Boston Globe 'Reinvention' Plan Released, And It's a Doozy

BOSTON, MA — Promised details on a pending "reinvention" of The Boston Globe were revealed Thursday, and they are, to understate, big.

Editor in chief Brian McGrory issued a lengthy memo to staff, and he might as well have included the Northeastern's Dan Kennedy who, as always, shared the memo in full on his Media Nation blog almost immediately Wednesday.

The quote pulled out by seemingly everyone who's read it so far? "We need to jettison any sense of being the paper of record. We are the organization of interest."

Like we said, big.

McGrory's memo underscores the precarious position of print outlets in 2017, battling to placate a waning but still-lucrative subscriber base while simultaneously aggressively pursuing the notoriously ephemeral and profit-weak attentions of online audiences.

Digital focus aside, he writes, "The physical newspaper will not be an afterthought at the Globe. It is of vital importance to us, a huge—albeit, declining—source of our revenue, and the most valued product to our most loyal readers. But it cannot continue to needlessly dominate our thinking and resources in the way it currently does."

This and other impending changes are culled from a series of working groups who presented pitches this November, McGrory writes, as well as one-on-one meetings with newsroom staff. A "core reinvention" committee will carry the work forward. Some initiatives, he writes, "can roll out as soon as this month." Speed seems to be the word.

No wonder, then, that one of the reinvention plan's tenets includes the creation of an "Express Desk" deployed to get the urgent and especially "social" news out quickly online. A Print Desk will focus on the paper product.

Other upcoming changes: potential new or shifting beats, more projects, fewer 700-word stories and a heightened focus on metrics and audience engagement (think social media, email newsletters). McGrory also promises a bunch of reporter-oriented tweaks that readers may not see directly, but will shake things up in the newsroom, from the hours people arrive to when stories are due and how editorial works with the advertising department.

"Please keep in mind that this is not a one-and-done project, but a constant evolution; some of the things we change will need to be changed again," he writes.

McGrory instructs that, big picture, this should engender a culture "more inclined to pursue risks and more accepting of the inevitable failures" — not a necessarily easy sell in a slow-moving industry with newsroom desks notoriously crowded by grizzled print reporters firmly set in their ways.

McGrory concludes by outlining the "please-them-all" tightrope every news outlet must now walk:

It is an enterprise more crusading in our approach, an organization that not only covers the region, but regularly provokes it—by holding the powerful accountable, giving voice to those who wouldn’t otherwise have one, advocating for what works, and being our readers’ best ally. All the while, we will be working closely with the business side to drive digital subscriptions, keep our existing subscribers happy, and offer our creativity to native content.

What do you think this means for Boston's newspaper of re— er, the Globe? Is it headed in the right direction, or down a dark path? Please, as always, let us know in the comments.

Photo by Alison Bauter, Patch stafff