S-R reorganizing staff to boost online, Voice efforts

A Spokesman-Review staff reorganization will put more emphasis on breaking news online and expand the paper’s regional Voice sections.

Starting this month, the newspaper will have a new online team, including a reporter devoted to posting breaking news on the Web site full time.

The goal, editors said, is to post more online as events occur, especially in the morning when, statistics show, more people check the Web for news.

“The days are gone when we published one newspaper a day and that would hold readers until the next time we came out,” said Carla Savalli, the senior editor for local news. “In order for us to be relevant and competitive in this market, we need to shift our thinking from being a newspaper to being an information company.”

Also this month, about a dozen newsroom employees are starting new jobs. At the top of the list, business editor Addy Hatch has been promoted to city editor.

Savalli, who has been both the paper’s city editor and senior editor for local news, will give up her city editor title and focus on implementing the changes. Savalli spent several months in 2006 traveling to other newsrooms to examine how they use the Internet.

“If done correctly, the Web will be about breaking news and the newspaper will be about the context,” she said.

Emphasis on Web sites is becoming more common as newspapers struggle to keep readership of the print edition while attracting advertisers to their Web sites.

The average weekday circulation of The Spokesman-Review in the six months ending Sept. 30 was slightly more than 93,000 a day. That’s fallen from about 99,000 over the same time period in 2004.

The new online writer, Amy Cannata, will start work around 6 a.m. Newspaper reporters in Spokane haven’t regularly started work that early since the city’s afternoon newspaper, the Spokane Chronicle, folded in 1992. She will continue to write her Getting There transportation column.

Spokesman-Review Editor Steven A. Smith said his goal is to improve Web coverage without hurting the quality of the paper.

“The financial strength of the company is the financial strength of the printed newspaper,” Smith said. “I hope what (readers) see in the pages of the newspaper isn’t much different than the past.”

Another shift will be more emphasis on the Voices sections, which cover community news. Deputy news editor Tad Brooks will oversee the sections in his new role as Voices editor. Some reporting resources will shift to the Voices.

Voices are published once a week for northern Spokane County, southern Spokane County and North Idaho. They are published twice a week for the Valley. Starting in the spring, The Spokesman-Revew will publish a Post Falls Voice.

Editors hope the Voices also will have a stronger Web presence.

“We’re going to be encouraging a lot of reader participation in allowing them to become citizen journalists by posting their own news on our Voices Web sites,” Brooks said.

New online director Ryan Pitts said the paper’s Web site will be overhauled with a new look by the summer.

He also will be leading efforts to put more content such as slide shows and audio and video recordings on the site.

Other staff changes include:

“Library manager Larry Reisnouer will become director of photography.

“Features writer and columnist Jamie Tobias Neely will become an associate editor for the editorial page, where her column will continue to appear.

“7 editor Nancy Malone will be an assistant city editor. She will focus on online news.

“Recent University of Oregon graduate Shadra Beesley was named the editor of 7.

“7 reporter Tom Bowers will become assistant 7 editor.

“Voice editor Richard Miller will become the deputy news editor.

“Reporter Tom Sowa was named the paper’s full-time online technology reporter. His work will appear in the .TXT section on Mondays and online.