2005 ebu training dr integrated newsroom project

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Digital newsroom: thematic visit Visit to DR News (TV-Byen and Dr-Byen)

Copenhagen, Denmark, 14 -15 November 2005

Visit report

Introduction The visit of DR News provided a unique opportunity: to assess what the future of digital news could look like in terms of strategy, content,

values, organization and multimedia outlets to see how the archives are being put at the centre not only of the News production, but

of the overall DR production to discover the new Media City and see how it was designed to meet the needs and

strategic goals of DR.

Outline 1. DR: a unique position on the European PSB market

1.1 Facts about DR 1.2 DR output 1.3 Market shares in 2004

2. DR Digital Production system and the central place of the Media Archive

2.1 DR Digital production system 2.2 DR Media Archive

3. DR News

3.1 Overview of the organizational structure of DR News & Sports 3.2 Training for digital news: training: "training, training, retraining and still training" 3.3 Multimedia reporting demands routine, skills & experience

4. The Digital future in DR–Byen

4.1 DR New Media City 4.2 News & Sports of the future in DR-Byen

© EBU International Training / 15 December 2005 Report written by Hélène Rauby-Matta, EBU International Training, Geneva, Switzerland and Jean-Noël Gouyet, Technical Writer, Paris, France

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1. DR: a unique position on the European PSB market

1.1 Facts about DR

• The oldest and largest electronic media company in Denmark, it was founded in 1925 as a public service organization.

• DR is exclusively financed by the revenues of the license fees: 2.3 million Danish households (93 % of all) pay a daily license fee of DKK 5.59 (0.75 ) and DKK 4,90 (0.65 ) per day goes to DR.

• Annual budget: DKK 3 billion (~ 400 million euros). • Has produced Radio since 1925 and TV since 1951. • 3600 employees including 3000 in Copenhagen. They will all be moving to the New Media

House. • DR is "vertically" organized with a TV Directorate and a Radio Directorate, and

"horizontally" with a Department for Programmes (~ 45 % of the employees) and a Department for News & Sports (~16 %).

1.2 DR output

• DR enjoys a particularly strong position in Denmark, quite unique in Europe. On any given week,

o 85.2% of Denmark's population watches DR TV o 81% listens to DR Radio

• DR TV comprises 2 channels: o DR1 via terrestrial network; its main competitor is TV2 o DR2, via satellite dish reception or cable TV . o A growing number of television programs are broadcast in wide-screen 16:9 format.

• DR on the Internet o DR radio on the Internet started in 1996; DR TV on the Internet started in 1997. o Very strong position on the Internet: DR website ranks no.2 or 3 on the list of the

most frequented websites in Denmark. • Overall TV & Radio output, in broadcasting hours, has recently increased

o On average DR offers 29 hours of television and 360 hours of radio during a 24-hour period (2004),

o DR TV: + 117% since 1996 for a total number of broadcasting hours of 6 455 in 2004,

o DR Radio: +31% since 1996 for a total number of hours of 8 784.

Director General Kenneth Plummer

TV director Lars Grarup

Radio director

Leif Lønsmann

Finance director

Bent Fjord

Programme director

Lars Vesterløkke

Director News & Sports Lisbeth

Knudsen


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To keep up with such a growth rate and continue developing, DR has just asked for a rise of 1.5% of the license fee.

1.3 Market shares in 2004

- TV 3 and TV DK are commercial competitors - Others channels include international TV channels such as CNN, BBC World etc. Source: Lisbeth Knudsen, Director News & Sports, November 2005

Sources

Presentations made by Lisbeth Knudsen, Director of News, DR and by Steen Rabing, Managing Editor, DR on 14 & 15 November 2005

- 'Facts on DR' print out.

- http://www.dr.dk/omdr/index.asp?sektion=eng


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2. DR Digital Production system and the central place of the Media Archive

In the past 6 years (2000 - 2005), and before moving to a brand new 'Media City' , DR has gradually implemented a full digital production system. The investments amount approximately to 16 million euros.

2.1 DR Digital production system • The digital DR project focused on 4 points:

o Same technical platform for News, Sports, Children, Drama, Documentary, Current affairs, etc.

o Content sharing between TV, Radio, iTV, Web and mobiles o Complete change of workflow in production and archiving o 100% non-proprietary hardware and software. o Built on standard IT components.

