As of this writing I am about to mark my first anniversary in the trenches at one of the world’s most talked-about examples of convergence, the News Center in Tampa. The past twelve months have taught me three basic truths: one, that convergence presents tremendous potential both for competition and for excellence in journalism; two, that the Convergence Operator’s Manual is still being written; and three, that many of the fears people have about convergence are just flat wrong.
Media General landed in the headlines of trade magazines two years ago when it moved its three Tampa media properties — The Tampa Tribune, TBO.com and WFLA-TV — into one building, which it named the News Center. In an era of such great audience fragmentation and media instability, the idea that we might have struck upon one model of how the future could look has brought us a lot of attention and study.
Convergence frightens many people who wonder whether their current skill sets have prepared them for — or will even be needed in — that great undiscovered country, the future. This is probably the primary reason why I still find such great hostility to convergence among certain journalists.
To both the fascinated and the frightened, let me make this point: The Tampa model of convergence, in my opinion, is helping to create a new and stronger form of journalism, and it’s doing that with existing resources and skill sets. I am also ready to admit that our way of doing convergence is just one model.
Convergence: What is it?
If you’ve read anything about the Tampa convergence experience, please take those words with a grain of salt. For one thing, convergence in the News Center is continually evolving. For another, not all of the authors get it right.
Recently a distinguished Harvard scholar wrote a column, distributed nationwide, that held up the News Center as example of a merged news operation commanded from a central assignment desk, which he said is not in the public’s interest. Trouble is, he got it wrong. We are not merged and we have no central command desk. Unfortunately, such misconceptions serve to set the public agenda for discussion about convergence. The Tampa model of convergence, a cooperative arrangement between three co-owned media partners, is voluntary and is carried out in such a way as to preserve editorial independence for all three partners.
The News Center
The News Center project had its genesis in the fact that WFLA-TV desperately needed new facilities. The company decided to build the new studio next to The Tampa Tribune in downtown Tampa, and to move the Tribune newsroom operation into the new building as well.
The News Center opened for business in March, 2000. The TV studio is located on the first floor; on the second floor are the TV newsroom and the newsroom of the online service, TBO.com. The newspaper newsroom takes up the third floor. The fourth is devoted to administrative and sales offices for WFLA-TV and TBO.com. The new building is connected by breezeway to the old Tribune building, which continues to house non-news operations such as sales, marketing, administration, and printing presses.
The central feature of the News Center is the atrium that starts on the second floor and extends all the way up to the fourth floor skylights. On the floor of the atrium is the hallmark of our convergence model — the Multimedia Assignment Desk. This desk does not “command” the News Center, though in a spot news crisis it can appear that way. The TV assignment editors sit on the top ring, coordinating TV assignments. Newspaper and some TV employees share the outer ring, which also has a desk representing the Tribune archive and research office. Phone calls from the public come to a phone on one of these two rings, and the information is then shared among the platforms.
Though the Multimedia Desk is the most obvious physical symbol of convergence, most of the cooperation that takes place among the three platforms does not originate there. We work together on seven basic levels.
