I just got back from speaking to San Jose State University’s journalism faculty. They are seeing huge changes happening to the journalism industry. Knight Ridder, for instance, is up for sale (that company’s headquarters are a few blocks from the school). They are seeing massive changes to advertising, circulation, and news gathering techniques.
So, I came in and showed them things like Memeorandum, Digg, WordPress, Channel 9, Community Server, ZVents, and had an open and frank discussion about what the journalism world is going to look like in five years.
They are making sizeable changes to their curriculum in response to these changes. They asked me what I’d do. I said I’d merge the radio/TV/newspaper classes and programs together. I showed them Eric Rice’s blog. He writes, does podcasts, and does video blogs. That’s the prototype of the new journalist. Then I said I’d partner with the computer science department. Why? Cause journalism students need to know how to work with geeks to build new media properties. If a journalist doesn’t know what RSS, OPML, CSS, is how can they expect to get a job at, say, the BBC where there’s already RSS feeds on their home page?
There’s lots of market for people who create content, I said. It’s just that you’re more likely to work for a guy like Craig Newmark than working for a newspaper brand.
If you were teaching tomorrow’s journalists, what would you be teaching them?
Update: Steve Sloan recorded the session and put a picture and a report on his blog here. Student Ryan Sholin reports on the meeting here.
Scobleizer 
I disagree that a journalist should know CSS, for instance, in order to get a job at BBC. That’s like saying a TV reporter should be able to repair a video camera, or a web designer should be able to hand-code his HTML, or a NY Times columnist be able to run the press. I know first-hand the dangers of spreading oneself too thin.
Let the journalists do what they do best. And hire the tech geeks to break trail on the tech. The journalist should be able to click a “publish” button and not worry about the back end. I’m generalizing here, but you get the idea.
What would I teach journalists? Mostly the same things they should have been taught in the past, but apparently weren’t and still aren’t. Things like how to differentiate between opinion and fact — how’s that for a wacky concept?
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I disagree that a journalist should know CSS, for instance, in order to get a job at BBC. That’s like saying a TV reporter should be able to repair a video camera, or a web designer should be able to hand-code his HTML, or a NY Times columnist be able to run the press. I know first-hand the dangers of spreading oneself too thin.
Let the journalists do what they do best. And hire the tech geeks to break trail on the tech. The journalist should be able to click a “publish” button and not worry about the back end. I’m generalizing here, but you get the idea.
What would I teach journalists? Mostly the same things they should have been taught in the past, but apparently weren’t and still aren’t. Things like how to differentiate between opinion and fact — how’s that for a wacky concept?
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I am IST major at Penn State and I work with the Daily Collegian on their website. Right now we’re working on some big changes to the system and we hope to eventually put together a dedicated web department.
I am pretty impressed with how seriously some of the people in the news division take the Internet. Many feel that they need to make this move now so they’ll be ready for the future.
Unfortuately the web presents a buisness threat. If more students read the website (which has sold considerably less adverstising) than the paper, they will have serious problems. They are really interested in establishing online advertising before make major changes to the site.
Anyway, thought this was neat to see someone else in the IT industry looking at journalism.
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I am IST major at Penn State and I work with the Daily Collegian on their website. Right now we’re working on some big changes to the system and we hope to eventually put together a dedicated web department.
I am pretty impressed with how seriously some of the people in the news division take the Internet. Many feel that they need to make this move now so they’ll be ready for the future.
Unfortuately the web presents a buisness threat. If more students read the website (which has sold considerably less adverstising) than the paper, they will have serious problems. They are really interested in establishing online advertising before make major changes to the site.
Anyway, thought this was neat to see someone else in the IT industry looking at journalism.
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Yeah, I’d say keep journalism and computer science separate. Besides that the actual role of paid journalists is not going to change (find news, report it), “computer science” wouldn’t really be the right thing to merge with. Comp Sci is most universities is literally just that, the scientific part of computers. It’s the theory. Do they teach you how to build applications or web pages? Nope.
Technical schools and two year degrees differentiate from that. They prepare you for actual jobs, while a Comp Sci major is basically just prepared to teach Comp Sci as well as have some incredibly boring conversations.
