The Torrington Register Citizen has announced an ambitious new plan for its newsroom. The paper, a part of the Journal Register Company, will move to a new space on December 13 and will launch a Newsroom Cafe, Community Media Lab, Community Journalism School and a Local News Library. All will be free and open to the general public.
Part cafe, part newsroom – the public will be encouraged to particiapte in the newsroom’s daily meetings.
The Journal Register Company sites its ‘Digital First’ business model as a reason for the change and are embracing their growing online audience:
“Our digital audience at RegisterCitizen.Com is now significantly larger than our print audience, with online readership quadrupling over the past two years while our print circulation has remained flat,” he said. “That reflects a huge increase in audience overall, and we are engaged with that audience in an unprecedented way thanks to a digital-first, 24/7 news cycle and technological tools such as social media. Now we’ll have a physical space that reflects that engagement with the audience and encourages more of it.”
“This is an example of the physical manifestation of the changes Journal Register Company has been making under our Digital First business model. Bringing audience into the physical space and providing a welcoming area for readers and staff to interact will continue to foster greater engagement,” said John Paton, Chief Executive Officer of Journal Register Company, which owns The Register Citizen as well as other newspapers in Connecticut, including the Litchfield County Times and the New Haven Register. “The inclusion of the crowd – through our Community Media Labs and the community meeting space – provide additional voices to the coverage of our communities. This is what our readership wants and it is what we will deliver.”
Original idea? The “Digital First” business model is nothing more than a slightly-altered, copy-cat model based on what Patch has been doing for the last two years.
But best of luck!
Sounds like an excellent idea!
Sorry, Bigjake, but this is just a furtherance of the complete dumbing down idiocy of actual news reporting; another attempt at (re)gaining readers of the newsprint version. I think this is a horrible idea. If people want to be reporters –let them GO TO SCHOOL and learn how to be impartial, with no agenda. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
[…] Register-Citizen Creates New Post Posted on December 28, 2010 by dubymcd The Torrington Register Citizen, which recently launched a community-oriented “open newsroom”, has named Kaitlyn Yeager to the position of “Community Engagement Editor.” More about Kaitlyn and the newspaper’s efforts here. […]
[…] Never Too Cool For School Posted on January 8, 2011 by dubymcd The Torrington Register Citizen’s “Community Journalism School” is offering free classes to the public. You can see the offerings here. This is part of the newspaper’s “Digital First” business model which The Laurel profiled last month. […]