Chapter 3

Overall Results of the Survey and my Research

Eighty-six percent of respondents who filled out the survey said they did not have an on-boarding or off-boarding processes in their newsrooms. Those that did have processes noted that not everyone in the newsroom documents their work and those that do document their work are often the data/news applications teams.

There were common themes that emerged from the survey/interviews which I've bullet-pointed in the next few sections. The main issue is documentation is not a priority for reporters or editors when they are filing stories on a regular basis, so when one person leaves, all the institutional knowledge they have goes out the door with them. In many newsrooms, there are one or two people on any given team that know the ins and outs of the team, but they rarely write down what they know. The reason? It's too tedious and there isn't enough time built into the day to address documentation and worrying about the legacy of the reporting/projects for future team members.

A note: for the purposes of this guide, I chose to collect all the information and present it as a general understanding of what on-boarding and off-boarding can consist of and the issues surrounding both. Because some newsrooms and people did not want their names published, I am listing some of the newsrooms that answered, but will not be including specific names of people, unless they were okay with being on the record. I feel that it won't add value by calling out a certain newsroom or team for not doing proper documentation. Rather, we should use this data as an example of what we should be doing in our newsrooms and move forward with proper processes.