To attain these aims, DR has implemented:

• A multi-level media quality

o In the DVCPRO 50 Mbit/s format for Sports, Programme production, Legacy (film/video) digitization, allowing digital post-production (special effects, …). 1 hour of DVCPRO50 programme requires approximately 25 Giga Bytes (GB) of storage capacity.

o In the DVCPRO 25 Mbit/s format for the News, allowing simple editing. 1 hour of DVCPRO25 programme requires approximately 12.5 Giga Bytes (GB) of storage capacity.

o In the MPEG-1 1,5 Mbit/s format for browsing and searching. o In the Windows Media format for Internet distribution. o In the 3 GP format for distribution to mobile phones

• A central digital media mass storage The architecture of the system is built around a short-term and a long-term media storage

The DR digital Timeline

Research and PlanningResearch and Planning

19991999 20002000 20012001 20022002 20032003 20042004 20052005 20062006

Media archiveMedia archive

Digital TV editingDigital TV editing

Graphics for journalistsGraphics for journalists

Digital TV play outDigital TV play out

TapelessTapeless TV rec.TV rec.

Radio digitizedRadio digitized

iTViTV, mobile, outdoor, mobile, outdoor

Newsroom computer sys.Newsroom computer sys.

DR DR ByenByen

Web CMSWeb CMS

TapelessTapeless radio rec.radio rec.

The digital correspondentThe digital correspondent

Research and PlanningResearch and Planning

19991999 20002000 20012001 20022002 20032003 20042004 20052005 2006200619991999 20002000 20012001 20022002 20032003 20042004 20052005 20062006

Media archiveMedia archive

Digital TV editingDigital TV editing

Graphics for journalistsGraphics for journalists

Digital TV play outDigital TV play out

TapelessTapeless TV rec.TV rec.

Radio digitizedRadio digitized

iTViTV, mobile, outdoor, mobile, outdoor

Newsroom computer sys.Newsroom computer sys.

DR DR ByenByen

Web CMSWeb CMS

TapelessTapeless radio rec.radio rec.

The digital correspondentThe digital correspondent


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o The short-term storage consists of:

SGI Media Server for broadcast systems1. Two magnetic disks storage systems SGI TPS9500, partitioned according the

different departments. A SGI Data Migration Facility (DMF) software. It automatically moves data

from magnetic disk to tape, when space is required. This is transparent from a user perspective, since the file is accessible in both cases.

o SGI also integrates: a scheduled ingest automation software ARDCAP2 and DART3 from Ardendo,

a Swedish company; a transcoding software including keyframe extraction; Pinnacle Liquid Edition, Liquid Purple and Liquid Blue nonlinear editing

systems.

o In addition, SGI Broadcast Integration Service, provides interfaces to all the different client software and systems, including the Web front-user Graphical User Interface developed by DR for the Media Archive.

o The long-term storage consists of :

a StorageTek automated tape library 'StreamLine SL8500', containing up to 6,500 tapes of 200 bytes each (StorageTek 9940B tape format), offering a total capacity of 1.3 Peta Bytes (PB) = 50,000 hours of DVCPRO50 programmes = 100,000 hours of DVCPRO25 programmes ! (1PB = 1 million of Giga Bytes).

Four independent arms, with grips running in 5 seconds along the robot gallery, allows a very high hourly throughput.

• A common Radio & TV Master Control Room (MCR) and Play-out Centre

o Situated in the Segment 1 of the new DR Byen, the MCR is common to Radio and TV. The MIRANDA system can control up to 256 input (feeds, feedback)) / output (playback) lines, with a programmable switcher of Broadcast Solutions.

o Excepted those from the EBU, the satellite feeds are coming from two very

impressive MultiBeam Antennas from CSIRO, an Australian organisation, installed by TST, a German company. Each can simultaneously communicates with up to 20 geostationary satellites (with a 2° minimum spacing) over multiple frequency bands – compared with one antenna for one satellite in conventional systems4.

o Just besides the MCR, the common Play-out Centre is supervised by Harris software.

