A total of 23 news managers, editors and journalists from 14 EBU Members attended the Master Class ‘YLE, the innovative convergent newsroom’ in Helsinki on 15 & 16 October. Developed jointly with YLE News, this Master Class provided an in-depth look into the vision, strategy and implementation of Newsroom 3.0, an ambitious project launched in early 2015 to make radical changes in the way news is produced.

As highlighted by YLE director of News, Sport & Current Affairs Atte Jääskeläinen, “Newsroom 3.0” was designed with the needs of the audience in mind; needs that the Customer Insight Unit has carefully documented for several years and translated into the media clock model. Newsroom 3.0 puts priority on news production for the internet and mobile devices. But Newsroom 3.0 was also motivated by the desire to channel more resources into R & D and make daily life easier in an integrated newsroom.

But how do you go from vision to strategy and implementation? How do you drive radical changes and rally the support of your staff? How do you set priorities for both management and staff? How do you design new workflows? How do you measure success and staff acceptance? How do you make sure that you have the right development resources to keep ahead of the next social media craze, technology revolution, or audience news craving? These are the questions that Atte’s colleagues explored together with participants and Eurovision Academy faculty members, Henrik Keith Hansen and Kevin Charman-Anderson.

“I gained some really useful and interesting ideas for how to better organize our newsroom. I am really very impressed by what journalists at YLE did last year,” said Dobrina Cheshmedjieva, chief producer, News Department at BNT.

Petr Albrecht, chief editor News Department at TS Brno, Czech TV, insisted that the Master Class gave him “lots to think about, useful information about new technology, media transformation, workflows etc.”

For SWR deputy editor-in-chief Cai Rienäcker the Master Class had a very concrete outcome: “It will influence our actual concepts on how to handle news, social media, and news apps. In 2017 we put my news section in a new newsroom. The master class will help me to design it.”

Everyone agreed with RTE online news editor Declan McBennett when he stated that, “YLE News colleagues were excellent hosts and extremely generous with their time, expertise and hospitality.”

In 2014–2015, Eurovision Academy delivered 65 courses attended by representatives from 70 EBU Members. With Master Classes developed jointly with a Member, Eurovision Academy develops unique learning experiences for public media professionals. Two more Master Classes developed in this way will be held in 2015: Social Media, Radio & Music at BBC Radio in November and Constructive Journalism at DR in December.