Management Archive
16 Oct 2013
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Editors: How top newsroom managers get picked
Rick Edmonds writes at Poynter of his surprise that at newspapers, “top editors with a strong digital background remain rare.” I don’t share his surprise — first, because the lack of digital natives in top newsroom jobs has been obvious to many of us; second, because the reasons this is true go beyond whether publishers
11 Oct 2013
Editors seem to forget that news photographers can write, too
I was going to write today about Bill Marimow’s dramatic ouster from the editorship of the Philadelphia Inquirer. But then I came across an item concerning people who are probably much less comfortably situated to cope with job loss than Marimow, and much less likely to have high-powered lawyers suing to bring them back. According
03 Oct 2013
Why news is a fungible commodity, and why that matters
News is a fungible commodity. That is to say: News of the sort provided by daily metro newspapers consists in large part of information that readers can easily replace with similar or identical information obtained elsewhere. This has dire implications for many of the models for saving newspapers. Let’s look at a common counterargument: Newspapers
02 Oct 2013
On Chris Powell, blaming customers, and newspapers’ mission from God
Chris Powell, managing editor (at least for now) of the Journal Inquirer in Connecticut, says illiterate, immoral, indigent single parents are killing newspapers. He’s not 100% wrong. Sure, as Slate’s Amanda Hess points out, his facts are wrong. And the contempt Powell packs into one sentence does tend to suggest sour grapes: But newspapers cannot
12 Sep 2013
If at first they do not learn, train, train again
Here are some words of encouragement for anyone asked to train people in a newsroom: You will fail. Within weeks after your training is complete, you will realize that some people are doing poorly at whatever you taught them. Some are doing the opposite of what you said. And some aren’t doing it at all.
11 Sep 2013
Don’t teach the tool; teach the task
The worst training sessions I’ve had to endure mostly consisted of the so-called trainer plodding through something — let’s say, a website stats tool — in a presentation that was more like an inventory than a lesson. Every button and every option was listed and explained. Two hours later, we students would emerge not much
10 Sep 2013
When training your newsroom, fear the experts
Is your newsroom offering training in digital reporting? Are you considering doing so, and looking for trainers? Here’s my advice: Beware of experts. What I’m talking about are one-topic specialists: the SEO genius, the group that’s produced sterling video documentaries, the social media consultant with 20,000 followers. They may know everything there is to know
05 Sep 2013
How to turn website statistics into newsroom change
Once Stijn Debrouwere got through ridiculing the way the news industry uses website data, he did get to some positive approaches. Here’s one weird trick I learned from Eric Ries. No, it’s actually more like a four-step program. figure out what is important to your organization, what your goals are think of a couple of
26 Aug 2013
Does journalism make a difference in a community?
The first day of my first journalism class in college, we went around the room saying our names and answer a couple of questions from the prof, former Chicago’s American and Chicago Today editor Dick Hainey. There I was, happy to be able to say I was co-editor of my high school paper … happy
23 Aug 2013
I can tell you the exact moment I became a leader
Steve Buttry asked the questions. I provide the answers. What leadership experience do you have? If the answer is “none,” tell me why you would make a good leader. I can’t remember the exact date, but I can describe the exact moment that I became a leader. I had recently been named editor of The