What can the Koreans learn from us?

Korea is a technically-advanced country with a large and thriving community of online news organizations. The Korean government embraces technology, broadband access is almost universal and the use of mobile phones is quite advanced. So what can the Koreans learn from us?

That was the question we wrestled with as a dozen Korean journalists came to the U.S. in November for a study tour coordinated by Newsplex. The Koreans were part of a leadership class at the Korea Press Foundation, which sponsored the tour. They represented some of Korea's top news organizations, including the Korea Broadcast System, two of Seoul's most-read newspapers and several online journalists.

In truth, there was little technology that we could show the Koreans they had not already seen. However what we could show them – and what captured their interest – is how news organizations around the world are organizing newsrooms for a cross-media future.

In Korea as in many U.S. media houses, journalists typically work for a single delivery platform. If a traditional news organization has a Web site, a dedicated team works on it. So the Koreans were interested in how innovative newspapers like The Shelby Star are using a single team of journalists to produce content across media. Not just taking a newspaper story and "repurposing" it on the Web site, but creating new content that includes multi-media and is interactive.

Of particular interest to the Koreans was the experience of London's Daily Telegraph. We presented a case study on the newspaper's big convergence project in which it radically changed the way it operates in conjunction with a move into a stunning new newsroom in late 2006.

The Shelby Star with an editorial staff of 18 and the Daily Telegraph with an editorial staff of 460 would seem to be strange bedfellows. But both see a future in which journalists concentrate on stories, not on a particular production platform. That is the Newsplex philosophy, which is why we think these two examples are relevant worldwide. The Koreans certainly agreed, saying there is much from these examples they will take back to Korea.