually working on special projects” before calling it a day around 3:00 or 3:30, O’Keefe said.
The Web site actually has two homepages. One for the local audience and another with a national focus. The main newsroom is divided into two parts: local, which focuses on the stories in the D.C. metro area such and crime, traffic and sports and non-local, which
handles such areas as business, world, technology and national politics. The newsroom is subdivided further into sections like multimedia, entertainment and production.
Conference rooms are named after familiar places in the area like Foggy Bottom, Dupont Circle, Great Falls and Annapolis.
Overall, the tour helped us to see how newsrooms tend to be operated and organized around a single goal—to get the news out.
Media Credit: Troy Donte' Prestwood
Photo Caption 1: Washington Post.com editor and class professor Chet Rhodes discusses different operations of the newsroom with the digital storytelling class.
Photo Caption 2: A TV bank tuned to broadcast news outlets such as MSNBC, FOX NEWS and CNN hang from the ceiling in the main newsroom.They allow staff to monitor news events around the clock.
No comments:
Post a Comment