(Annette Moser-Wellman) – As readers of TechScout know, I’ve been spending the last year scouting out technological trends that will affect the news business and mulling over what capabilities news organizations need to cultivate as a result. In just a few days, you’ll learn what I’ve concluded, when Media Management Center publishes my new book, "Six Competencies of the Next Generation News Organization."

So let me whet your appetite for my findings by sharing with you parts of my interview with Carlos Barrionuevo, who is Senior Director of Business Development at National Public Radio (NPR). Carlos shared with me recently how his organization is transforming for the digital age. Imagine my delight when I realized that some of NPR’s initiatives nicely illustrate the very competencies outlined in my MMC work.

(To learn more about the study’s findings, sign up here for a free Webinar November 11.)


Here are some of the reasons I think NPR will lead in news markets to come and why NPR continues to surprise and delight audiences.




On being a Platform Strategist:

"We think about radio segments as stories. Reporters break material down to the story level, decide where that story will go and what material goes with it. We try to create dynamic internal structures that allow you to distribute to multiple platforms, whether it’s an iPhone, simple streaming or a listening experience online. We are one unified newsroom supporting multiple platforms."

On being a Community Builder:

"So we said, 'Okay, we've got Facebook. We've got Twitter. We've got blogs.' But the structure of our site was a walled garden. Rather than control where our content was, we decided to open up our API (application programming interface) and put it out there so people can start to take pieces of our content and put them on their site. We thought, 'Let's just open up everything we've got and see what our audience will do. If we are truly public, let's see what happens.' It's promoted the mentality of our public mission and we can move now from driving page views to driving engagement."

On being a Data Miner:

"We are doing the down and dirty work of digitizing our archives. We have twenty-something years of archives we need to digitize so that we can put that material to other uses. These archives can be valuable for us in terms of our public service mission as well as potentially launching into new markets and driving new revenues."

On being a Complete Storyteller:

"We are putting systems in place that actually make storytelling easier. We are combining a number of different production systems so that we can approach a story from the reporter level and the editor level and allow people to add associated content, be it pictures, graphics or notes. We think in terms of stories. We have six minute pieces which no one else does. This lends itself well to adding many different kinds of media."

On being an Entrepreneur:

"You need to change the leadership of the newsrooms to people who can understand the importance of supporting the whole organization. Online has grown up in many companies separate from what would be considered core programming. But NPR has a management commitment to integrating digital as core to the news process."

What do you think? Please share your thoughts, experiences and reactions by clicking on the comment button below.

Annette Moser-Wellman is President of Firemark, Inc., an innovation consultancy, and author of Running While The Earth Shakes: Creating An Innovation Strategy To Win In The Digital Age, published by the Media Management Center. She teaches in MMC's Advanced Executive Program and Digital Strategies for Media Executives seminar.

This TechScout article is part of a new series of Moser-Wellman interviews commissioned by the Media Management Center to explore opportunities and insights at the intersection of technology and the news media. A book, "Six Competencies of the Next Generation News Organization," and Webinars – both based on the TechScout research – will debut November 11.

Click here to view other articles in the TechScout series.

Click here to be notified about the upcoming book and Webinars.