I may sound negative, but I’ve been doing web work for a few years now and my four years of Comp Sci taught me almost nothing that I use today. To put journalists through similar classes would be even worse.
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Yeah, I’d say keep journalism and computer science separate. Besides that the actual role of paid journalists is not going to change (find news, report it), “computer science” wouldn’t really be the right thing to merge with. Comp Sci is most universities is literally just that, the scientific part of computers. It’s the theory. Do they teach you how to build applications or web pages? Nope.
Technical schools and two year degrees differentiate from that. They prepare you for actual jobs, while a Comp Sci major is basically just prepared to teach Comp Sci as well as have some incredibly boring conversations.
I may sound negative, but I’ve been doing web work for a few years now and my four years of Comp Sci taught me almost nothing that I use today. To put journalists through similar classes would be even worse.
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I don’t think journalists should be required to know (nor do they need to know) about CSS, RSS, or OPML. If a journalist wants to be successful in the future they will need to have a web presence, however, the web dev community should be providing them with tools that make it possible for them to do so with out knowing specifically about the underlying technology. However, in the meantime I think journalism programs should teach “blogging” or “internet news” or something, in which journalists should learn about linking (I’m still suprised how many news sites don’t put links in their articles), track backs, ping backs, tagging, etc. These are things that the technologies enable that a classical journalist doesn’t do, however to be effective on the internet you must be able to do these things. You shouldn’t need to know how to set up a RSS server, or tweak you CSS, but you should be able to make use of the tools available. (By the way, all of this stuff isn’t CS its IT /me is a Computer Science elitist :-p).
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I don’t think journalists should be required to know (nor do they need to know) about CSS, RSS, or OPML. If a journalist wants to be successful in the future they will need to have a web presence, however, the web dev community should be providing them with tools that make it possible for them to do so with out knowing specifically about the underlying technology. However, in the meantime I think journalism programs should teach “blogging” or “internet news” or something, in which journalists should learn about linking (I’m still suprised how many news sites don’t put links in their articles), track backs, ping backs, tagging, etc. These are things that the technologies enable that a classical journalist doesn’t do, however to be effective on the internet you must be able to do these things. You shouldn’t need to know how to set up a RSS server, or tweak you CSS, but you should be able to make use of the tools available. (By the way, all of this stuff isn’t CS its IT /me is a Computer Science elitist :-p).
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Sorry to pipe in again, but I just wanted add a little more to the conversation based on my experience at the Collegian. Most journalists do not have to have expert technical knowledge. Many of the journalists at the Collegian are reporters who gather content and deliver it – in this case in the print medium. Other “journalists” handle tasks such as photography, design, editing, and web.
I think the finding your facts and reporting on them is still the basis of journalism education today. But I do think journalists need to be aware of emerging technologies that allow them to report in newer, richer ways. It is that sense they need the technolog eduction. I don’t think they will need to know CSS though. I agree with the previous posts that the technical obstacles are a matter for the technically minded to overcome and make it simpler for the journalists.
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Sorry to pipe in again, but I just wanted add a little more to the conversation based on my experience at the Collegian. Most journalists do not have to have expert technical knowledge. Many of the journalists at the Collegian are reporters who gather content and deliver it – in this case in the print medium. Other “journalists” handle tasks such as photography, design, editing, and web.
I think the finding your facts and reporting on them is still the basis of journalism education today. But I do think journalists need to be aware of emerging technologies that allow them to report in newer, richer ways. It is that sense they need the technolog eduction. I don’t think they will need to know CSS though. I agree with the previous posts that the technical obstacles are a matter for the technically minded to overcome and make it simpler for the journalists.
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I hate to say it, but I don’t think the future of journalism is podcasts and video. Those media can only be consumed at the speed they play. I can’t skim them, I can’t speed read them, I can’t do extremely fast indexes and searches of them (yet), and I can’t copy and paste what I hear/see in them and send it to a friend or co-worker.
I read 2000 stories per day. How likely is it I could listen to 2000 podcasts or 2000 video stories per day?
I’d build a focus around ethics, values, civic responsibility, and story telling. They can use that no matter what they go into later on.
/my 2 cents.
