Telegraph.co.uk breaking news strategy - key staff as 'story owners'

Since The Telegraph's highly publicised move to a new newsroom in Victoria nearly 18-months ago its senior editors haven't been shy in espousing the philosophy and the practicalities behind the paper's integrated web and newspaper approach.

Yet when Telegraph Media Group's digital editor, Edward Roussel, addressed a panel looking at multi-platform approach, at the DNA 2008 conference in Brussels this week, he was able to shed yet more light on how the operation now handles large breaking news stories online.

Under the new system, he said, big breaking news was placed in the hands of individual editors: 'story owners', who oversee regular updates, broadening of stories to include 'added value' multimedia and user-generated content, and analysis and opinion pieces.

Really big stories, he said, would see the creation of web pages dedicated solely to the topic.

Part of the move to the integrated newsroom was making staff realise that they all worked for the digital element of the newspaper, Roussel added, with top editors given responsibility for both the digital and print outputs of their department.

"They are held to account in terms of the quality of the online content and they will be compensated according to success online as well as success in the newspaper," he said.

Roussel went on to detail scenarios the Telegraph used to establish its breaking news policy:

• When news breaks send out immediate alerts: SMS, email, desktop

• After 10 minutes get 150 words on the website and solicit reader help with images/video or other accounts

• Within an hour update story to 450 words and add additional images and video

• Then look to commission analysis and opinion pieces, develop a topic page with multiple angles and multimedia

"This integrated news environment only works if you have got very strong leadership and you have strong people as heads of departments, running key departments, sports, business, news and the picture desk, but for a big story you want to have a story owner, and that person needs to be really, really good," Roussel added.

"They are essentially fulfilling three tasks, one is that they are constantly planning the story. We have something called the grid where owners enter their plan for the story, and they are constantly revising that plan, constantly talking to key people involved in it.

"Secondly, they are commissioning the stories, and they are being really specific, they are entering on the grid: Edward Roussel to file 300 words by 12.15pm, so that goes in the grid and my job, my contractual obligation, is to produce that content.

"Thirdly, they are monitoring it, making sure that the content that has been commissioned is published on time and equally looking at the competition so if there are any great ideas we can make sure we are stealing those ideas, making them our own and making them better.

"They are driving the process, those story owners are key in the newsroom in an integrated environment, and they have got to be really, really good.

"One interesting point is that it's a great filter, if the person who is the head of that department, if it's sport or news or whatever, if they can't fulfil that job, they are probably in the wrong job."

Covering breaking news in various media wasn't the sole purpose of the websites, he added.

"It's been interesting to hear over the last few days about the web being all about breaking news and the newspaper being about analysis, we don't agree with that.

"We think the future of successful websites is that we need to have everything, the first word and the final word. And that means analysis…we want to have the best people reporting directly for the website.

"It's about serving the customer, not serving the newspaper."

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