“If you talk about what used to be, we’re going to be what used to be.”

That’s what Martin Baron, executive editor of the Washington Post, tells his staff.

Last week, the Canadian Journalism Foundation held its last talk of the year at Ryerson University, where the National Post’s Anne Marie Owens interviewed Baron about the Washington Post’s digital transformation. So far, Baron’s plans seemed to have worked. More people accessed the Washington Post’s website in October than The New York Times—and that’s saying something.

Baron’s arrival isn’t the only thing that sparked a move towards digital, though. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post in 2013, giving the paper time and money to experiment with digital products, sparking a series of changes in the Washington Post’s daily operations.

1. Change in the newsroom:

Baron says the Washington Post took a lot of steps to create a digital culture in the newsroom. Some of those were physical, like trying out new seating arrangements in the newsroom; others had a lot more to do with mindset. “Everyone is our competition,” Baron said. That means anything on the web, not just news organizations. Baron says he only spends 10 minutes talking about the newspaper in his daily afternoon meetings; the rest is spent on online content.

But where does all this online content come from?

2. What happens at night:

A group of young journalists spend their nights at the Post every day. From 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., they’re looking for stories in the nooks and crannies of the internet. By the time morning comes, these stories have already been posted, and they often become the basis for a bigger story.

Often, the staff will have found someone who wants to tell their story, but instead of sending a reporter out to cover that story, they’ll work with the writer to edit and vet the story until it’s ready for publication. Then, they’ll slap on a headline like “This is what happened when I drove my Mercedes to pick up food stamps.” Sometimes, those stories lead to deeper investigations. A story from a Bill Cosby accuser, for example, led a team at the Post into a 10-day investigation.

3. Wheels on luggage:

To Baron, none of this is salvation. “I remember when the tablet was supposed to save the industry,” he said. “We need to get past the idea that this one thing is going to save the industry.”

Instead, Baron wants to focus on the “wheels on luggage”. Yes, we’ve put a man on the moon, he says, but we put wheels on luggage—and only one of those things affected people’s experiences. That’s what he wants to do: he wants to focus on the smaller details like the video or graphic that adds a little more to the story. But there’s always resistance and mourning in the newsroom. Resistance to the new stuff and mourning for what’s gone or what could soon be lost.

What’s missing? “Customer or readers?” Owens asks. Baron says he’s gotten flak for using “customers,” but to him, they’re the same.

Throughout the talk, Baron seemed more like a businessman than anything. That’s not necessarily a bad thing; it’s just something to think about.

The little ghosts of Snapchat have been taking over my Twitter feed this last month.

We’ve talked about how Snapchat is being used for a kind of citizen journalism. But not much has been said about how professional journalists and news outlets are using the app—at least not in Canada.

These little white ghosts on my Twitter feed have replaced the logos of news outlets like Huffington Post Canada and CBC Toronto, promoting their Snapchat coverage on Twitter.

Despite the publicity these organizations have given to their Snapchat accounts, they seem to still be experimenting with the tool, and each one of them seems to be using it a little differently.

The Toronto Star, for example, seems to be doing more basic coverage, like snaps of their front cover or notes about the weather.

Screenshots from the Toronto Star’s Snapchat on October 28.

On the other hand, Global News has taken to posting their headlines in a lighthearted style. Instead of images, they use more emojis. They also ask direct followers to go to their website for more on a specific story.

Screenshots from Global News’ Snapchat on October 28.

Still, more dramatically different are the posts Canadian Press reporter David Friend used to cover the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). The coverage was much more personal and more in the style of something you would see on a video blog. Most of the snaps involve Friend talking to the camera about his day at TIFF, creating a relationship between Friend and the viewers that is not the stiff one of reporter to audience. For example, throughout the coverage, Friend mentions that he’s not interested in certain parties or that he was hardly able to keep his eyes open on the last day.

CBC Toronto is another outlet that’s been experimenting with Snapchat. Associate producer Nicole Brockbank says that one way they’ve used Snapchat is to cover Blue Jays games. A reporter went to the game and took videos and pictures of big moments. The reporter also used Snapchat to take casual streeters of people at the game. In that way, Snapchat seems to be useful for providing the experience of a specific moment or mood that the audience isn’t there to see. In fact, Huffington Post Canada covered a Raptors game the very same way.

Brockbank says that the CBC Toronto digital team is trying out the medium in different ways, but that ultimately, whatever reporters do with Snapchat, they would likely use it to stitch a narrative together.

It’s clear that Canadian media is toying with Snapchat, but it’s still unclear how big of a role it will play in future coverage. Brockbank says that she sees potential in using Snapchat to cover news in the field at some point in the future. The reporter would be on scene, take a couple of shots and provide an update on camera. But as always, time would be a factor. Would a reporter have time to cover a scene with all the existing methods as well as Snapchat?

So far, Snapchat doesn’t seem to be a place to cover every type of story, but the stories that do get covered there are being presented in a different context that’s often more lighthearted, personal and about the moment.