Enhancing Journalism Efficiency: A Game-Changing Tool for Newsroom Tracking
Reporters and editors face a constant barrage of information and tasks that need to be meticulously organized. Keeping track of story ideas, managing records requests, and monitoring ongoing developments can quickly become overwhelming, particularly in newsrooms facing limited resources and staff turnover. Recognizing these challenges, Cory McCoy, an editor and reporter at Tri-City News, took matters into his own hands and developed a revolutionary solution to streamline newsroom workflows: the “Newsroom Tracking Tools.”
While participating in the prestigious Poynter-Koch Media and Journalism Fellowship, McCoy embarked on a project with a clear vision: to create a comprehensive set of user-friendly tools that could benefit not just himself but the entire journalism community.
"The idea was a set of tools that I’ve always wanted to have," McCoy explained. "Every newsroom struggles with keeping track of things when you’ve got turnover, or at the end of the year when you’ve got to look up all your murder cases for the yearly wrap-up, things like that."
Through Airtables, a “database and app-building site requiring no coding experience,” McCoy meticulously crafted task-oriented “tables” which became a suite of newsroom tools, each designed to tackle a distinct challenge. These tools include an awards-submission organizer, a reminder app to track freedom-of-information requests, a source list tool, and a content management app that facilitated story budgeting and the organization of large ongoing projects. Moreover, with some simple adjustments, these tools can be used to help journalists to keep track of and manage their portfolio for job applications.
Using Airtable as the foundation for these tools proved to be a strategic move. “I settled on Airtable because it was quick, it was easy and it was widely used enough to where if I wanted to put it out there for other newsrooms to use, they could just copy it without me having to do much on the back end,” McCoy said.
To encourage journalistic collaboration, McCoy made the tools publicly available on Airtable, encouraging others to copy the files and adapt them to their specific needs. Additionally, he created a comprehensive online presentation document to guide users on effectively utilizing these tools.
The significance of these time-saving tools cannot be understated, especially as newsrooms continue to face challenges associated with downsizing and shrinking resources due to losses in revenue. At McCoy's own Tri-City News, the coverage area includes most of the Vancouver metropolitan area—and their resources do not match the amount of work they have to cover. "We’ve got a limited staff to cover this huge region. It becomes a real struggle to manage those things on a daily basis," McCoy said.
The response from those who have adopted the Newsroom Tracking Tools has been overwhelmingly positive, as journalists have found them to be invaluable assets in their workflow. However, McCoy is realistic about the challenges of integrating new tools into established newsrooms.
“If it’s a newer newsroom ready to make some big changes (the tables) could be a huge benefit, but it will take more time to get buy-in from everybody if you’re established,” he said. “We’re pressed to get our daily jobs done, and you really have to find the time to start moving things over.”
Despite this, McCoy remains committed to fostering collaboration and encouraging journalists to embrace technology that can improve their efficiency. He continues to explore ways to enhance the capabilities of Airtable and is open to feedback and suggestions to further optimize the tools' functionality. As McCoy humbly states, "If one person finds it useful, I'll be happy."