1 http://www.sgi.com/pdfs/3452.pdf 2 http://www.ardendo.com/?page=products&subpage=ardcap 3 http://www.ardendo.com/?page=products&subpage=dart 4 http://www.csiro.au/index.asp?id=MultiBeam&type=mediaRelease http://www.tstsat.com/Multibeam.pdf


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• An optimized integrated workflow

In the new DR Byen, the entire production workflow will be controlled by Dalet plus5. The News & Sports department is presently using NewStar

Overview of the Technical Platform

5 http://www.dalet.com/index.html

90.000 hour central production-system

production-system

34 dedicated VTR & P2 Ingest 6 studios

600 pc’s for editing and archive search84 High End NLE’s

22 channels scheduled feed

ingest

34 dedicated VTR & P2 Ingest

22 channels scheduled feed ingest

6 studios

600 pc’s for editing and archive search 84 High End NLE’s


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2.2 DR Media Archive The Media Archive is not the "end-of-the-chain depository" but the Central Resource Centre of the Digital Production system. 80 people are working there: 20-25 for News & Sports, 20-25 for Programme Production. The service is open from 5:30 until 22:00.

• A Multimedia Resource Centre A team of librarians is proceeding to "up-front" archiving, selecting and indexing sequences from the incoming feeds. 'Fresh' material will be kept on the SGI media server, then transferred after 48 hours onto the tape library robot. Material which does not get the 'Archived' status will be "killed" after 30 days. The Media Archive contains:

o The new Digital Productions: Radio programmes with metadata TV News & Sports programmes with metadata Big events in special 'folders' (Sports championships, elections,…) VIPs, who may die soon ! Edited raw material Selected stories from APTN / EV / EBU feeds with metadata External stock shots Trailers (in project) Programme production (in project) Foreign films, with a "kill date" (in project)

o Legacy material digitised 'on demand' (requested extracts or whole programmes are

digitised). Until now, only 3 - 4% of legacy material have already been digitised. The cost of a systematic digitization of the Radio & TV legacy (473,000 hours of audio + 28,400 hours of film + 69,000 hours of video) has been estimated to DKK 300 million (~ 40 million euros), inclusive storage capacity and metadata handling.

o Photographs (in project). o Production documents (Legacy rights documents). LIBRA is a 10-year project (ending

2012), with an estimated cost of 1.7 million euros, aiming at scanning 1 million documents, concerning 60,000 titles, issued from the programme production. 5 people are working on it. The Libra database is connected to the archive database. Within a year, it will hold the rights documents of new production (in project).

o Newspapers articles o Books, references o DR web sites (in project)

• DR Metadata model

o DR Archive has developed a metadata model after having studied 7 to 8 different models (for example, SMPTE Metadata Dictionary, BBC-SMEF, EBU-P/META, TV-Anytime, Dublin Core, …).


48

o The DR Metadata standard6 is defined as an internal standard for DRAMS (DR Asset Management Systems), for relations to international standards for System-to-System (S2S), Business-to-Business (B2B) and Business-to-Consumer (B2C) exchange, and as a set of requirements and guidelines. The DRAMS specifications are developed for managing material in both the production and archiving domain. The DRAMS specifications describe multimedia content such as productions, items (pieces of material), programs and articles with focus on core descriptive metadata.

o A list of around 20,000 keywords with a simplified hierarchy and 19 different

headlines help for the indexing.

Media Archive Graphical User Interface and metadata

6 DR Metadata Standard http://www.dr.dk/omdr/index.asp?appflag=force&aid=517


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o The rights related to each document are specified according to three categories,

represented as green-yellow-red "traffic lights"

repeat and reutilization require repeat and reutilization require special permission(s)special permission(s)

repeat and reutilization require repeat and reutilization require payment of fees (according to payment of fees (according to agreement codes) on top of agreement codes) on top of payment to the composers' payment to the composers' societysociety

may be repeated and reused may be repeated and reused (clips) according to the usual (clips) according to the usual practice practice

o Experience has proved that it is difficult for the journalists to introduce metadata.

The minimum required for a 'story' would be: Title - Subject - Reporter/Photographer - Location -Name of the person interviewed - "Traffic light"/rights.

• Educating and informing on the access to the Media Archive

o A team of 9 librarians/researchers arranges about 60 courses per year, with 350 participants in 2005, a little less in 2006.

o Budget has been about 77,000 euros for the first year, including the technical

equipment. o The basic user course concerns various participants: reporters, graphics designers,

producers, editors, technicians, staff members – both from Radio and TV. o The Media Archive Web site on the DR Intranet delivers information about the search

tools, policies and rules.

