Nimble, a lovely word

The time sure feels ripe for training journalists. In one item below, a new study shows that editors world-wide want it for the reporters in their newsrooms. And per the next item, a different study, we learn that journalists have been yearning for training for up to five years.

First, the World Editors Forum, in conjunction with Reuters and another group, asked 435 editors around the world what they'd do to improve journalism.

Among other questions, they were asked "If you had to invest in editorial quality, what would you do first within the newsroom?".

Thirty-seven per cent said they would train journalists in new media skills, 23 per cent would recruit more journalists, 19 per cent would re-train in traditional skills, 10 per cent would add more opinion analysis writers, six per cent would replace staff with younger journalists, and 5 per cent would take another, unspecified, approach.

Second, a new book came out today that illustrates the path. Called "News Improved", it tells the stories of forward-moving newsrooms. A Knight Foundation-funded Newsroom Training Initiative over the last four years has infused $10 million into newsroom projects. The results are explored in this book, written with Knight money by Michele McClellan and Tim Porter. Among its points, journalists really want more training. Per one account of the new book's contents:

In 2002, a Knight survey of nearly 2,000 journalists found that eight in 10 newsroom staffers wanted more training than they were getting. An update to that study, "Investing in the Future of News," which was released today in the "News, Improved" book, reports that the number has increased to nine in 10.

Here's an assist to the working journalist. Take a short, 10-question survey on training in your own newsroom, and you can get a free copy of the book for your time and trouble, here.

Now about that word, nimble. I've always thought mid-sized newspapers were in a better position than big-city dailies. Their smaller size made them more flexible, able to adjust more quickly. It turns out that can be an important asset. Here's the guy who wrote the intro to "News Improved", Eric Newton, talking:

"Media evolution doesn't favor the big or strong," he writes. "It favors the nimble.

"Be nimble."

From "Sacred Facts"

I keep finding inspiration, or maybe it is even consolation, in reading BBC-head Richard Sambrook's blog, title in quotes above. In general, I'm against whining about these uncertain times. Hold on tight while the spasm of a revolution passes through your work world. Frankly, all you can do, and MUST do, is the very best you can. But I refer you to this comment, called "Modern Work," from a recent Sambrook post:

In a discussion about managing constant change two interesting observations were made.

1: "Most jobs are increasingly a series of projects". This is certainly true of mine and seemed to ring a bell with all the other senior managers gathered. So when did that happen and why? And while we're all diverted on projects, who's running things?

2: When discussing "change" with teams, it sounds like an admonition (as in "Changor Die!"). Is there a less pejorative word? Progress? Improvement? Future? Forward? They all sound like doublespeak.

A word on his blog title, this from his blog's "About" section. My guess is you will find it as inspiring as I do. He quotes from C.P. Scott:

Comment is free, but facts are sacred. "Propaganda", so called, by this means is hateful. The voice of opponents no less than that of friends has a right to be heard. Comment also is justly subject to a self-imposed restraint. It is well to be frank; it is even better to be fair. This is an ideal. Achievement in such matters is hardly given to man. We can but try, ask pardon for shortcomings, and there leave the matter.

Tipster for our times

Meet Mindy McAdams and her Website. She a professor and Knight Chair for Journalism at the University of Florida's College of Journalism and Communications. She's got a book out called "Flash Journalism: How to create multimedia news packages," which I've added to my toolkit list below. And her Website is host to lots of multimedia reporting information, from where the free tutorials are stashed, to ways of thinking about telling a multimedia story. Go there, browse, click and read. This is good stuff to learn, and she is generous with information. You could make a study of her "Online Journalism Examples and Tips." Go there. Do it.

Tension around the "customer"

My apologies for being absent lately. A bike accident (I hit a pedestrian while pumping home late one night) and the flu (down and out for half a week) left me scrambling to catch up. Nearing the end of the winter quarter, papers and projects are due.

One of my recent assignments delivered an entrepreneurial-minded quote that I thought was important to modern news organizations. It came from Shai Agassi, head of software development for SAP, the third largest software company in the world, based out of Germany. He's the Palo Alto office, and likely the future head of SAP worldwide. So in Silicon Valley, he's hot stuff.

Agassi emphasizes the customer's experience. If SAP can make the "end-user's" experience wonderful, that's a good, competitive thing to accomplish.

Here's the quote:

Sandhill.com: Do you have advice to share with other software executives?

Agassi: It is important to think "out-of-the-box" as much as possible. By that I mean, software executives need to always bring in the perspective of the customer and remember that our business is about what the customer wants to consume, not what we are trying to build. You need to picture what the customer sees when he opens the box - not what you put into it. Think about what you can do to simplify consumption of your product - that is the best thing you can do for your customers.

Creating a good customer experience is pivotal. The competitive climate demands it. Newspapers can benefit from some of this entrepreneurial thinking, by seeing themselves as their customers see them. Do your customers find you useful, necessary, compelling? Or boring, static and not enough? What are they telling you about their user experience?

For sure, newspaper Websites have to be user-friendly, fast-loading, intuitive to navigate, the very best in the business. But what those pages contain is more critical than just an excellent user interface.

News organizations have to find a way to give their customers what they don't know they want. Or even think they don't want, like eat-your-peas public policy reporting. It's a sophisticated and strategic calling.

Watching the Frontline's News War is sobering. I'm thinking here of the interview with the head of ABC News as he defends the kinds of titillating stories Dateline has turned to -- moms and their teen daughters learning to pole dance, or the hunt for sexual predators. Lowest common denominators, for sure; information evaluated as entertainment. If customers get to define news, does it mean 24/7 of Anna Nicole Smith, as cable recently delivered?

Of course there's a higher calling to news; we've always known that. It takes leadership and commitment to get there, and in this ultra-entrepreneurial era, commercial success.

I just got a copy of "News Values: Ideas for an information age" by Jack Fuller. It was written in 1996, and we're still asking the questions he posed in his introduction:

How much should newspapers reflect the beliefs of the communities they serve? How much should they provide moral leadership? What is the proper relationship between journalism and marketing? Journalism and profit-making?

Like our software entrepreneur, Fuller's pragmatically paying attention to the customer:

For the most part I have tried to locate the news values in the desires and interests of the American audience.

But he sees a big difference, a big danger.

It is often said that a society gets the press it deserves. I am not sure about that. But I know that in the end it gets a press no better than it wants. ... If the public is led to accept shoddy or dangerous goods, the public will prevail. So it is up to the newspapers to make news values compelling enough that people will see in them their deeper interests.

"Shoddy and dangerous goods." That's a scary and disturbing description, a catalyst to keep pushing for quality in these uncertain times.
The danger is that newspapers will patronize their customers, or assume their classic and now outdated role of information "gatekeeper." Here's where the concept of a new partnership with the customer might take hold -- a joint definition of needs.
I'm gonna keep reading Fuller's book, and promise to share what I learn there. I hope he has convincing guidance on where to go from here.