Quartz forms incubator to find journalists

Global news site Quartz wants to overhaul how it hires journalists across the globe, reports Ricardo Bilton of Digiday.

Bilton writes, “With what it’s calling a ‘talent lab,’ Quartz wants to formalize how it discovers and develops writers, videographers and data journalists from around the world. It will be one part talent network, one part skill incubator, and a way for Quartz to increase its global coverage without breaking the bank. Quartz could, for example, spot and train a writer covering the Nigerian economy so as to help boost its own coverage of the space. The plans to hire a handful of editors to help scout and tutor this outside talent.

“‘The idea is to find people who would work really well at Quartz follow their work and generally have them on our radar,’ said Xana Antunes, Quartz’s editor of new initiatives. ‘Eventually, we’ll even commission work from them.’

“The idea comes as the economics of media today have made it increasingly difficult for publishers, particularly newspapers, to maintain large, expensive foreign news bureaus. In October, newspaper chain McClatchy pulled correspondents out of foreign countries to focus on national stories within the U.S. The move followed similar retreats by The Boston Globe and Baltimore Sun over the past decade. Vice and BuzzFeed, on the other hand, are expanding their global footprints. Quartz, on the other hand, seems to be building an alternative to the foreign bureau model, with something that is both cheaper and more scalable.”

Read more here.