SubScribe: Structure of the Content Department Google+

Friday 22 November 2013

Structure of the Content Department

David Montgomery's memo to Local World staff:

Structure of the Content Department
Like any fully digitised business the content department will be in continual development seeking to enhance and enrich its offering not just in the substance and range of content but also in the user and reader experience. The Content hierarchy - Content Managers and Directors - will work with developers and designers to constantly upgrade the products. This resource will be directed at group level but in specialist areas, for instance farming and tourism in the West Country franchise areas, may be attached to those products.
Depending on the size of the franchise area and the number of products the Content Director and Content Managers will split their time between direction of the day to day products and the dynamic evolution of content to suit the needs of the community and also its businesses and advertisers. In this respect every senior journalist and Content Manager will have access to the audience measurement tool - prototype PANARAMA - to inform the selection and promotion of content.
It is often the case that local Centre MDs and Editors across Local World are embedded in the community through membership and often leadership of business and social bodies and are in prime position to judge the content preference of their constituency.  Clearly this should be mandatory in future and the authority of the publisher will be greatly enhanced by the senior journalists who will extend further the principle of partnership with third party institutions supplying an increasing amount of content.
The local centre Managing Director will preside over both the Content Director and the Commercial Director but all three will have a great deal of creative and commercial overlap and their responsibilities will inevitably merge in a strong business alliance.
However the Content Director will remain very firmly in control of the quality of the products and their audience and readership performance allied to the commercial needs of the business.
Senior journalists will be directed to that end and focused on the richness of their specialist content. However they will be expected to have the technical and digital skills to directly publish content so apart from the design and development function there will be no editorial support unit.
Humdrum tasks will be automated in the new wave of technology.

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