First impressions... 'blink' rules

Had first taste of The Newspaper today. Some interesting findings, some confusing ones. They are in the middle of an "integration process" between the online and the paper editions. This can be good and bad news. It can be good to watch that happen, it can be bad because I will just miss it by a month. To catch it still "separate" I would have to start there tomorrow.

According to the "integration project leader" - to whom I talked today -- regarding my question about how the journalists work is divided he said that there isn’t a division to write in one and not in the other ...that distinction has really drindled away.

That leads us to the question: so it did exist one day?

Yes, we did for a period, and it is not entirely integrated, we did have a period where they worked for the online only, but that distinction is now pretty much gone. There is still a little bit of that in “news” but things are changing, we will soon rearrange part of the newsroom so some of those guys will be re-housed, this distinction we will get away from. They are reporters for The Newspaper and that’s it.

The whole thing is part of a big structure re-organization that happened when the new editor took over last year. He created a position called "head of news", who is "a crossing platform", is "the director of traffic on both sides" and "roles the ship".

Now here is where we get interesting: The journalists just write the text and deliver it "raw" to the sub-editors. These guys are the ones who are going to cut it and dress it to the different outlets: print or online.

Also had the chance of watching the morning editorial meeting, which is pretty crazy for an outsider. I tried not to get bogged down with things I already know, like what is the document they all follow, and how these meetings are generally. The strange thing, I realized, is that I have always participated of these meetings by phone, never live.

It is exciting to watch people. It was also difficult to take notes of the "what was happening" instead of the "content". There were times I started taking notes about the stories they were discussing, as if I were in a press conference.

Tried to identify people by what they were saying and match it to what they were wearing -- a silly attempt of remembering them latter). I have good face recognition features and spent time trying to fix their faces in my head.

Lots of questions in mind. Lots of note taking. Lots of reporting back. Created a flow chart of the "life of a story" as of these first of today.

Will get the chance of another interview, this time with another guy who is quite senior (but wasn't at the editorial meeting today)

Uf, it's happening. I can't scape!

PS: strangely enough I read an article about this book Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell, which I read sometime ago, and talks about the power of first impressions. They do!