A new structure is just the first step in tackling today’s media challenges

ON SEP 1, The Business Times (BT) started operating with a new organisational structure – breaking away from how the newsroom had worked for many years.

That it went into motion with little drama was because this was no sudden move. A small group of us gathered sometime in 2019, and started thinking how we should reorganise ourselves to grow as a digital product. And over the next 2-3 years, the pandemic notwithstanding, we began putting in the pieces that were needed.

One key piece fell into place in April this year, when BT went live with our new content management system (CMS). In any newsroom, the CMS is a critical operating system where journalists create, collaborate, edit and publish content across various platforms. How a CMS operates often determines the workflows and processes, even mindset, of a newsroom. A CMS may also be ideal for its time, but fall short when demands change. When a CMS becomes less than optimal, so too does the newsroom.