API project aims to help newsrooms change

Anyone looking for ideas about how to help newsrooms cope with and adapt to change might find it useful to consult All Eyes Forward, a 164-page report outlining initial results of the American Press Institute’s “Learning Newsroom” program. It describes the first 18 months of a three-year pilot project involving 10 newspaper newsrooms, including the Spectator in Hamilton, Ont. The program is supposed to help encourage newsroom employees and managers to stop fearfully and defensively resisting change and work effectively and creatively together to channel new challenges into new opportunities. The report is honest in acknowledging that results at the midway point of the pilot project were mixed.