I realized today that I haven’t shared the newsroom’s goals for the year with readers. In The Eagle’s newsroom, we have four overriding priorities for the year, and every department (metro news, business, sports, etc.) writes measurable goals that support these priorities:
1. Developing a harder-news edge to the front page, with dominant stories that are based on breaking news or investigative reports versus “softer” feature stories. And making sure all elements of a page - the articles, design, photography and headlines - work together so story packages are clear, compelling, accurate and balanced.
2. Reporting more “enterprise” and investigative news. Enterprise stories are those that aren’t readily available in a press release or on a meeting agenda. Our aim is to seek out the less-obvious stories - those now going unreported - and to improve our editing and reporting so all important questions are always answered in a story. A key part of this goal is reviewing and analyzing more public databases, and ensuring that government operates in the open.
3. Building huge audience growth for our Web site, Kansas.com. We’re aiming for at least a 20% increase in monthly unique visitors, through increased news, information, tools and features for Web users - and also through better innovation, and more individual responsibility throughout the newsroom.
4. Focus on individual growth and learning. Every staffer will log 30 hours of training time through in-house seminars and other training opportunities.