Sources : - Torben Lundberg, Head of Technology, News & Sports - Visit of the present DR TV Centre in Soborg (North-West of Copenhagen) - Visit of the new 'Media City' DR Byen in Orestad (South-East of Copenhagen) with Erik Dixen. - Jannie Lehmann, Archive and Research Manager - Visit of the Archive Department at the DR TV Centre in Soborg (North-West of Copenhagen)


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3. DR News

3.1 Overview of the organizational structure of DR News & Sports

DR news & Sports internal organization as of 1st January 2006

o Programmes with the objective of providing news, current affairs and information

constitute 60% of all DR TV programmes and 59% of DR Radio programmes. o DR is with DR Interaktiv (www.dr.dk ) the largest Danish Internet news provider

and offers an increasing number of radio and television programs. o DR also offers services on mobile phones and other new media devices (e.g.,

mobile phones).

o Traditionally the archives were separate, but as of January 2006, DR archive will fall under the responsibility of DR News & Sports because News & Sports is the biggest user of the archives.

o 550 out of the 3600 employees of DR work in News & Sports o DR has a 24-hour radio news channel, but as yet, there is no 24-hour TV news

channel in DR or in Denmark

3.2 Training for digital news: training : "training, training, retraining and still training"

• 3 different tracks for training

o When changing the workflow from analogue to digital news in 2003, staff training was organized along 3 tracks: • before going on air, courses to teach people to use the tools and give an

idea about self-editing,

Director News & Sports Lisbeth Knudsen

TV News

Radio news News and Sports Technology

Sports

DR Text

News and Sports Production

DR Archive

New media news

Administration Research and Planning


51

• after going on air, one year later, reporters were trained on self editing, still on-going. Reporters were trained on Pinnacle Blue (?). That proved much more efficient.

• in parallel, journalists/reporters were trained to do efficient and precise archive searching

o At the beginning the news management did not think that every journalist and

reporter should take up editing but journalists started coming and asking all to be trained

o Before going online, DR News had already trained craft-editors and photographers

to be multitaskers. Some photographers even had to be trained on basic computer skills and very soon after on craft editing.

o DR News started training the more IT-minded people first which did not mean the

youngest ones. Results don't depend

• Training in practice

o About 400 people were trained altogether o From the Media archive ingest to training journalists for editing o Craft editors

• 10-day-training course divided in a 5-day training with trainers from Pinnacle, and 5 days during which craft-editors did some training with DR Super-users. These two periods were interlaced: "craft editors were learning a bit, -1 day or 2- then putting it into practice with super-users, then going back to training with Pinnacle an so on"

• mixed feelings from the part of craft-editors. Those who found it most difficult got some more training

o editorial staff

• 2-day training courses • covered ingest methods, archive searching, pre-editing on Easy-Cut so as

give reporters the ability to know what they would like to use when going to the craft editor

o Gallery staff

• 1 day-training and that was all needed • already before: DR News had managed to cut down from 2 key persons to 1

key-person in the gallery: the producer was already doing picture mixing

o Archive searching • Very successful: not only do journalists do their own searches they also have

learned to use the system more efficiently and to better formulate their searches, to ask better question


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• Training in perspective

o Ingesting & Searching • Staff felt that the system for ingesting and searching archive was not too

difficult to adjust to.

o Self-editing for editorial staff

• Journalists do their editing either on Easy Cut (simple voice-overs) or on Pinnacle Purple (for longer and more traditional stories). Craft editors do their editing on Pinnacle Blue.

• Doing the editing oneself was considered as being the most difficult part.

Most reporters felt that self editing was taking too much time. • In addition, the EasyCut system did not prove very good, it was not fully

ready at the time DR wanted to use it, it was not as stable as had been hoped. The design, the layout were also challenged by the journalists.

• The management pushed very hard at the beginning for the journalists to do,

at least, pre-editing so that they could go to the craft-editors with a time line and major chunks of what they wanted in their story. Many of them argued that "4 eyes are better than 2 eyes".

• All the young journalists coming out from schools have been taught to edit

themselves; for a number of them, editing is natural at least on short stories. EasyCut is used by a lot of young people, especially for the short bulletins. Other journalists, those coming from print or those who have always worked with craft-editors have a harder time to adjust. They argue that they won't have anytime left for researching, investigative, for being a real journalist.

