How The San Francisco Chronicle’s Editor is trying To Innovate old Media

Audrey Cooper, editor-in-chief of the San Francisco Chronicle, wants to offer San Francisco a media outlet that displays its role in the disruptive economic system. like the entrepreneurs the Chronicle reports on, Cooper isn’t afraid to innovate.

“I adore it once we are attempting issues that don’t work, as a result of it way we’re doing one thing new,” says Cooper, the Chronicle’s first feminine editor-in-chief in the firm’s 151-12 months historical past, and the youngest girl ever named as a top editor of an important U.S. newspaper-based totally firm.

beneath her direction as managing editor from 2013 to 2015, and now as editor-in-chief, the Chronicle has experimented with drone pictures, tried crowdfunding, and started an offsite incubator to reinvent day-to-day journalism. it is going to choicest its first feature-length documentary, closing men Standing, a movie about AIDS’s forgotten survivors, on April 8 at San Francisco’s Castro Theatre. The Chronicle is the first newsroom to supply a characteristic-length film, Cooper says. “that implies our journalism will touch new audiences we will have never reached earlier than.”

here Cooper discusses reinventing the newspaper, the effect of know-how on journalism, making difficult decisions, and the right way to maintain criticism. Cooper used to be among the many a hundred West Coast girls entrepreneurs and CEOs to participate in Marie Claire’s PowerTrip, a bicoastal 36-hour girls’s leadership convention held March 21-22. Marie Claire and the Chronicle are each owned via Hearst.

Reinventing Newspapers

Newspapers are ceaselessly criticized for their declining circulation, ad income, and readership. yet, Cooper factors out, “most new media corporations aren’t successful, so it’s now not like they’ve a secret sauce for success.” while the Chronicle has been experimenting and innovating, no longer every newspaper editor and publisher is as fast to totally include expertise. “I’ve regularly mentioned the problem with many newspapers is that they’re run with the aid of people who find themselves in love with newspapers,” Cooper says. “many of them don’t have in mind why somebody wouldn’t wish to read the physical paper every day.”

the use of know-how within the Newsroom

know-how lets in the Chronicle to reach extra readers than ever sooner than—31 million unique readers a month on all its structures, Cooper says. but expertise has modified the whole lot and nothing about what it way to observe journalism. whereas every reporter is predicted to be on social media, take video, audio, and get the story on-line first, it takes more than technology to be an excellent journalist. “on the end of the day, an iPhone and video-editing apps gained’t help you much if that you may’t determine the best way to ask the correct questions and draw the correct conclusions,” she says. “Tech doesn’t provide you with compassion or equity.”

Making tough choices

All leaders need to be clear and open about why selections are made, Cooper says, however that’s harder to do than it sounds. “Most leaders assume individuals comprehend what is going on behind the scenes,” she says. “however they aren’t for your head.” To help them be aware your reasoning, you want to articulate your vision for a place of job time and again. “when you’ve got a history of being open and truthful and reasonable,” she says, “unpopular decisions will be more uncomplicated for the workforce to swallow, particularly if they recognize your choices are knowledgeable by using your general vision.”

coping with Criticism

Scrutiny comes along with excessive-profile jobs, Cooper says. “My absolute best recommendation is to turn off the Google alert to your name,” she says. you might want to read the negative press after a number of weeks, but most likely now not when you’re within the thick of it. “As long you’re headed towards your authentic North, it will be value it, eventually,” she says.