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“The newspaper paradigm is executed in such a way that growth into the new media industry is hampered by lack of resources and funds. However, with the use of a common database subsystem and a minor alteration of newsroom and newspaper development workflow, the execution of a standard print media version of a newspaper, as well as a new media (i.e. Internet) version of a newspaper could be seamless and indistinguishable from each other.”

And this makes me sad.

And more from this same essay:

“Evolution of Work Flow

When the Register on the Web was first created, the workflow was extremely simple. An online editor, technical director and an online assistant constituded the web team, so task delegation and work flow management was simplistic, as it only involved three people.

After the departure of The online editor, Val Cohen had responsibility for content and development of the site. In June of 1996, Nan Bisher was given the position of Deputy Editor, New Media.

Bisher, from then on was responsible for the task management of our web site. In addition, the web team received additional members, Mark Uyemura from the newsroom and Reuben Guerrero, Kirk Williams, Dawn Kusick, Ginger Neal, Tracy Williams and Lelani Blumer from Ginger Neal’s New Media Marketing Group.

Subsequent to this merger of sorts, the work flow of the web site has become rather convoluted and inefficient. We only have roughly 4 people capable of writing and implementing complete web packages, two people who are capable of implementing CGI scripts and only 4 people capable of uploading data to the web site.

This limitation of resources causes severe bottlenecks in our desired workflow, as the burden of web development is concentrated on only a select group of people. Furthermore, these people are not in the same department, or in the same cost center, causing conflicts of responsibility to arise.

Aside from the New Media division, the entire workflow of the Register is an exercise in redundancy and inefficiency.”