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I hate to say it, but I don’t think the future of journalism is podcasts and video. Those media can only be consumed at the speed they play. I can’t skim them, I can’t speed read them, I can’t do extremely fast indexes and searches of them (yet), and I can’t copy and paste what I hear/see in them and send it to a friend or co-worker.
I read 2000 stories per day. How likely is it I could listen to 2000 podcasts or 2000 video stories per day?
I’d build a focus around ethics, values, civic responsibility, and story telling. They can use that no matter what they go into later on.
/my 2 cents.
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So much narrowly-focused off-the-mark hubris here, but then I have come to expect that from this blog.
Do broadcasters need to be mechanical electronics experts? Do programmers need to become Reporters? Focus on the story and the editing, leave the mechanics and the content management to the hired minders.
And pure journalism isn’t something that can really be taught, it’s a vocational art. So how to teach Journalism? Teach them how to write, the basics of English, Ethics, Research methods, all the grammar rules, and when to break them; as nothing more bone-dry than some of that picture-perfect academia MLS writing.
Journalism is but the first draft of history, it’s just storytelling. How to get a job at the BBC? Tell a great interesting story (on deadline). Simple as that.
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So much narrowly-focused off-the-mark hubris here, but then I have come to expect that from this blog.
Do broadcasters need to be mechanical electronics experts? Do programmers need to become Reporters? Focus on the story and the editing, leave the mechanics and the content management to the hired minders.
And pure journalism isn’t something that can really be taught, it’s a vocational art. So how to teach Journalism? Teach them how to write, the basics of English, Ethics, Research methods, all the grammar rules, and when to break them; as nothing more bone-dry than some of that picture-perfect academia MLS writing.
Journalism is but the first draft of history, it’s just storytelling. How to get a job at the BBC? Tell a great interesting story (on deadline). Simple as that.
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2000 stories a day.
That’s one story every 43 seconds going non-stop all day. However, you have a point, video and audio are currently far less flexible than text. However, everywhere you said “I can’t” replace it with “What if I could” that’s the world every developer with a little vision and I live in (when we’re not being sapped dry by evil corporations). Audio and video may not be ready for prime time yet, but hopefully it will be, and sooner rather than later.
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2000 stories a day.
That’s one story every 43 seconds going non-stop all day. However, you have a point, video and audio are currently far less flexible than text. However, everywhere you said “I can’t” replace it with “What if I could” that’s the world every developer with a little vision and I live in (when we’re not being sapped dry by evil corporations). Audio and video may not be ready for prime time yet, but hopefully it will be, and sooner rather than later.
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Sorry, you guys are all completely nuts. Why do I say that? I had lunch with Donald Graham, chairman of the Washington Post Company when I was at Google. I also talked with Martin Nisenholtz, CEO of New York Times. They both said they were going hard-core into online and that they needed a new kind of journalist: one that — at minimum — work with geeks.
Here’s an example: a journalist of the future will need to capture audio, video AND help make Flash animations to explain their stories.
Another example? There aren’t any journalism jobs. Circulation is going down every year (and will continue to do so, I wonder if my son will even read a paper at all in his lifetime) and advertising revenues are going way down as the advertising moves online.
Communicating online (and getting traffic) requires different skills. Even on my blog I need to understand a little HTML to communicate effectively.
And what about news packages like the Katrina Flyover site that are mashups? http://msnbc.msn.com/apps/ve/katrina.htm?a=1/
Those are created by journalists who understand visual design and understand how to work with geeks.
Finally, the world is increasingly technical. How can you write about HDTV without having a technology background.
I also never said to “merge” journalism and computer science. I said to get them to cooperate. That’s a huge difference.
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Sorry, you guys are all completely nuts. Why do I say that? I had lunch with Donald Graham, chairman of the Washington Post Company when I was at Google. I also talked with Martin Nisenholtz, CEO of New York Times. They both said they were going hard-core into online and that they needed a new kind of journalist: one that — at minimum — work with geeks.
Here’s an example: a journalist of the future will need to capture audio, video AND help make Flash animations to explain their stories.
Another example? There aren’t any journalism jobs. Circulation is going down every year (and will continue to do so, I wonder if my son will even read a paper at all in his lifetime) and advertising revenues are going way down as the advertising moves online.
