Virtual Newsroom, continued

I’ve continued to work on this virtual newsroom idea. This is a little chart I drew up. I know it’s not very clear yet.

Here’s a text version of how I envision this working:

A reporter gets a story idea, talks it over with his/her section editor, gets the green light and starts working on the story, at the same time, the section editor talks to the web editor, so the web editor sends an online journalist to go talk to the reporter (assuming there is something web-worthy in this story) so the online journalist goes back to his/her comp and starts working on something, but is using the giant integrated system to keep an eye on what the reporter is putting together, reporter shows story to section editor, who makes sure it is really a story and has all the necessary elements, and makes suggestions, and that might go back a forth a few times, depending. the online journalist has put together a map or a database or some video or whatever and shows it to the web editor, who does the same thing the section editor does and the reporter and the online jou are tracking each others work the whole time. so then the copyeditor goes over the text to make sure its spelled right and in ap style and not slanderous and all that and then everything goes to production. production meaning that the article the reporter wrote goes to the layout people, and then to the printer. meanwhile, the web side of production figures out where and how to put the project on the website.

Ugh. I understand how it would work in my head, but I’m not doing so great on making it clear to anyone else am I?

Related to this, I had a long conversation with a friend yesterday about virtual vs. meatspace communication. He argues that assuming time spent communicating and familiarity with the technology, there is no difference. I argued that there is something to face-to-face communication that can’t be replicated online.

What do you think? I’m gonna work on these concepts some more and see if I make make it more coherent.