Breaking news has been our way into journalism, reporting from Norway and internationally. A few years ago, we both got new jobs at the same time: one of us as head of breaking news and the other as head of crime and health coverage. We recognised a need to elevate the status and skill level of breaking news coverage among journalists and newsroom leaders.

Most journalists start their careers working on breaking news, but many told us they felt rusty after years of working on other topics. We also noticed that some leaders were uncertain about how to manage a major event like a big crime story or a natural disaster. The result was that when breaking news hit, it was often the same leaders and journalists who stepped up. We needed to change this culture.

Creating change

We started mandatory boot camps in breaking news journalism for both reporters and leaders. We asked our most experienced breaking news journalists to share their best methods. Our custom-built education program comes with checklists, call lists, and lots of good advice on fieldwork, whether you are covering a homicide, a storm, or a shipwreck.

The education is continuously updated, and journalists and managers get an automatic message to read up on it when major events occur. All new employees must go through it.

We also introduced debriefing as a mandatory task after working on potentially traumatic incidents, and we implemented evaluations according to a set template after every major event.

Revisiting breaking news

The importance of breaking news has been emphasised in newsroom evaluations and is part of BT’s overall strategy, supported by data. We have fostered a culture of shared resources across teams. Additionally, all journalists rotate through the news desk, boosting their skill set. These efforts have contributed to the culture change we set out to achieve.

In breaking news events, users need more than just the latest update. We use our own data, reader inquiries, and Google trends to find the questions our readers need us to answer. This helps us create more explanatory journalism within breaking news.

When Hanne took over BT’s data journalism team, breaking news was still a passion project. They dedicated the next year to answering these questions: How can we make the job easier, both for journalists and leaders? And how can we deliver a better breaking news product to our readers?

The bot that changed everything

As a result, data journalist Anders Grimsrud Eriksen created the “BreakingBot,” which has changed our workflow radically.

A simple keystroke in Slack initiates an incident, creating a dedicated Slack channel and Google folder and inviting relevant individuals. Journalists link events to locations effortlessly, whereupon the bot compiles property owner information for the address and crafts a ready-to-publish map. It auto-publishes tailored checklists for journalists, controlling information flow. Leveraging Schibsted’s AI tool, it automates interview summaries.

This bot is used for all incidents and is now being further developed with Schibsted colleagues. We are not aware of any similar bots in the media world today.

Our data journalists have also developed various widgets, combining external data and our data receivers in the field. Widgets display information about floods, closed mountain roads, the position of rescue helicopters, or wind speeds. In addition, monitors alert the newsroom of various urgent information.

Driving subscriptions

Being informed about what is happening is still a crucial need for our users and one of the biggest drivers for recruiting younger audiences.

In 2023, BT reached an all-time high in our key engagement metric: daily active subscribers. This success was substantially driven by breaking events such as elections, storms, fires, and major traffic incidents.

The growth continues in 2024, with large breaking news events resulting in new engagement records with the help of the whole organisation.

Five years ago, if someone had told us what our newsroom looks like today, we might not have believed what we saw: a bot that automatically creates maps and transcribes. Updates on lightning and power outages in real-time in the articles. An editorial team where journalists can rest after long shifts while colleagues take over and where leaders are ready to step in for each other.

Together with our colleagues, we at BT have changed our breaking culture with the help of data, competence enhancement, and new tools, creating a more sustainable editorial team — while providing readers with news faster, more clearly, and tailored to their needs.

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