Communicating online (and getting traffic) requires different skills. Even on my blog I need to understand a little HTML to communicate effectively.
And what about news packages like the Katrina Flyover site that are mashups? http://msnbc.msn.com/apps/ve/katrina.htm?a=1/
Those are created by journalists who understand visual design and understand how to work with geeks.
Finally, the world is increasingly technical. How can you write about HDTV without having a technology background.
I also never said to “merge” journalism and computer science. I said to get them to cooperate. That’s a huge difference.
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Now that you’re right about. When I started at Poynter, no news sites were using Flash. I introduced hundreds of journalists to Flash and I still see the value in it, not just for infographic designers, but for anyone who wants to tell a story.
I retract a little about what I said above. I think Podcasts might get to be pretty big, but that’s because the majority of online journalism is consumed at work, and while you can get away with reading (most of the time) at work, you would be more productive to consume news through sound. Most places are already okay with people listening to the radio.
But for me, when it comes to getting lots of info quick, I really want it in text form.
It would be nice though if media center edition would scrape closed caption info from videos and let you search it.
You sound more like a Project Manager than an editor though, Robert, and I don’t mean that in a bad way. It would be nice if the whole newsroom knew the capabilities of the tech geeks so they could push them to help tell the story in the way the reporter sees it in their head.
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Now that you’re right about. When I started at Poynter, no news sites were using Flash. I introduced hundreds of journalists to Flash and I still see the value in it, not just for infographic designers, but for anyone who wants to tell a story.
I retract a little about what I said above. I think Podcasts might get to be pretty big, but that’s because the majority of online journalism is consumed at work, and while you can get away with reading (most of the time) at work, you would be more productive to consume news through sound. Most places are already okay with people listening to the radio.
But for me, when it comes to getting lots of info quick, I really want it in text form.
It would be nice though if media center edition would scrape closed caption info from videos and let you search it.
You sound more like a Project Manager than an editor though, Robert, and I don’t mean that in a bad way. It would be nice if the whole newsroom knew the capabilities of the tech geeks so they could push them to help tell the story in the way the reporter sees it in their head.
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When I say 2000 stories a day, it’s not that I read full stories. Most are briefs or headlines or RSS or newsletters that itemize stories, Google alerts, emails from friends, feeds, Google News, etc…
But I can consume that much because I can scan very quickly and get an idea of what is there. I read really really fast. I can’t listen to podcasts really fast unless I pay very close attention.
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When I say 2000 stories a day, it’s not that I read full stories. Most are briefs or headlines or RSS or newsletters that itemize stories, Google alerts, emails from friends, feeds, Google News, etc…
But I can consume that much because I can scan very quickly and get an idea of what is there. I read really really fast. I can’t listen to podcasts really fast unless I pay very close attention.
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everywhere you said “I can’t” replace it with “What if I could”
What if I could drag across the scrubber in Windows Media Player to copy a snippet of the video I’m watching and paste it into an email to send to a friend.
That would be really cool.
[RIAA clutches collective chest.]
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everywhere you said “I can’t” replace it with “What if I could”
What if I could drag across the scrubber in Windows Media Player to copy a snippet of the video I’m watching and paste it into an email to send to a friend.
That would be really cool.
[RIAA clutches collective chest.]
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Larry: agree with you on the podcast side of things. I want audio occassionally to add “seasoning” to a text article.
Imagine if you couldn’t hear the Hindenberg burning and coming down? Here’s that recording in a RealMedia format: http://www.otr.com/ra/hinden.ram
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Larry: agree with you on the podcast side of things. I want audio occassionally to add “seasoning” to a text article.
Imagine if you couldn’t hear the Hindenberg burning and coming down? Here’s that recording in a RealMedia format: http://www.otr.com/ra/hinden.ram
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I don’t have to know CSS, HTML, RSS, OPML, or anything else to effectively work with a geek. (Perhaps I need to know that a “syndication format” exists, but I don’t need to care what it is.) I need to know enough to say “I want this content on that web page looking like this. What tools do I use?” It’s up to the geek, who take the content of my article out of a database, to actually get it on the web.
