As video, audio, and social increasingly intertwine with one another, keeping these departments separate no longer made sense for Germany’s Der Spiegel.

So, in April 2025, the news company merged those departments to form the Crossmedia Unit. During this week’s Webinar, presented by the INMA Young Audiences Initiative, Aleksandra Janevska, the unit’s deputy lead, offered a detailed look inside the ambitious newsroom restructuring.

The motivation behind the merger was “pretty simple,” she said: “You cannot treat audio, video, and social as separate worlds anymore. You have to think of them together.”

With platforms increasingly prioritising video — not only social networks but also podcast platforms — Der Spiegel recognised its previous structure no longer served its needs. Three separate teams meant duplicated workflows, inconsistent priorities, and missed opportunities to reach younger audiences.

The Crossmedia Unit was designed to solve that. It brings together roughly 60 people, organised not by medium but by production speed and storytelling purpose. Three heads of department and three deputy heads oversee operations, and instead of having separate video, audio, and social units,

Crossmedia established three pillars, each with its own production rhythm and editorial purpose.

1. News and daily coverage: This is the fastest‑moving pillar, and the one Janevska oversees directly. It handles:

• Breaking news.
• Daily news videos for Spiegel.de, homepage, and app.
• All daily social posts.
• Rapid‑response coverage on weekends and evenings.

The structure ensures team members always have a deputy available for approvals, questions, and quick decisions. The goal is to guarantee that “someone who’s involved in the day‑to‑day approvals is available” when news breaks, Janevska said.

A major innovation in this pillar was the launch of a vertical video player on Spiegel.de in late 2025. All news videos — including quick analysis clips from correspondents — are now produced vertical‑first.

This shift dramatically improved efficiency: “It saves us a ton of time day‑to‑day because in a fast‑moving news situation, we can react quickly across all platforms.”

2. Storytelling: This pillar handles long‑form, high‑impact journalism, including:

• Major investigations.
• Long‑form video.
• Social storytelling packages.
• Podcasts and mini‑series.

The biggest cultural shift here is early involvement, something new to the organisation and “not always easy,” Janevska said.  

“Der Spiegel is still a fairly traditional media house [where] the written word carries a lot of weight. There are a lot of complex investigations, they have to be fact-checked, et cetera,” she explained.

The Crossmedia Unit has pushed to be included from the brainstorming stage so they can ask key questions, such as what does the story need to reach a younger audience? Does it need a video? Could it become a podcast episode or even a miniseries?

This approach was used in the investigation into the Giselle Pelicot case, where the team produced multiple formats to reach younger audiences.

3. Talks: The third pillar focuses on conversational formats, including:

• A weekly podcast hosted by journalist Juan Moreno.
• Video talk shows with in‑house experts and political guests.
• YouTube‑first interview formats.

Until recently, this pillar also included Shortcut, a daily video podcast aimed at younger audiences. After two years, Der Spiegel discontinued it — a hard decision, she said, but a necessary one. The workload was enormous, and the numbers didn’t justify continuing it.

However, Janevska said they learned many lessons from it that will inform some of their future projects and decisions.

Improved collaboration and efficiency

One of the most significant outcomes of the changes is how it transformed Der Spiegel’s internal culture.

For starters, Janevska said, “We are a bigger team now that carries much more weight. So people notice us, and we created a much higher level of awareness across the company that storytelling across different platforms is incredibly important.”

Der Spiegel’s correspondents and reporters are increasingly appearing on camera or behind microphones. Many enjoy it — and some are becoming creators in their own right.

There’s also a new focus on shared skills and cross‑training. By bringing together former video, audio, and social specialists, Der Spiegel created an environment where people learn from one another. A video editor might pick up Photoshop skills; a social producer might learn audio editing. This flexibility makes the team more resilient and more creative.

“So we have real change, we have a real merger,” Janevska said. “We are learning a lot from each other, and this is also on the positive side of this change in our big unit right now.”

And, because the pillars are organised by production speed not medium, the team can respond quickly to breaking news while also dedicating time to long‑form projects. The vertical video player is a prime example of how workflow changes can unlock speed without sacrificing quality. 

Overcoming challenges and looking to the future

The merger brought a new set of challenges, and Janevska emphasised the biggest hurdle was cultural, not technical.

Der Spiegel’s investigative teams are used to working privately and cautiously, especially on sensitive stories. Convincing them to involve the Crossmedia Unit early required trust‑building, repeated conversations, and concrete examples of how multi‑platform storytelling could enhance their work.

Another challenge was the sheer amount of communication required. With 60 people and multiple shifts, the team needed time to understand each other’s skills, expectations, and working styles. Janevska described the first months as a period of “getting to know each other” and developing a shared sense of responsibility for the products they create.

“Of course, there’s still room to get better,” Janevska said. “But with the new department, I can also say that we are getting better at trying out more things and also at reacting quicker by saying if something doesn’t work, we see the numbers, we analyse them [and ask] what did we learn and what can we do better next time?”

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