• Shop stewards (representatives from the unions) were the ones to ask for

everyone to be trained so as to pressure the management no to leave anyone on the side.

• Offices were turned into editing rooms. • People were trained 4 by 4 by one of the 2 supers users (one was a

journalist/one was a craft editor).

• Overall positive results

o faster news, o more outlets and more programmes o improved and easier content-sharing o increased diversity in the programmes o successful archive integration o tri-media integration


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o barriers between the staff, between technicians and journalists, between producers and producing assistants, between graphic staff and journalists have been broken

o About 50 photographers do editing as well, only 2-3 are just photographers. o Some people in the archives can also do low resolution editing

But it was a "tough road" to take

• Final objectives

o barriers between the staff, between technicians and journalists, between producers and production

o 25 % of the packages of the evening bulletins should be edited by journalists, now 15%-20%.

o much more stories in the morning news are self-edited. Journalists actually think it is faster for them to edit stories made from EBU and bureau material rather than go to a craft editor for this.

Sources

Presentations made by Lisbeth Knudsen, Director of News, DR and by Steen Rabing, Managing Editor, DR on 14 & 15 November 2005


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3.3 Multimedia reporting demands routine, skills & experience

• The multimedia reporter

o Asbjørn Date, 49 years-old, has been a journalist for the past 20 years, first on local and national radio.

o Since 1997, Asbjørn Date, has worked as a traditional TV news reporter, then as a

"one-man band (one man, one DV camera) o For the last couple of years, Asbjørn Date has been self-editing his own stories.

Occasionally, he also works as a newsroom editor or sub-editor. He also still works with craft editors on certain topics and more complex stories.

He is overall quite satisfied with the editing aspects as he likes "to put things together" himself: " And I like to work with the computer, like to edit my own stuff . It’s a good feeling to have a hand on the final cut. I like the opportunities. But there are a couple of problems: It’s a time killer, and self-editing demands routine, skills and experience"

• Challenges

o The fundamental knowledge is easily learned: "If you know anything about a

normal Word processor program - then you know lots of the shortcuts and a lot the basic editing system".

o "self-editing" is a time killer, "it will leave you no time at all. Time is an essential

factor in the news production chain and self-editing reporters tend to finish their story very late. .

o This is a typical day for the multimedia reporter:

• 9:10: editorial meeting • 10:00 : research begins on the story and interview arrangement • 12-12:30: you are on the road with a cameraman • 15:00: you are back to your station if everything goes well


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then the ingest needs to be done and raw footage needs to be viewed

story writing; producing graphics • 16:15: Self-editing • 18:30: newscast "TV-Avisen" is on air

o the hardest stories for a self-editing reporter are the new stories, the stories which

are still developing. o self-editing reporters, having no time left, usually finish their story very late which

can be a problem for newsroom editors who only see the story shortly before broadcasting, if they can.

o "The worst story for a self-editing reporter is an “on going” news story. A story

witch is developing over the day. It’s not possible, at least not very easy, for the reporter to update, to rewrite the story - or to make new interview arrangement. That kind of stories needs a skilled editing technician".

o And the lack of skill is also a stress factor close to deadline - and a mayor problem. A lot of wrong bottoms have been pressed and a lot stupid mistakes had been made in the few busy minutes before “On Air” .

o good video editing requires talent and skills: one needs to understand picture

language and be a good storyteller in the right visual way. Otherwise one will end up with a static structure.

o it takes a lot of time for a journalist to master editing and it will always take time

Sources

Presentation made by Asbjørn Date, Multimedia Reporter, DR on 14 November 2005


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4. The Digital future in DR - Byen

4.1 DR New Media City

• Project background

o The decision was taken in 1999 to relocate the 12 DR sites in Copenhagen to a new home in Ørestad Nord (South-East of Copenhagen).

o In 2006 three thousand DR staff will be moving into a new DR 'Multimedia House'7.