It may be true that in the journalist role at some point in the future I would be making flash animations or whatever, but the tools to develop those are a far cry from deeply understanding the RSS “spec”.
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I don’t have to know CSS, HTML, RSS, OPML, or anything else to effectively work with a geek. (Perhaps I need to know that a “syndication format” exists, but I don’t need to care what it is.) I need to know enough to say “I want this content on that web page looking like this. What tools do I use?” It’s up to the geek, who take the content of my article out of a database, to actually get it on the web.
It may be true that in the journalist role at some point in the future I would be making flash animations or whatever, but the tools to develop those are a far cry from deeply understanding the RSS “spec”.
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Bill: I’m not saying they need to know the spec. I’m saying they need to understand the usage model and understand it exists. Imagine you were interviewing with the BBC. I know folks over there. They certainly will ask how you are using RSS if you are a journalist. If you don’t know at least one RSS search engine and one aggregator, do you think you’ll get the job? I don’t.
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Bill: I’m not saying they need to know the spec. I’m saying they need to understand the usage model and understand it exists. Imagine you were interviewing with the BBC. I know folks over there. They certainly will ask how you are using RSS if you are a journalist. If you don’t know at least one RSS search engine and one aggregator, do you think you’ll get the job? I don’t.
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The School of Journalism at KU restructured the school in just such a way that Robert is proposing. Trust me, it works. Also, the local newspaper in Lawrence, KS has done the same thing.
Check out the j-school ehub.
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The School of Journalism at KU restructured the school in just such a way that Robert is proposing. Trust me, it works. Also, the local newspaper in Lawrence, KS has done the same thing.
Check out the j-school ehub.
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Geeesus, every problem is a nail, eh? Amazing navel gazing. And if you haven’t learnt by now, those that show up at the geek-circle-jerking-waterholes, adapt the story to fit the audience. Reality, as it always is, be vastly differing.
I personally know a Pulitzer Prize winning jounro (now freelance), he don’t know a darned thing about RSS/HTML/OPML, nor does he really care one-single-microscopic-iota. Will he get hired? And stuff like Investigative, Explanatory, Beat, National, International, Feature Writing, Commentary, Criticism, Editorial Writing, where does ‘knowledge of syndicational formats’ come in? Maybe if that is your beat. But say someone covering Education or Health Care, being the best beat reporter ever, you mean you’d pass them up if they didn’t know about RSS feeds? If they can write, research (and maybe know Nexis), about all you need. The medium is NOT the message. The message can come in many forms, and journalism does need to adapt to meet the needs of the market, but that’s happening already. Podcasts won’t replace Radio, and the Net won’t replace Magazines, TV or Newspapers, they will just adapt and move on.
There aren’t any journalism jobs? Dead wrong.
http://journalismjobs.com/Search_Jobs_all.cfm
I agree with Larry tho, and with me, 2000 stories is just before lunch, retaining all that well, no, but I can get a sense of the pulse. Drudge (well he has help) but I bet he’s Master of the Universe there. Hey Drudge, hire me. 😉
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Geeesus, every problem is a nail, eh? Amazing navel gazing. And if you haven’t learnt by now, those that show up at the geek-circle-jerking-waterholes, adapt the story to fit the audience. Reality, as it always is, be vastly differing.
I personally know a Pulitzer Prize winning jounro (now freelance), he don’t know a darned thing about RSS/HTML/OPML, nor does he really care one-single-microscopic-iota. Will he get hired? And stuff like Investigative, Explanatory, Beat, National, International, Feature Writing, Commentary, Criticism, Editorial Writing, where does ‘knowledge of syndicational formats’ come in? Maybe if that is your beat. But say someone covering Education or Health Care, being the best beat reporter ever, you mean you’d pass them up if they didn’t know about RSS feeds? If they can write, research (and maybe know Nexis), about all you need. The medium is NOT the message. The message can come in many forms, and journalism does need to adapt to meet the needs of the market, but that’s happening already. Podcasts won’t replace Radio, and the Net won’t replace Magazines, TV or Newspapers, they will just adapt and move on.
