Based on his work transforming news organizations, Tim Griggs distills the essential elements of successful membership-driven news organizations. He adds a simple outline for the all-important gaps-assessment meeting for those just getting started. This outline is a good starting point for understanding the table stakes for membership-driven news organizations.
Here’s an idea to steal and adapt: The Minneapolis Star Tribune looks for gaps in a very crowded events market, then ventures in — cautiously.
Here’s an idea to steal and adapt: Carolina Public Press, a nonprofit investigative news outlet in North Carolina, created a spreadsheet to “score” each of its news stories for reach and impact — giving it the data and insight needed to improve its reporting, identify skill and capability gaps, and help its reporting reach more people and make a bigger difference.
Here’s an idea to steal and adapt: The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel developed a social strategy to reach new audiences with three parts: best practices to encourage sharing, programming Facebook and creating social-exclusive content.
Here’s an idea to steal and adapt: Use annual events to experiment with storytelling approaches, form audience/content teams, and stretch resources.
Here’s an idea to steal and adapt: The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel created — and continually updates — a list of newsroom activities that don’t contribute to its audience-centric strategy in an effort to find time and resources to devote to more meaningful tasks.
“We’re doing four times more in-depth investigative and explanatory reporting now than we did when our newsroom was three times larger than it is today. And I barely heard a peep from readers about most of the stuff we stopped doing.”
Making live events a potential revenue stream is a long-term strategy that requires careful and strategic planning and that should connect into the strengths of a news organization and the resonance it has in the lives of its audiences.
The phrase “Table Stakes” comes from poker – the amount required to have seat at the table. The Table Stakes manual is for newsrooms, identifying what’s required to play and win the game of news in the 21st century. Developed with major metropolitan daily news organizations, it is meant to accelerate journalism’s shift to digital from print, help newsrooms evolve their practices, reach new audiences and better engage their communities.