• DR New Media City floor organization

o The building, representing a total area of 132,500 m2 (including basement), costs 450 million euros.

o The complete digital production platform costs 94 million euros. It will be

inaugurated in December 2006 (the concert hall being completed mid 2007). o It is divided in 4 segments :

7 http://www.dr.dk/drbyen/english/ + Exhibition in DR Byen

21

34 2

1

34

Segment 1: - Large studios: a 720 m2 TV studio, tandem studios with shared production rooms; - 3 film studios (800/400/250 m2; radio studios); - Editorial areas (Children / Youth, Culture, Current Affairs & Science, Documentary, Radio Drama,TV Drama, Education); - Technical facilities (MCCP: Master Control & Channel Production; editing facilities)

Segment 2: News and Sports editorial teams, Archive & Research Centre (1st + 2nd floor),.Heads of Radio / TV, DR Interactive (Web, teletext, mobile phones, iTV)

Segment 3 Copenhagen Radio, Broadcast technology & IT, Service and Administration, Courses, Staff restaurant, etc.

Segment 4: Concert Hall with 1,800 seats0 seats (designed by Jean Nouvel), Music editorial offices


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• New approach to workplaces

o With digitization, many members of staff are no longer tied to a specific workplace or desk. They can decide whether a job is best done at DR Byen, at home, or somewhere else.

o If staff decide to get together to work in meeting rooms, atria or café settings, they can log onto wired and wireless networks. If they obtain programme material they can store it on the servers via "ingest stations" on every floor.

• "HD Ready" Control Rooms

o The TV programme production is "HD ready". o For example, the control rooms for the TV production studios are equipped with the

SD/HD multi-format switcher KAHUNA8 from Snell & Wilcox. It offers simultaneous High Definition and Standard Definition operations in the same mainframe, via the same control panel.

o Thanks to a new technology called FormatFusion, it is also the first production switcher capable of integrating SD material into HD productions seamlessly, in the same mix effects (M/E) bank, without the need for up-conversion.

4.2 News & Sports of the future in DR-Byen " We must re-invent journalism as we know it... and we must reinvent the way we work and the way we put our organisation together" Lisbeth Knudsen

• General overview

o Including the archive staff, 650 people will be part of DR News & Sports o November 2006: News & Sports should be in DR-City o It was decided long before that the entire DR production should be fully digital

before the move should take place

• Content strategy (2005-2007): How DR wants to make the difference. o Put the story back at the centre: "It's the story and not the Media that is

important" go from mono-media to multimedia production focus even more on content rather than on production focus on the “receiver” rather than on the “sender” in terms of organization, go from divisions and segmented departments

into a Matrix

→

8 http://www.snellwilcox.com/kahuna/data.pdf

TV Radio @ Mobile Other Media

National Foreign Money Politics Culture Crime Sports

TV Radio New Media

Othermedia


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Move from a static to a truly dynamic company which keeps adapting to the market

o From the traditional news production line to the new production line

→ o Three headlines

Classic News: everyone can do it, to be different, you need:

Originality Knowledge for in-depth news Be able to provide an overview Verification of the origin and accuracy are crucial

Fast News

To be always “on”: on DR Radio 24, on DR website and maybe, in the future, on DR TV 24

Instant News Mobile News Keywords: first & relevant & accurate

⇒ Prompted the creation of DR News Agency: staff will produce the fast news, Internet News, SMS, Mobile phone news etc; 3-minute news and Flash news radio programmes, short TV news programmes and “coming-ups”

Interactive News Individualised and customized news Special segmented news e.g.: news for children, young people Increased interactivity and possibility for the audience to

contribute content. Keywords: creativity, diversity and involvement

Story Production Editing

Production Story

Story

Story

Production

Production

Editing

Editing

Editing

Story Production On demand

?

?

iTV

Mobile

SMS

Teletext

News-aper

Internet

TV Radio

S


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o New organization

A multimedial organization of News and Sports to share the content and facilitate new content production, diversity an multiplicity not just to duplicate stories

DR New Media City "DR-Byen" - Segment 2 - Newsroom

Visual rendering: DISSING+WEITLING

National desk with a combination of special multimedial teams and

a special ”news lab” team

Multimedial Foreign desk

Multimedial Money desk

Multimedial Political desk

New Media

TV news

Radio news

DR’s News Agency


60

News lab team: staff will not be appointed there on a permanent basis and it will be for specially innovative and creative people

Staff will be specialized not by permanent topics, but by issues of

importance over a certain period: e.g., integration, welfare reforms etc… and other key and hot thematic issues.