There aren’t any journalism jobs? Dead wrong.
http://journalismjobs.com/Search_Jobs_all.cfm
I agree with Larry tho, and with me, 2000 stories is just before lunch, retaining all that well, no, but I can get a sense of the pulse. Drudge (well he has help) but I bet he’s Master of the Universe there. Hey Drudge, hire me. 😉
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Christopher: I’m talking about college kids. How many of them are gonna get hired into this system? Not many. And, let’s say you have two people competiting for a job. They both have pretty equal skills. But you ask them both “what feeds you watch in this field?” One gives you five answers, the other says “what’s a feed?”
Which one are you going to hire?
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Christopher: I’m talking about college kids. How many of them are gonna get hired into this system? Not many. And, let’s say you have two people competiting for a job. They both have pretty equal skills. But you ask them both “what feeds you watch in this field?” One gives you five answers, the other says “what’s a feed?”
Which one are you going to hire?
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Well any Media Company should best keep you away from the HR Dept. An army of spoon-fed feed watchers that nary do any real reporting.
First off it is a myth to say that people have “pretty equal skills”, always one factor or another, even personality and relational factors have a play. The judgement weight of a freshly-minted college-kid is not how well he knows of the latest techie trends or buzzwords, but how well he can write and how resourceful he is, to you that is reduced to a knowledge of feeds — fine and dandy if you are the Hiring Manager, you set the criteria. But a grand leap of faith, to say that feeds are a requirement for journalists. The range of informational resources are many, not all of them are hand-delivered into your feed box. You can’t boil it down to that single question.
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Well any Media Company should best keep you away from the HR Dept. An army of spoon-fed feed watchers that nary do any real reporting.
First off it is a myth to say that people have “pretty equal skills”, always one factor or another, even personality and relational factors have a play. The judgement weight of a freshly-minted college-kid is not how well he knows of the latest techie trends or buzzwords, but how well he can write and how resourceful he is, to you that is reduced to a knowledge of feeds — fine and dandy if you are the Hiring Manager, you set the criteria. But a grand leap of faith, to say that feeds are a requirement for journalists. The range of informational resources are many, not all of them are hand-delivered into your feed box. You can’t boil it down to that single question.
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Of course not, but you’re not understanding me. That’s cool, you’re my snark. 😉
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Of course not, but you’re not understanding me. That’s cool, you’re my snark. 😉
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But saying a jurno doesn’t need to know about RSS, OPML, HTML is like saying they don’t need to know about TV Radio or Newspapers.
This is how *we* the readers consume their news.
Don’t you get it? Scoble does.
I don’t think he’s saying all jurno’s should ‘learn OO design’ I think he’s saying ‘learn a bit about new media distribution’
monk.e.boy
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But saying a jurno doesn’t need to know about RSS, OPML, HTML is like saying they don’t need to know about TV Radio or Newspapers.
This is how *we* the readers consume their news.
Don’t you get it? Scoble does.
I don’t think he’s saying all jurno’s should ‘learn OO design’ I think he’s saying ‘learn a bit about new media distribution’
monk.e.boy
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Monk.e.boy, exactly!
Here, I was just emailed this “memo from the future” which was written by a journalist who works at the Des Moines Register:
+++++++++++++++++++
From KEN FUSON: Subject: Memo of the future.
Colleagues:
As you are aware, these are troubling times in our industry and at our newspaper. Energy prices are soaring, health care costs are rising, and yesterday’s announcement that Google has figured out a way to wrap fish over the Internet had made it increasingly difficult for us to maintain our 30 percent profit margin and keep Wall Street happy.
Therefore, it is with great sadness that I, your editor, announce the layoff of 159 people in our newsroom. These people will be offered a generous severance package, featuring a fabulous retirement cake, our hearty thanks for their many years of toil, and 10 percent off their newspaper subscription.
But we must look ahead. The layoffs will leave us with one full-time reporter, Billy Reston, who just graduated from Lincoln High School and says he is healthy enough not to require medical insurance. Billy’s job responsibilities will be split among reporting, editing, photography, and keeping our Web page updated every 30 seconds.
Billy’s younger brother, Bobby, will handle newspaper deliveries on his bicycle. Billy will be responsible for paying him and handling all liability insurance.
