There’s no question that e-mail has made the flow of information into our newsroom better and faster than the days of snail mail and faxes. Obviously, we live by the flow of information in the news business.
But some days I’m staggered by the amount of e-mail that rolls in. And I suspect that’s true of most people, regardless of the business they’re in.
I’m on an e-letter list for Ed and Cynthia Miller’s Newsroom Leadership Group, and recently took Ed’s advice (it’s here) about tracking e-mail content for a week or two. I broke e-mail into several categories: press releases, reader tips/complaints/compliments, internal housekeeping, etc. Some of the results were surprising.
First, my spam filter is incredibly effective (I tightened it down a few months ago). Less than 10% of the 200 or more e-mails I get most days are junk mail. About a third are press releases (not surprising), and another 15% were "news alerts" — one-sentence flashes of breaking news from wire services. But the really surprising piece: Internal house-keeping accounted for almost a quarter of all e-mail. The category of "substantive work" came up at 3%.
I’m still figuring out how to use this e-mail audit to better manage the Inbox. If anything has worked particularly well for you, please share.
– Sherry
After my post below on using RSS feeds, a blog reader asked me which sites I subscribe to. I’m not sure my list will help you much — it’s more about the news industry, not actual daily news feeds.
I tend to have news updates flowing at me all day from many directions, so I don’t need additional RSS feeds to do that. I do have a CNN feed, though, and one from the McClatchy Washington bureau. And I strongly believe you need a feed of breaking news from Kansas.com.
Other RSS feeds I use are for Jim Romenesko’s site for industry news, discussion and gossip; cyberjournalist.net for discussion of industry news, focused on interactive journalism; a snapshot of current investigative journalism from Investigative Reporters and Editors, Extra! Extra!; the First Amendment Center; and a blog for McClatchy newspaper editors, Etaoin Shrdlu.
Another site I check every morning, though not through RSS, is a Newseum site of the day’s front pages from around the country and the world.
– Sherry
One of the many challenges we face in the news industry today is understanding the new ways people get news. We’re hampered in that because most of us still get our news from the daily paper or by navigating to Web sites. The "old ways."
Too many journalists (including this one) have been slow to learn how to use newer tools to get news. Our readers — and former readers — aren’t so slow to embrace newer, more convenient technology. In many cases, it’s new to us in the newsroom but not new to the larger population.
I’m first in line to say "guilty." Way, way guilty. I finally understand RSS feeds much better thanks to this piece I read last year by Jon Dube, and I now subscribe to four or five RSS feeds. I use my cell phone regularly to get news.
The bottom line is that we have to adapt urgently to readers’ news habits, and we’re doing that too slowly. I wish I had good research data on how our local readers get news electronically. Drop me a note at editorsdesk@wichitaeagle.com or post a comment here and let me know where you pick up news through the day, and how.
– Sherry