I have seen the Telegraph's future, and it works. Well, slight exaggeration there, of course. It isn't working yet, in the sense that there's no live output and we can't really know whether it will succeed in attracting an audience. But what I do know, after spending yesterday afternoon in the group's new offices in Victoria (coincidentally opposite Google's UK headquarters), is that it has every appearance of working. It's an impressive place and it is clear that the movers and shakers behind the Telegraph's transformation have embraced the digital revolution with both hands. They have made few, if any, compromises in taking a giant stride into the media future.
So the paper renowned for its conservative politics is about to take the most revolutionary step in its history, more sweeping than the initial introduction of computer technology, more radical than its creation of the first newspaper website (in 1994) and more journalistically challenging than any initiative yet pioneered by any other British newspaper.
Essentially, the two Telegraph titles are going to provide wholly integrated multi-platform editorial output throughout the day, as Jane Martinson reported. For the journalists, this means that there will be no split of functions between print and web. And, in addition to providing text, they will also transmit audio and video for podcasts and vodcasts. And many staff are already building their new skills, appearing on camera to read their own scripts - downloaded on to a self-operated auto-cue - and cutting their own footage after barely an hour's training.
To meet the needs of this new journalism the Telegraph is setting up a new-style editorial floor, based on a "hub and spoke" layout. At the centre is a round table and radiating from it are a series of desks covering every department. The editors sit at the hub-end, enabling them to talk to each other throughout the day, and their staffs sit along the spines of the spokes. Doubtless the editors will be dubbed the "knight-editors of the round table" as they meet in the open for the day's four main conferences, ending the practice of meetings in rooms. Indeed, there are few rooms anyway. The 67,000 sq ft floor will be entirely open plan - making it, supposedly, London's largest - and the editors of each title are the only ones to have private offices that are merely glass boxes. Aside from other glassed-off areas for making video and audio material, the whole staff will work together.
Their output is going to change dramatically too. Instead of producing articles once a day for a printed newspaper, they are going to work to four deadlines - in the jargon, "touchpoints" - throughout the day. After what appears to have been exhaustive research of modern audience needs, the paper's team - led by Will Lewis, the managing director (editorial) - have come up with a round-the-clock schedule of differing "products". Mornings are for text, so the concentration will be on supplying stories online. Lunchtime into the early afternoon is for video and audio. Late afternoon, drive-time, will see the production of PDF pages, what Lewis calls the "click and carry" service. This allows people to download sets of pages and then print them out, in colour or mono, in various sizes to read on their way home. Evening is then the time for "communities", with material aimed at the bands of enthusiasts for football, gardening , travel, whatever floats their boats. Alongside all this is the development of messages for mobile phone and hand-held computers. In other words, the Telegraph is on your case 24 hours a day. Did I forget to mention that there will be a paper too, a broadsheet paper since you ask.
Though this may sound idealistic, it certainly looked concrete enough during my time in the "pilot room" where 40 Telegraph journalists are already working to the new requirements. They are on week 21 of a planned pilot programme, and they are obviously comfortable with their new tasks. I saw "live" examples of audio material (on the government resignations and the BAE sell-off of Airbus), a video broadcast and samples of an A4-sized PDF entitled Telegraphpm. At the same time a batch of 20 staff were visiting from Canary Wharf to get this first glimpse of their new life. There is a mixture of apprehension and enthusiasm for the new regime, but several of them are also very upset because of the announcement that more than 50 people will be made redundant. I have already commented on this as being sad but understandable.
But I was surprised when I discovered that, across the two Telegraph titles there are 167 sub-editors. There will still be vitally important work for subs, but fewer will be required in the new "cluster" arrangements for producing multi-media output, and I think their status will be enhanced too. It is sobering to learn, even after the passing of hot metal printing 20 years ago, that many articles currently pass through 12 pairs of hands before reaching the reader. That is obviously unnecessary and a key reason for job losses.
Lewis said several times: "Change is not an option. It's essential". He may have a bit of the missionary about him, but I don't think he is blinkered. When we talked in the earliest days of his digital adventure I detected a certain head-in-the-clouds approach. He was bubbling with what he had seen elsewhere and what the inventors and innovators were telling him. That is no longer the case. Those grand visions have been transformed into a practical, if radical, new structure. I'm sure it won't all go according to plan. These things are always modified under the pressure of real life. But the Telegraph round table is a welcome leap into a new form of publishing. It would appear that Camelot has been rebuilt in a new millennium.
