I used to use the movie
All the President's Men
to teach young communicators what a big-city newsroom looked like, in case they hadn't been in one (reportedly, the film's producers minutely copied the Post newsroom, right down to collecting the trash for hints). You can learn a lot about approaching reporters (or today, bloggers and online news-sharers) by the way their workspace is organized. Today, that movie newsroom, with its corded phones and electric typewriters--not to mention its mainstream reporters--looks waaaaaay out of date. So what do today's newsrooms look like? Here are some resources to check out:
- Nieman Journalism Lab, a blog that looks at the intersection of mainstream and social-media journalism, takes you "inside five newsrooms H.L. Mencken wouldn't recognize," including Talking Points Memo, Gawker Media (complete with seating chart), The Daily Telegraph, The Spokesman Review, and The Valley Independent Sentinel.
- The Next Newsroom, Chris O'Brien's social network devoted to "building the ideal newsroom for the next 50 years." (Look at the site's photo pages to see a variety of modern-day newsrooms from large to living-room-size.)
UPDATE: And here's a novel use of social media: Chicago's FOX 6 offers a
live-blog opportunity to join the newsroom staff as they hold their editorial meeting -- a different door into the newsroom.
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