Even The New York Times Now Says It Online First

The changes in digital media are now also gripping hold of the legendary newspaper from the American East Coast with all their might. Publication dates of articles are breaking free from print deadlines.

The working method of editorial staff on the British newspaper The Guardian, the German newspaper Die Welt, and other news brands has been “online first” for some years. That means that the digital platforms of the Internet and apps are the most important places for articles. Even for featured topics, it is decided by us when and how the story will be published on the Web. In contrast, the printed paper, which always appeared on the morning after, has been pushed aside in the work cycle, a development which has changed our work as journalists greatly.

For the famous New York Times, which has invested so much in digital media, and in doing so has implemented grandiose ideas, things were, until now, still like they used to be for us: The placement and length of a story in the paper is an expression of what meaning is attributed to the article. Correspondingly, the daily decision about which story would end up on the front page of The New York Times was important in making these decisions.

But now the digital changes are also taking place at The New York Times. Executive Editor Dean Baquet told his editorial staff that the daily meetings should now focus on digital channels and less on the question of what should be tomorrow’s page-one topic.

Less Tethered To Print Deadlines

In an announcement to colleagues, Baquet explained that the goal of this procedure was “to ensure that our digital platforms are much less tethered to print deadlines.” Baquet said, “We need to be posting more of our best stories not in the late evening, but when the Times’ digital readership is at its height, between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.” This is a fact that we at Welt have long been taking advantage of. For a long time, place on our page one was also the strived-for goal of our reporters. Whoever got there had done good work.

Even today I see journalists proudly posting a photo of the front page on Twitter or Facebook when their story or a colleague’s story is printed there. Of course, the page retains a huge amount of significance for us and for The New York Times, but it is less of an indicator of the significance of a topic.

That is now decided the day before by taking the interests of the readers of our online format into account. In this way, we’re constantly looking on welt.de for the best time and the best way of digitally presenting an article. That has made our work considerably more hectic, but in return, our stories are closer to the interests of our readers.