If you want to generate a glazed look of incomprehension in a audience of journalists, just ask, "How many of you work for an organization that has someone assigned to coordinate knowledge management throughout the company or at least for the newsroom?"  

We're not talking about someone who acquires and coordinates databases, a task typically assigned to news researchers, but rather someone who studies what digital (or potentially digital ) data resources exist within the entire company and how might those be leveraged to generate new or better insights, stories and, possibly, revenue streams.

The first journalism-specific book on the topic came of Stephen Quinn, a professor at Deakin University in Australia.  Quinn's book, "Knowledge Management in the Digital Newsroom," appeared in 2002 and draws examples from many U.S., European and Australian publications. 

Now comes a similar work by a team led by Prof. Guy Berger that studied African newspapers of varying size and sophistication.

What the Newsroom Knows


Author/s: Weza et al.
Date Published: 31/08/2006
File: download (1554.115 KB)

Description: This book tracks the state-of-play in a selection of independent African newspapers, both big and small. It also points the way forward, with explanations of "convergence", "content management", and "enterprise management". In short, it shows what theories and systems of Knowledge Management can offer the African media.
For other titles, see: http://www.highwayafrica.ru.ac.za/publications.cfm

We will be posting a review in coming days, but until then, go to the link above and download a copy for yourself.  The download price is right -- free -- and doing so will save the mailing costs from Grahamstown, South Africa.