This decision will have absolutely no impact on the quality of the newspaper our cherished readers will receive. I have it on good authority, from studying the memos of other editors throughout the country, that it doesn’t matter how many people you lay off or buy out, or how many years of experience they have, quality always remains at the same extraordinarily high, prize-winning level. (FYI: Billy will also devote roughly 75 percent of his weekends to entering contests. Bobby will lick the stamps.)
Our operating committee is holding an emergency retreat this weekend in Paris (great travel deals since the troubles!) to discuss future strategies. Please keep in mind that we will always work in the best interests of our shareholders, advertisers, readers and employees — well, employee.
Regards,
Your Editor
P.S. We could use some volunteers to conduct the United Way campaign. Billy?
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Monk.e.boy, exactly!
Here, I was just emailed this “memo from the future” which was written by a journalist who works at the Des Moines Register:
+++++++++++++++++++
From KEN FUSON: Subject: Memo of the future.
Colleagues:
As you are aware, these are troubling times in our industry and at our newspaper. Energy prices are soaring, health care costs are rising, and yesterday’s announcement that Google has figured out a way to wrap fish over the Internet had made it increasingly difficult for us to maintain our 30 percent profit margin and keep Wall Street happy.
Therefore, it is with great sadness that I, your editor, announce the layoff of 159 people in our newsroom. These people will be offered a generous severance package, featuring a fabulous retirement cake, our hearty thanks for their many years of toil, and 10 percent off their newspaper subscription.
But we must look ahead. The layoffs will leave us with one full-time reporter, Billy Reston, who just graduated from Lincoln High School and says he is healthy enough not to require medical insurance. Billy’s job responsibilities will be split among reporting, editing, photography, and keeping our Web page updated every 30 seconds.
Billy’s younger brother, Bobby, will handle newspaper deliveries on his bicycle. Billy will be responsible for paying him and handling all liability insurance.
This decision will have absolutely no impact on the quality of the newspaper our cherished readers will receive. I have it on good authority, from studying the memos of other editors throughout the country, that it doesn’t matter how many people you lay off or buy out, or how many years of experience they have, quality always remains at the same extraordinarily high, prize-winning level. (FYI: Billy will also devote roughly 75 percent of his weekends to entering contests. Bobby will lick the stamps.)
Our operating committee is holding an emergency retreat this weekend in Paris (great travel deals since the troubles!) to discuss future strategies. Please keep in mind that we will always work in the best interests of our shareholders, advertisers, readers and employees — well, employee.
Regards,
Your Editor
P.S. We could use some volunteers to conduct the United Way campaign. Billy?
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Orlando Sentinel lays off journalists: http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001523361
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Orlando Sentinel lays off journalists: http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001523361
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I agree with your views on the podcast, I am also pleased this conversation was available in audio format, as I can capture additional information (from a person’s tone of voice).
I haven’t read all the above comments, but I think everyone should be open minded to learn new things, they won’t know unless they try.
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I agree with your views on the podcast, I am also pleased this conversation was available in audio format, as I can capture additional information (from a person’s tone of voice).
I haven’t read all the above comments, but I think everyone should be open minded to learn new things, they won’t know unless they try.
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“I hate to say it, but I don’t think the future of journalism is podcasts and video. Those media can only be consumed at the speed they play. I can’t skim them, I can’t speed read them, I can’t do extremely fast indexes and searches of them (yet)”
That technologiy is coming. In fact, it’s already available, but nobody knows it yet.
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“I hate to say it, but I don’t think the future of journalism is podcasts and video. Those media can only be consumed at the speed they play. I can’t skim them, I can’t speed read them, I can’t do extremely fast indexes and searches of them (yet)”
That technologiy is coming. In fact, it’s already available, but nobody knows it yet.
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Why does every argument with bloggers always end with ‘you just don’t get it’? After John’s casing of that classic cultic line, you’d think they’d of have gotten a new catch-phrase but no, it’s always, “you just don’t get it”. Yeah, I sure don’t.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,91590,00.asp
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Why does every argument with bloggers always end with ‘you just don’t get it’? After John’s casing of that classic cultic line, you’d think they’d of have gotten a new catch-phrase but no, it’s always, “you just don’t get it”. Yeah, I sure don’t.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,91590,00.asp
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Hi everyone – I was the student in the room. To be fair, I’m a graduate student, and it’s hard to figure out what undergraduates know and what they don’t. Nevertheless, I’ve taken the classes, I’ve worked on the website for the school newspaper, and I’m part of a small team that’s working on creating and serving multimedia and other new-school content online.
