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George Mason University
There are all kinds of ways to change someone's mind... |
Seems like some leading thinkers in the journo world are getting impatient with the pace of change in this business.
Tidbits founding editor and current contributor Steve Outing started it with his Jan. 2 Editor & Publisher column, What's Needed in 2008: Serious Newsroom Cultural Change.
Outing's column features answers from several news media pros to this question: "If I could wave my magic wand, what would you have me do with it on your company's behalf?" A general theme emerged in the responses, which Outing summarized this way: "What we'd like your magic wand to do, news industry people kept telling me, is change the culture at our company and in our newsroom, because it's holding us back and ensuring our ultimate failure."
One of the responses Outing received, from Howard Owens (who's also been agitating for newsroom culture change, with a more skills-focused approach), caught my attention. Outing quoted Owens as saying:
"Reporters and editors would take seriously their roles as community conversation leaders, concentrating on getting it right on the web first -- Web-first publishing, blogs, video, participation -- and using the print edition as a greatest hits, promote the web site vehicle. Old packaged-goods-thinking about the newsPAPER would disappear overnight."
To which Outing added: "Owens' comment hits on one theme that I've covered many times in this column over the years: turning news into less of a lecture and more of an interactive, two-way experience and conversation between journalists and readers."
Which made it all the more amusing that there is no comment feature on Outing's column on the Editor & Publisher site. They do invite feedback via e-mail, however: "E&P welcomes your feedback and comments: letters@editorandpublisher.com. By using this link, you agree to allow E&P to publish your comments on our letters page." They don't link to their letters page from there, but I found it -- and at this time there is no content at all on that page. Kinda says it all about the need for newsroom mindset change, eh?
If you want to comment on Outing's piece, you might leave a comment on his blog post about the column.
Mindy McAdams took Outing's call a bit further in her Jan 4 post, Time to get crazy. There she wrote, "It's too late for incremental change. It's too late to be cautious and timid. The time has come to be bold. So here's an insane, heretical idea for change. The goal is to make everyone in your community start talking about your newspaper and your Web site." And she goes on to suggest a number of ways to do that. As of this writing her post has attracted 32 comments and trackbacks -- a lively discussion worth joining.
Speaking of lively discussions, Howard Owens' modest proposal has drawn 54 comments as of this writing -- some of them quite contentious.
BBC veteran Alfred Hermida joined the fray on Jan. 4 with Time for radical thinking in journalism, which takes the discussion across the pond for a look at UK newsroom culture.
My perspective: Talking about and agitating for change is fun and exciting, but action is what really matters.
Established organizations tend to resist change, especially mindset change -- not necessarily an inherently bad quality, but it can go awry as we've been seeing in the news business. Therefore I doubt we'll see the kind of change these luminaries are pushing for coming from established news orgs. More likely it'll arise from smaller, nimbler, newer organiztions -- or from independent professionals or talented amateurs. People who tend to be less threatened, secretive, and cynical and more creative, collaborative, entrepreneurial, and enthusiastic.
What do you think? Please comment below, or join the discussion on the blogs mentioned above.
Re: the line "More likely it'll arise from smaller, nimbler,...
