The first year-plus in our new home taught us a lot. The second is well underway, and we're still learning. And occasionally struggling.
It's been two years since students were scarfing down pizza, designing their newsroom, developing a multimedia staff and creating a collaborative Web site.
How’d they do? What happened to all the plans and epiphanies? How did the wedding turn out? As in any new family, there have been successes and failures. Here’s a quick overview of the planning and progress to date.
The Physical Newsroom: Generally SpeakingThe large, open space is wonderful. Specific components could be better. The lighting needs to be improved for broadcasting. We haven't really tested the 
flexibility issue yet, so we don't know if the floor openings to electric outlets and network ports are in the right spots.
For some reason we didn't get tables with wheels. Talk about an oversight. But, there is an open environment where students can – and do -- communicate. Most students say they like the space, although Kristen Russo, who served as the first Web editor last year, found it “too corporate.” The room didn't “feel homey like the old newsroom did," she said. But, she added that as far as getting work done, "it’s a more practical space.”
The Physical Newsroom: Configuration
The Task Force and media advisers put a lot of thought into how the room should be organized, i.e., who should sit where. At least eight possible configurations were sketched out. None of them, however, encouraged real convergence because the Web site was never planned as the focal point of the newsroom, literally or figuratively, and the organization relied too heavily on the departmentalization of a newspaper.
On the right side of the room was a copy desk, a design area and a features area. On the left side of the newsroom was a Web desk and sports. Four four-desk pods for reporters were placed throughout the room. Tucked away in a corner on the left side was a place for broadcast interviews and standups. Dominating the middle of the room was the Assignment Desk, and multimedia (photo and video) area. There was no distinct area set aside for the television staff, and the Web desk was not intergrated into the entire newsroom.
And, as KNN adviser, Sue Zake, notes elsewhere, the Assignment Desk -- a key component for a converged newsroom -- never developed. Nature abhors vacuums, however. So, filling that desk in the center of the room was the TV2 producing staff. The configuration has not changed much from the first year to the second. It probably needs to.
The MultiMedia Mindset
This was a mixed bag. There is no doubt students think more about multimedia and multi-platform journalism than they did two years ago, or even just last year. But, there also is no doubt that there is a long way to go. During the second year of working in the newsroom, top media leaders, especially, seem to be trying hard to settle into "married life." It just seems sometimes as though they know collaboration and convergence are important, but they also want change to somehow occur without altering the status quo, newsroom job descriptions, student salaries or the traditional hierarchy.
VIDEO: Susan Kirkman says the centralized assignment desk hasn’t worked out.
Students from the newspaper staff talk more to students from the television station. And both talk to the small Web staff. On some days, those conversations lead to creative and productive cooperation and content. On other days, the students may say hello to each other. There is no consistency to the mindset yet. After three semesters in the newsroom, it's pretty clear that the multimedia mindset is BE-set by some lingering turf issues, lack of trained bodies, too-busy schedules and indifference.
We sometimes wonder whether the move to real convergence can be led and maintained by busy students who spend a year or two in student media and then graduate or move on to other interests. It’s like having speed bumps in the newsroom. Energy spurt -- screeching halt -- progress -- slow down. It's frustrating for students, advisers and faculty. Consistency and continuity may be issues that confront every university attempting convergence where students truly run the newsroom, as they do at Kent State.
VIDEO: Rory Geraghty says sometimes there needs to be a book on how to bring about convergence.
We do remain optimistic about developing the mindset, however. More importantly, so do the students.
Rory Geraghty, who was on the Task Force and who works on Black Squirrel Radio and the Web site, says, “Everybody is ready and willing to make it happen. It’s really trying to figure out how to do it effectively.”
How true.
more analysis: the web site & the process