The fight between print and Web continues

As many of you know, Paul Conley is really concerned about where B2B publishing will be in 2008. I think he has every right to be, as should we all. And to that end, he's been writing a three-part entry, called "Fighting Hole Tactics" on his blog, paulconley, about how editors need to "build some fighting holes--defensive positions from where they could ride out the coming onslaught of bad economic news."

And I wholeheartedly agree with him on that. As many of us who rode the wave of layoffs in the late '90s, early 2000s know, when the going get tough in the industry, the ones who tend to survive are the ones willing to take on additional responsibilities and transition to whatever comes next.

The crux of what he wrote--on which I'm interested in hearing other views on--is this: Whose responsibility is it to ensure that journalists are trained for the transition to the Web? In Paul's blog, he urges employers to not offer training for journalism on the Web because 1) you cannot train someone to be part of a culture and 2) when the fighting begins, the training must end.

I have some pretty strong thoughts on this subject, but I thought maybe others would want to jump in and comment first.

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Posted by Nikki Golden on Friday, January 11, 2008 @ 4:11 PM
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Comments:
I agree with commenters to Paul Conley's post like Zac and Abbie.

There undoubtedly are journalists just don't see value in learning web skills, but I think there are probably more who are willing to learn, but feel overwhelmed and don't know where to start. If your employer says it's going to start launching blogs, or podcasts, then great -- you know that's what you have to learn. But if not, it's an open field, and where do you start?

I'd say that even some who claim to think web skills aren't necessary are probably speaking largely out of defensiveness. They feel squeezed for time as it is and don't see where they'll get the time to learn new skills. That's one reason I agree with Abbie that it's at least partly management's responsibility to provide training -- so they can retain good, experienced people, which is what in-house training is all about.

Also, when I was part of a panel on blogging at the 2006 ASBPE National Conference, I was surprised by how surprised some audience members were when they realized how easy it was to set up a blog. So some of the reluctance some people have is probably just due to thinking it's all a lot more difficult than it really is, as Zac implies.

For now, playing devil's advocate, I'd say certain people can get by without having certain web skills for a couple of years yet. An executive or chief editor probably won't have to code HTML. And a high-level senior editor can likely get by without knowing how to use blogging software, easy as that is. If they want to blog, they'll just write their post in Word and have a staff member post it for them. For rank-and-file reporters and production people, of course, it's a different story.

Martha Spizziri
Web Editor
ASBPE
# posted by Blogger Martha Spizziri : January 16, 2008 at 2:59 PM
 
Those who want to learn more web skills should register (free) on the site WiredJournalists.com.

Also, I posted about a few more resources over on the ASBPE Boston blog.

Martha Spizziri
ASBPE Web Editor
Boston/New England Chapter VP
# posted by Blogger Martha Spizziri : January 28, 2008 at 10:07 AM
 
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