Driving innovation in the WSJ newsroom

Rachel Bartlett of Journalism.co.uk writes about how The Wall Street Journal is fostering a newsroom environment that encourages people to present new ideas.

Bartlett writes, “‘We expect everybody to participate’ in innovation, executive editor of WSJ and Dow Jones Almar Latour told Journalism.co.uk, adding that this should be steered by the newsroom, ‘working closely with engineers and designers who also come from different departments.’

He added that WSJ’s move from a print-focused media outlet with digital added on, ‘to a digital, 24/7 global news organisation that also has a print newspaper’ relies on such innovation, and in order to spread this identity across the newsroom, innovation must travel just as wide.

“‘It has required us to think of innovation, not as something quarantined to a specific area of the newsroom, or of our company, but really something that we have to tackle from a lot of different angles.

“‘Good ideas can come from anywhere and we want to make sure that a lot of people are engaged with thinking about how to best tell stories and how to best connect with our readers.’

“This focus on making it possible for everyone to innovate, is one of a number of strategies implemented by the WSJ as part of its onward evolution. Other lessons, outlined below, include the importance of placing community engagement at the heart of the newsroom, running innovation competitions and sharing lessons learned.”

Read more here.