Hey, we've got nothing better to do: let's save the industry
Rob Curley, a fellow self-proclaimed “nerd” from Kansas,
wrote an excellent article in The Journalist about how news organizations can
survive the tech race.
“I’ve come to believe there are basically two types of
newspaper publishers: those who think the most important part of the word
newspaper is ‘news’ and those who think the most important part of that word is
‘paper,’ ” Curley writes. “If you work
for a publisher or a company that thinks ‘paper’ is the most important part of
that word, then my suggestion would be to get your resume ready.”
Looking around at individuals within those companies, about
half the people I work with fall into the “news” category. The other half still
clings to “paper” as everything. I
think most newsrooms are that way.
Over the next several days, I’m going to blog about Curley’s
“seven basic things we can do to succeed in our industry.” We’ll talk about each step and how we as
individual journalists can learn what we need to do to steer our
organizations in the right direction.
I’m hoping this will stir some response in terms of comments
here and discussion on other blogs. Let's follow Curley’s step No. 7, making this
a dialogue, not a monologue.
Because saving
journalism is up to all of us.