I’d really missed Tim Porter the last year. He had all but stopped blogging at First Draft as book work took precedent. But, it’s good to see him not only blogging again but also releasing his book. From the first look over on PressThink, Tim and Michele McLellan have produced the kind of clarion call for change that I had come to enjoy from Tim’s posts on First Draft. I really like in the post that they focused both on management and staff.

Management needs to focus on how to foster change, they said.

Many newspapers editors found themselves in the ranks of management somewhat by chance. They were good at their previous job – reporting, say, or copy editing – and got tapped for a promotion. They adapted to the duties – and adopted the values – of their new jobs, becoming decisive, directive and demanding, good for driving a fast-paced environment like a newsroom, but less useful in leading organizational change.

I’m one of those accidental managers, even though I don’t really see myself as managing anything. Although I’m an editor, of sorts, I don’t really see my managerial role as pushing people to do something. I’ve never seen that strategy work. I’d much rather blaze trails and lead by doing. That’s what I’ve been good at during my career. I really see my job not as a blogs editor but as a digital journalism evangelist. Participation and engagement just happen to be part of the mix of digital journalism. Passion can be infectious. Success is inspirational, and if managers take risks, it gives their staff permission to innovate.

Tim and Michele also have some great bullet points for staff as well. They talk about the newsroom of the past, and contrast that with the journalist of the future who will:

• Take initiative and responsibility at all levels.
• Enjoy brainstorming and trying new things.
• Learn even from failed experiments.
• Adopt “Change or Die” as a mantra.

There is a lot of hand wringing about the future of newspapers and journalism, but here we have yet another blueprint for how to not only survive but thrive in the future. Add Tim to your RSS feeds. He won’t disappoint. He’s definitely one of my heroes.

Jeff Jarvis wrote this week that no one wants less reporting, and in his post he questioned the amount of reporting done and resources spent by different outlets all following the same stories. He pointed to the death of Anna Nicole Smith as an example of “wall-to-wall” coverage from too many journalists all saying the same thing.

I’ve been in the herd, more times than I’d like. I was one of the 1,400 journalists camped out on the lawn of the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana for the execution of Timothy McVeigh when only seven journalists were actually allowed in the death chamber. Journalistically, what value was added for the viewers and readers with so many journalists feeding off of the same thin gruel? In one of the more embarrassing moments professionally, I remember how a few hundred anti-death penalty protesters were surrounded by three times that number of journalists. As about 50 protesters sat in circle for a silent vigil on the morning of the execution, a ring of photographers, TV camera men and women and reporters pressed in on them. A few protesters left, gasping and distraught with claustrophobia.

And I watched last week, as the herd jumped on a leaked cockpit video showing two American A-10 pilots mistakenly attacking a British light-armoured convoy in 2003. One soldier, Lance Corporal of Horse Matty Hull, was killed in the attack, and his widow was attempting to find out the circumstances of his death. The Sun had got hold of the video that British and American military authorities had said did not exist, and it was viewed more than a million times on their website.

Although I can’t claim to have followed the story exhaustively, I read several major newspapers’ coverage of the event and watched Sky. There was universal condemnation of the pilots with stories about ‘trigger-happy Yanks’, ranging from currently serving soldiers all the way back to British veterans who remember being mistakenly strafed by American pilots in World War II. The anger towards these two present day American pilots in the media seemed to feed off itself.

As an American, I found it difficult reading and viewing, especially because it laid bare the animosity that some in the British media and British public have towards Americans. Rationally, I can understand the source of some of that anger, but having strong ties to the UK and affection for the US, the deteriorating relationship is painful to watch.

As a journalist, I thought the coverage lacked balance. I found it long on commentary and woefully short on actual reporting. Moreover, I think when the media swarms it often does so in unthinkingly.

It misses many opportunities and, in this instance, I’ll point out one of them. My friend Chris Vallance pointed me to Joe d’Oen’s excellent podcast Fly with Me. Joe flies for a major American airline, but he used to fly an A-10, the same anti-tank aircraft involved in this incident. Joe’s podcast is outstanding, a really high quality piece of audio that would sit well in almost any professional broadcaster’s output. As a former A-10 pilot, he walked his listeners through the audio of the cockpit tapes with a calm professionalism and explains exactly what was said and its implications, giving the listener a greater understanding of the circumstances around the tragedy. It’s an excellent piece, and actually a more responsible piece of analysis than much of that published in the mainstream media. Why didn’t a journalist Google Joe and get him on air or get a quote from him?

The mainstream media believes that “user-generated content” has to come through their sites, their walled gardens of tightly controlled participation, so they miss the vastly larger opportunity that exists on the internet as a whole. But these missed opportunities by the media aren’t down to a lack of column inches or airtime. In this instance, there was an overwhelming amount of coverage on this story. Too bad it was all the same.

Technorati Tags: journalism, media 2.0

Shortly after I joined the Guardian, Neil McIntosh, our head of editorial development, came back from talking to a journalism class. He was shaking his head. The students, who will be the future on journalism, were living in the past. They aspired to be columnists and commentators for newspapers. They were uninterested in multimedia journalism and uninformed about trends that are rocking the industry. We both agreed. They need new heroes.

What brought this all to mind was a post by Mindy McAdams, who belongs in every journalist’s RSS feeds. She has some sage advice for students and her fellow journalism educators in a great post on how to land and keep a job in journalism. She rifles though recent announcements about layoffs at major newspapers and what newspaper managers are looking for in new hires.

Martin Stabe has a great post looking at the great blog dialogue that Mindy’s comments set off. He said: “Journalism students … seem to aspire to work in some newsroom circa 1973”. Martin’s posts links off to posts and articles by Howard Owens, Steve Outing and Paul Conley. Students and journalists who want to get up to speed with what is happening in the industry would be wise to go through these posts, subscribe to these journalist bloggers. They are at the sharp end of these changes, and they know a lot about what works and what doesn’t.

There was some talk about exactly what skills students and journalists need in to compete. Do they need to learn how to code? Do they need to focus on A/V skills? Do they need to learn Flash? I’ve always been very wary about suggesting too much investment in any specific piece of software. The industry moves too fast. Instead, I’d echo what Rob Curley says:

Skillset is important. But mindset is most important.

Damn, I wish I would have said that. I’ve picked up the skillset because of my mindset. I can only think of one instance when I said: “That’s not my job.” New tasks are always an opportunity to learn new skills.

Whenever I speak to students, instead of saying that they need to learn Flash, or Final Cut or Rails, I say you need to learn reporting, audio-visual storytelling and research. You don’t need to know how to do everything on your own, but you need to know what is possible and doable in this digital age. The software will change. The technology will change so most importantly, you need to be nimble and curious. Your degree is not the destination. It’s only the first step in your education. Never stop learning. Never stop stretching. Evolution and the occasional revolution is the only way to survive change.

Technorati Tags: education, journalism, technology