I can tell you firsthand that recruiters are looking for students with Web skills. Upon looking at my resume where I claim to be some sort of multimedia guru, one recruiter asked “Do you know Flash?” I answered that I would by the time any internship would start in the summer. He told me to go ahead and put it down on my resume if I applied for the internship, because the large California-based newspaper conglomerate he works for had already trained 14 reporters to use Flash, and they were training 14 more this winter.
Another bigger-but-struggling newspaper conglomerate recruiter explained to me that their newsroom and their Web people barely communicate at all. The online versions of ALL their papers are run on the same template so the national advertising fits in the same place. They can’t get local breaking news up quickly on the Web site for their paper unless it ends up in an AP feed. They desperately need someone who can bridge that gap between the newsroom and the online publishers.
In fact, yet another recruiter from a Bay Area paper told me that her company had just created such a position — a “bridge desk” — so they could have more interaction between Web site and newsroom.
What I’ve been trying to figure out is what undergraduates need to know in order to compete and succeed in this market.
Here’s my take: journalism students don’t need to know code; they need to know the Web. Photojournalists need to know what Flickr is, and reporters need to be using a feed reader. Broadcast students should be listening to podcasts. PR students should be reading business blogs, and Advertising students should be learning about Google AdSense and other context-based advertising systems.
Editors, on the other hand, in each and every medium the J-School teaches, need to know how to post content on the Web — and not just by shoveling stories and photos into a content management system.
Editors need to know how to bring together all the elements, they need to know how to add functionality to an online news site that creates a community, and they need to understand that a different medium requires a different type of communication.
In an RSS-based Daily Me mediasphere where the newspaper is exploded into its parts and then reassembled and mashed up as the user chooses, the online news sites that thrive will be the ones that create a community.
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Hi everyone – I was the student in the room. To be fair, I’m a graduate student, and it’s hard to figure out what undergraduates know and what they don’t. Nevertheless, I’ve taken the classes, I’ve worked on the website for the school newspaper, and I’m part of a small team that’s working on creating and serving multimedia and other new-school content online.
I can tell you firsthand that recruiters are looking for students with Web skills. Upon looking at my resume where I claim to be some sort of multimedia guru, one recruiter asked “Do you know Flash?” I answered that I would by the time any internship would start in the summer. He told me to go ahead and put it down on my resume if I applied for the internship, because the large California-based newspaper conglomerate he works for had already trained 14 reporters to use Flash, and they were training 14 more this winter.
Another bigger-but-struggling newspaper conglomerate recruiter explained to me that their newsroom and their Web people barely communicate at all. The online versions of ALL their papers are run on the same template so the national advertising fits in the same place. They can’t get local breaking news up quickly on the Web site for their paper unless it ends up in an AP feed. They desperately need someone who can bridge that gap between the newsroom and the online publishers.
In fact, yet another recruiter from a Bay Area paper told me that her company had just created such a position — a “bridge desk” — so they could have more interaction between Web site and newsroom.
What I’ve been trying to figure out is what undergraduates need to know in order to compete and succeed in this market.
Here’s my take: journalism students don’t need to know code; they need to know the Web. Photojournalists need to know what Flickr is, and reporters need to be using a feed reader. Broadcast students should be listening to podcasts. PR students should be reading business blogs, and Advertising students should be learning about Google AdSense and other context-based advertising systems.
Editors, on the other hand, in each and every medium the J-School teaches, need to know how to post content on the Web — and not just by shoveling stories and photos into a content management system.
Editors need to know how to bring together all the elements, they need to know how to add functionality to an online news site that creates a community, and they need to understand that a different medium requires a different type of communication.
In an RSS-based Daily Me mediasphere where the newspaper is exploded into its parts and then reassembled and mashed up as the user chooses, the online news sites that thrive will be the ones that create a community.
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