Some problems and what I think we can do about them (part 1)

I recently spent a week with a group of (being groomed to be) editors from the British regional press. It was an interesting, inspirational and educational week (for me at least).

I know a lot of what I say below has been said before, but this allows me to start to explore for myself some of the issues involved and, hopefully, to get some reactions as to where I might be wrong or right or somewhere in between.

I learned the following:
On the one hand it seems that everybody understands that there are huge changes happening and that they want in (well perhaps not everybody).

On the other hand there is a huge amount of fear.

• Fear that the (physical) paper will suffer at the hands of the digisphere (everything from the web to mobile).
• Fear that the quality of the stories we tell will be damaged even more by the 24/7 publishing model.
• Fear that it just means more work for the same or even less pay.
• Fear that the kit is not up to standard to do what we ask of it.
• Fear that we are not up to the standard the complicated kit demands of us.
• Fear that the carpet of experience that both managers and journalists have traditionally been able to stand on has been pulled from under them. (this is the one I think is most damaging)

These (quite justified) fears are leading to a crisis of confidence in our news organizations that is both paralyzing and debilitating.

I think I see three levels of intertwined but separate difficulty:

Skills upgrading [this includes both "craft" skills -how to- and "imagination" skills -why to] for journalists.

Structural problems on a managerial level.

Organizational problems on a newsroom level.

Let me start with the skills for journalists: 

As is so often the case there is a huge spread of knowledge about using digital resources, both on the research side (collecting and managing the information) and on the distribution side (publishing in differing digital forms). There are a small number of very advanced users, a larger group of users who have amassed a good degree of competence in specific areas - sites which have addresses and telephone information in individual countries, crime statistics, sports etc. - and a majority with a surprisingly low level of digital literacy.

This is slightly worrying. Journalists have been using the Internet now for almost a decade. The branch perception seems to be that as we have had access to the Internet for so long, then we must be able to use it. Also, the younger generations have grown up with the Internet and therefore know how to use it. Both perceptions are deeply flawed. Just because you grow up in a society where motor cars are prevalent does not make you a driver.

Journalists in general have a shockingly low level of mid-career further education. In times when media organizations are being squeezed on the one hand from owners looking for a higher level of profit and on the other by ever decreasing advertising revenues (due to increased competition from Internet based classified advertising, local start-ups and even local councils amongst others), upgrading the skills level of journalists seems to be one of the last things budgeted for.
This is a very short sighted policy. Unless your workforce is up to speed with the latest advances in your field then you are going to fall behind new players. The skills training that is given is almost always purely operational. And at the moment it is almost entirely how to use the video kit.

This is not good enough. And it answers questions like the one Paul Bradshaw posed recently: "Why didn't a newspaper come up with this idea?" He posted the question on Twitter. The fact that the vast majority of journalists have never heard of Twitter, and a large number of the few who have do not see the journalistic use for it, is answer enough. There needs to be a skills training program that addresses the question "WTF use is [insert subject here] as a journalistic tool?"  This is a much more important question (and gives a much more important set of answers) than "how does xxx technically work?"

We need to have a discussion in our newsrooms amongst our journalists around the changes that are occurring within our industry. Way too many of the changes either taking place or about to take place have occurred over the heads of the journalists. And, perhaps even more importantly, the changes have been couched in technical terms - not journalistic ones. It needs repeating: The changes digitalization is bringing are not technical ones they are journalistic ones. It will demand a new way of thinking or at the very least a renewed and vigorous challenging of current practice.

The latest buzz word is conversation. I am totally convinced that this is correct. We need to engage our readers in a collaborative effort to build stories. The new consumer wants to be a participant in a dialog or a conversation, not the recipient of a monologue.
This is a hugely difficult lesson to learn and an even more difficult lesson to put into practice.The irony is that management don't seem to think it necessary to converse with the journalists who will participate in this conversation.

If the implications of such a discussion are to be taken seriously then the staff - editors, production journalists and journalists - need to be involved in the discussions and to be trained to use the new tools of the trade. From search engines [it is amazing how few people know how to use Google despite the fact that it is their primary source of information -which is a problem in its self] to pod-casting, from databases to collaborative encyclopedias. And to know not only how these tools work but why they are an important piece in the evolving arena they now compete in.

I will have a look at management in the next post.

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[Tim Koster]

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