Media joining to eliminate duplications

For years there has been a large percentage of breaking and calendar news that is double — and even triple — covered by Deseret Media Companies.

It was not unprecedented for Deseret News and KSL-TV and KSL Newsradio to all be represented at the same press conference.

Now, the entities have developed a plan to eliminate that duplication and increase coverage of other in-depth stories.

While Deseret News and KSL will maintain individual news teams that will produce investigative stories for each brand, an additional team — the DMC integrated newsroom — will be formed to gather information that will be shared.

The resulting integrated newsroom will create the market's largest news coverage team. "We will cover more stories with more people than anyone in the market," said Clark Gilbert, Desert News president and CEO.

For example, one person will represent Deseret News, KSL-TV and KSL Newsradio at a single press conference. That will free up other reporters to cover news that the companies, in the past, may not have had the resources to investigate.

The result, said Rick Hall, Deseret News managing editor, will be a news generating "machine."

"There is a high percent of breaking and calendar kind of news that we double cover," Hall said. "It is news that is important. It is news of record. It needs to be covered. But we don't need to invest that kind of resources to it."

It also increases the quality of news coverage for all the companies.

"KSL and the Deseret News both have high quality journalists who have real expertise in gathering news," Hall said. "By combining not only their skills, but also the ability and experience of those staffs, you put together a first-rate news team."

Everyone on the team will become very efficient and highly skilled in delivering the news on various platforms, said Hall. In essence, he said, the companies "will be developing better journalists for the future."

"In this effort to cross pollinate and train journalists of the future, we are not going to sacrifice the current skills of traditional print and broadcast reporters, but we are going to capitalize on the close working relationship to enhance people's skills and facilitate training," he said.

Con Psarras, KSL vice president for news, said the depth and context of the integrated team will result in better coverage for everyone.

"The organizational structure lends itself to expand coverage by eliminating duplication," he said.

To manage the combined newsroom, he said, "we have chosen some extremely well-respected managers from television, newspaper, radio and the Internet. They will see more opportunities to expand coverage and take advantage of future opportunities."

email: sarah@desnews.com