How the Center France group meets the challenge of responsiveness on the web

A global event pushed us to evolve our organization. From now on, journalists are dedicated to covering “hot” news. Breaking news specialists. Their articles contribute to enriching our websites, whose ambition is to provide the main information, from here and elsewhere, processed in real time or with all the necessary perspective and analysis.
The impact report is an exercise in transparency. That we want – we owe it to you – to be as sincere as possible. It is an exercise where we take stock of our actions and initiatives. Whether they are successful, or less so. We sometimes experience failure, of course. But we try to draw the consequences to grow.

A world event was, in this sense, foundational for us: the death of Queen Elizabeth II. It was September 8, 2022, but it had repercussions for us, in our organizations, that lasted until recent months. Because that day, at a time when the whole planet had its eyes fixed on Balmoral Castle, we lacked responsiveness. We were not able to organize our forces sufficiently to bring you this event live, as it would have deserved. But we learned our lesson.

A major project for 2023
Improving our responsiveness on the web was one of our major projects for this year 2023. It resulted very concretely in the creation of new positions and a new service: that of “time 1”. It is, in our journalistic jargon, the time of quasi-immediacy, that of burning news; with the aim of quickly giving our readers accurate and verified information. We distinguish this “time 1” from “time 2” and “time 3” which are those of reaction, expertise, deciphering, story, investigation (and which we develop in the other articles of these two pages).

In testing since the beginning of the year, fully operational since the summer, this new “time 1” service mobilizes two people every day. They take turns from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. to report on the latest news on your newspaper’s website. National or international news, most of the time; without ignoring information from our territories, which deserves to be widely shared. Politics, news items, economics, conflicts, climate… All themes can be addressed. The main idea, our editorial promise, is that you can have access, in real time, on our sites, to the main news highlights. In addition to all the local information that we publish throughout the day, and the “time 2” and “time 3” information published for example by our General Information department.

This ambition for responsiveness has been put to the test this year, notably, through the war in Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas war. How can we report on such serious, strong, complex and evolving news? One of the responses was the launch of numerous “directs”. Articles updated throughout the day, minute by minute or hour by hour. You now regularly come across content of this type on our websites. We used this format extensively recently to cover the trial of Monique Olivier, the ex-wife of serial killer Michel Fourniret. It is also a preferred tool for reporting live from a sporting competition.

Hot news also on video

There are words and images. More and more Internet users today are getting information via videos. We could not tackle the reactivity project without also thinking about its video variations. Here again, we have created a new position: a video desk. He has been in office since the summer. Every day, someone from the editorial team is specifically responsible for producing short hot news videos. It’s the same principle as “time 1”, only the content format changes.

These videos will allow us to enrich our articles, but also to bring this news to life on social networks (Facebook, Instagram, etc.). And reach new readers, sometimes further away from our newspapers.
Inform as widely as possible; deal with the news on the street corner or at the end of the world, through words, photos or videos; take note of what has just happened but also take the time to analyze and step back. This is our ambition.

This article is originally published on .lamontagne.fr