CONVERGENCE IN THE TRENCHES

A new study finds that almost 70 percent of reporters and producers at small and medium-market TV stations are personally involved in producing content for another medium. The convergence workload is rising across the board, the study says, but most of the work still involves "repurposing" content from Web sites instead of truly reporting across media, according to study authors Andrea Tanner and Laura Smith.

The researchers surveyed producers and reporters at stations in markets 51-210. Almost all of the respondents indicated that their station practiced some form of convergence. The most common convergence partner is not a surprise: the TV station's own Web site was cited by 61% of respondents as the focus of their convergent duties. But about one-fifth of respondents said they're responsible for providing content to another TV station or to a radio station. Less than 10% said they also write for a newspaper outlet.

The survey found that most of what these reporters and producers post online requires little or no new information or reporting. "Very few provide still pictures, add additional facts to a story, or help design the site," the authors write. "No news workers were tasked with creating Internet-only stories. Fewer than 20% report providing unaired video or sound bites to the Web site, even though such material is readily available."

Reporters and producers were equally likely to produce content for different news media outlets, according to the study, but their tasks were substantially different. Producers were significantly more likely than reporters to work with the station's Web site, deciding what information should be posted, to actually do the posting and to write story summaries for the Web. Reporters, on the other hand, were more likely to provide content to a radio station, or conduct online Q&A sessions with viewers.

Most respondents (70%) said they had the skills they needed to do what's expected of them, but almost half said additional training would improve the quality of the work they produce. A quarter of respondents said they felt the quality of their own work was suffering as a result of increasing convergence duties.

While almost three-quarters of respondents said convergence has increased their workload, more than half said they spend less than 30 minutes a day on convergence tasks. And a majority described their experience with convergence as positive or very positive.

Andrea Tanner is at the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of South Carolina. Contact her at atanner@sc.edu. This study was published in Electronic News 1(4), 211-255, November 4, 2007.