Multimedial Political desk will be situated at the Parliament

DR New Media City - "DR Byen" - Segment 2 - Inner Atrium

Visual rendering: DISSING+WEITLING

Quality strategy: How DR wants to make the difference o Quality principles in News

“Being a multimedia journalist (…) is the opportunity to tell stories in different ways, formats and concepts to different people in different situations”

Research and planning are shared in order to develop new ideas from

more sources: rather than have the same politician be interviewed in the morning and in the evening, or on TV or on radio, find more people to be interviewed


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Daily, weekly and/or monthly goals are set out to stimulate staff &

reporters and help them constantly develop their creative ability and their storytelling skills

Quality control system and measures have been put in place to prevent

mistakes from happening and to take action very fast when a mistake ahs been made to avoid the mistake from being replicated on different media

o Quality in Money programme output

Overview of the Money Department created in 2003 20-25 reporters all reporters are multimedial (TV, radio, Teletext etc.) issues covered are domestic business and economy

Quality process Set up in 2004 The quality process started with a staff meeting: everyone had to

identify whet he/she thought was the most important quality goal. The goals identified by everyone were discussed and eventually prioritized.

Objectives

Official objective: to set the agenda in Danish media & society on these issues

DR makes its own stories and does not copy what is in the specialized press

Goals

Goals are fixed and need to be measured Radio: at least 1 unique radio story every day in the Radio

morning programmes TV: At least one of the 3 top stories in the evening news

programmes (18:30; 21:00) Online and Teletext: no.1 at breaking news Specific money programme: at least the same share as TV News


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The way quality is measured:

Every morning staff and journalists start filling out a form such as the one below

has been implemented for a year it took time at the beginning, now it is more part of the normal

way of working

Quality Project

Radio solo stories

TV among the 3 top stories

Online: no 1 at

breaking news

Teletext: no 1 at

breaking news

Money programme: at least the same

share as tv-news

December: 6.00 7.00 8.00 9.00 18.30 21.00 yes/no yes/no

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

o Quality in Morning News

Over view of breakfast News 15 journalists 7:00: short news broadcast; 8:00-9:00: morning hour 12:00 newscast

Quality process

Set up in 2004 Everyone sat down and defined his/her priorities; at the end 4

crucial objectives were identified 1 person has been appointed to be responsible for one of the 4

points the results are checked a few times a month

Objectives

Make the overall morning news more interesting. 4 Quality goals

More live coverage from reporters on the field


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Stronger News broadcast at 12:00 (more new stories, fewer reruns)

More dynamic broadcast; that is more stories with interviews/stand-ups in the morning, less library pictures

Better language

Preliminary results More live:

- the use of live coverage has almost doubled - the use of guest in the studio and lives by telephone has

gone down by 40%

Stronger news broadcast at noon - nearly 100% more interviews than a year ago (Fall 2004) - the amount of new pieces has gone up by 70% - live-coverage has gone down by 15%

More dynamic broadcasts

- 70% only of the stories in the morning hour include library pictures, it used to be 100%

- the use of quotes from newspapers has diminished as well as "voice-overs" lasting more than 25 seconds.

Better language

- much harder to measure - no figures yet

o Quality in News

The overall primary objective was, through the quality project, to talk more about content and less about technical problems.

When the overall concept of quality control was presented, everyone agreed on the concept, but everyone was sceptical regarding the way quality could actually be measured,

There is not one quality project; each programme has its own quality checking process.

Standards and goals vary from one programme to another, they have been identified with the staff at the programme level. What was most difficult was to identify measurable goals


64

Production strategy: How DR wants to make the difference. o Digital media archive at the heart of production o An outstanding research & planning system o Access to production systems that can be managed and used across different

media o Very flexible structure: this means that the structure which is being designed for

2006 may be changed in 2007 or 2008

o “Must-haves”:

multimedial expertise, need for new functions and new media skills in-depth knowledge and investigative journalism great storytelling expertise extremely good and updated knowledge of the market trends in news skills to manage many complex & different IT systems production systems with friendly interfaces production systems that are fully integrated

Sources

Presentations made by Lisbeth Knudsen, Director of News, DR; Suzanne Hegelund, DR News-Money programme; Philip Khokhar, news reporter on 15 November 2005 © EBU International Training / 12 December 2005 Report written by Hélène Rauby-Matta, EBU International Training and Jean-Noël Gouyet, Technical Writer, Paris, France

2005 ebu training dr integrated newsroom project

Documents

dr output dr

dr radio dr tv

dr output1

average dr

dr news3

digital dr project

dr news tvbyen

dr media archive3