The World Editors Forum, part of the World Association of Newspapers, keeps a blog on its website that is updated with the latest news inside the industry and, of course, plenty of editorial opinion. Their latest post, taken on October 4, warns newspapers of integrating into the online world too quickly and rattles off a few points for media outlets to follow in order to achieve a 'measured' integration of its print and online elements.
I read this and quickly became interested. I do not think that the first point - resisting huge job cuts during the integration - can be helped. In many ways, integration will go off like a corporate merger fraught with good hope and bad turns. As the WEF piece said, the integration of both elements inside the UK's Daily Telegraph went off with 133 jobs biting the dust. When any business is streamlined, there is bound to be some that cannot get out of the way of the knife. When editors are in a mad dash to fuse print and online together, that number who cannot survive is going to go up. While I do believe that editors should do a better job of keeping that in mind, which hopefully will keep the number of lost jobs down, I think that a seamless integration without loss of talent cannot be executed.
The second point is something I am much more keen on and that may have a bias to it since I'm a print guy. But I have to think that a print editor, battle-hardened as he or she is, could deal with more heat than an online editor. The blog speaks of online news having to go forward with 'the same rigor and journalistic integrity' of a newspaper outlet. New media is going to expand this business but with every innovation, there lies a chance for the reporter to get lazy. The new enterprise will need someone to lead it with something that isn't an iron fist, but something that won't flinch either.
Finally, the blog contends that both sides need to be taught about the traits and tactics of the other. In other words, the print journalists must be made comfortable with grappling the online element while the Web guys need to be able to adapt to print work. In the end, the differences must be respected but bridged as well. This is exactly what I hope to get out of future course work. As said above, I am a print guy and quite frankly, I'm a bit weirded out at all the advancements in online journalism and how they seemingly change every day. If collegiate teachers can push this line of thinking hard in their classes, the next generation of journalists will have a much better time of flipping between the two worlds.
I read this and quickly became interested. I do not think that the first point - resisting huge job cuts during the integration - can be helped. In many ways, integration will go off like a corporate merger fraught with good hope and bad turns. As the WEF piece said, the integration of both elements inside the UK's Daily Telegraph went off with 133 jobs biting the dust. When any business is streamlined, there is bound to be some that cannot get out of the way of the knife. When editors are in a mad dash to fuse print and online together, that number who cannot survive is going to go up. While I do believe that editors should do a better job of keeping that in mind, which hopefully will keep the number of lost jobs down, I think that a seamless integration without loss of talent cannot be executed.
The second point is something I am much more keen on and that may have a bias to it since I'm a print guy. But I have to think that a print editor, battle-hardened as he or she is, could deal with more heat than an online editor. The blog speaks of online news having to go forward with 'the same rigor and journalistic integrity' of a newspaper outlet. New media is going to expand this business but with every innovation, there lies a chance for the reporter to get lazy. The new enterprise will need someone to lead it with something that isn't an iron fist, but something that won't flinch either.
Finally, the blog contends that both sides need to be taught about the traits and tactics of the other. In other words, the print journalists must be made comfortable with grappling the online element while the Web guys need to be able to adapt to print work. In the end, the differences must be respected but bridged as well. This is exactly what I hope to get out of future course work. As said above, I am a print guy and quite frankly, I'm a bit weirded out at all the advancements in online journalism and how they seemingly change every day. If collegiate teachers can push this line of thinking hard in their classes, the next generation of journalists will have a much better time of flipping between the two worlds.
posted by Chris Estrada at
5:22 AM
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