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.
Labels: online journalism, Paul Conley, training, Web journalism
