Curley on winning the news wars

Rob Curley is the outspoken, pull-no-punches vice president of product development for Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive.  At the Society of Professional Journalists Convention on October 4, Curley offered a list of what it will take newspapers (though this applies to TV stations as well) to “win” in the multimedia world.

• Own breaking news. 
• Offer hyper-local content.  Curley says this means covering stories such as a junior high football game, something he says newspapers of twenty years ago used to understand.
• Include database-driven coverage.  As Curley put it, “You must have nerds on your staff.”
• Go  for multimedia overkill.  Curley says, “This is not a passing fancy; video storytelling is only going to get more important.”
• Capitalize on evergreen content.  News organizations already produce stories that have lasting value, but they don’t make it easily available after the first time its published.

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