The Lean Newsroom: A Manifesto for Media Change

Transforming Newsroomsoffers a practical guide to navigating structural and culture change for news organizations facing economic disruption in today’s rapidly changing media landscape.

Even when the need for change is obvious, the best ideas and intentions are often not followed by successful execution. This book offers a road map for understanding the obstacles to change in news organizations and how to overcome them. Providing a detailed overview of the ways in which news processes and routines are being fundamentally altered to meet new demands for multimedia, interactivity, and immediacy, the book offers tips to help news organizations better serve communities by understanding what information people need and how they want to engage and collaborate.The book also features a variety of case studies and examples from news organizations of all kinds, including a 10-year in-depth investigation of the Christian Science Monitor, the first national news organization to stop its daily presses for a digital report.

Transforming Newsroomsis an invaluable resource for students and media professionals alike, demonstrating how to make research on organizational change actionable and help build a more equitable journalism model that will survive and thrive when we need it most.

Carrie Brown is the founding director of the social journalism Master’s program at the Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. This program prepares students for careers in engaged journalism, with an emphasis on learning how to listen, understand community information needs, build relationships, and produce tangible impact. Her research centers on how news organizations can adapt to the changing media landscape.

Jonathan Groves is an associate professor and chair of the Communication Department at Drury University in Springfield, Mo. He spent 14 years as a reporter and editor at newspapers in Arkansas and Missouri before becoming the first doctoral fellow at the University of Missouri-Columbia’s Reynolds Journalism Institute. He has consulted with several organizations undergoing change efforts, and his research focuses on newsroom change and engagement.