The Fundamental Training Need
June 25th, 2009 | Published in Journalism | 9 Comments
It’s good to see recent writings on the importance of training and skill development for journalists.
One of the common responses to such entreaties is exemplified in this comment, which includes this plea: “I understand the need to bolster one’s skill set. But what happened to the days when we actually, you know, worried about reporting rather than slavishly trying to master every piece of technology?”
If only that was the real problem.
The real problem is the way that we as journalists manage information, because that determines so much else: the kinds of stories we’re able to envision and construct, the amount of context we’re able to bring to bear in a short amount of time and our ability to connect the dots. In general, and this is my scientific conclusion, we suck at managing information.
That’s nothing new, you might say, and you’d be right. But what has changed is that a lot of the people and institutions we cover are now getting smarter about this stuff, and are using better tools to help them manage information. From tracking crime to measuring customer loyalty, the sophisticated use of information is a crucial factor in many modern activities. Us? We’re still knocking rocks around hoping to generate a spark.
I’m not knocking learning skills like how to maintain a blog. I’m just saying that if all we do is teach new tools and skills, we’re making the underlying problem harder to solve, not easier, because we’re just encouraging the production of even more separate and disconnected piles of information. More photos over here, more spreadsheets over there. We’re still drowning in information and we can’t figure out how to use it to our best advantage, like finding undiscovered patterns and coming up with definitive explanations instead of the ol’ three-person anecdote story.
So yeah, teach those CAR and multimedia skills. Have everybody Twitter. But please, let’s find a way to address the fact that for many journalists, Microsoft Word is the primary tool for organizing any and all kinds of information. Let’s make sure that our silos of content (text archives, photo archives, databases, etc.) can at least be made to talk to each other, if not naturally, then through APIs or metadata or something. And let’s start talking about how a news organization’s information belongs to the organization, not just to individual reporters and editors, and how our products could be so much better if we adhered to that principle before a story/photo/slideshow is published, not just after.
June 25th, 2009 at 11:54 pm (#)
I know a lot a Journalists ( my wife works in newspapers and so did I early in my career). One disturbingly common thread between most Journalists is that they are very bad about understanding technology. Anybody who is on the forefront is dealing with the problem of organizing a vast amount of information, but they handle it by understanding how to harness the power of technology to filter the information fire hose.
There has not been a breaking news story in the past year that I have not heard about first through twitter. Journalists no longer break stories, their value is in providing depth. In the age of technology, information is free and instantaneous. It’s kind of funny that the name of your blog is thescoop.com because the word ‘scoop’ is meaningless in a world of fast paced technology.
I agree with your point but the answer is not to limit the amount of information you receive. In fact it is the opposite. The answer is to use technology to gather as much information you can and then filter it so that the really important stuff rises to the top.
Jamie
June 26th, 2009 at 12:01 am (#)
Well said!
June 26th, 2009 at 1:16 pm (#)
It sounds like this would require data entry and tagging, which might not be a bad thing for journalists to get into the habit of doing for each story. I’m reminded of Adrian Holovaty’s standard speech about how every crime report is a little dataset (date, place, suspect, victim, type of crime).
It would be easy enough to require six or 10 fields to be filled in (in a CMS) before the reporter is taken to the screen where she writes the story, or before the photographer uploads her take, etc. The harder part would be, I think, adding contextual tags in a consistent way — for example, “development” or “sprawl.” And then the place names … one option is “Newberry Road” and another is “Oaks Shopping Mall.” Both are correct, but omission of one will affect future linking situations.
Just brainstorming …
June 27th, 2009 at 12:01 pm (#)
[...] The Fundamental Training Need :: The Scoop The real problem is the way that we as journalists manage information, because that determines so much else: the kinds of stories we’re able to envision and construct, the amount of context we’re able to bring to bear in a short amount of time and our ability to connect the dots. In general, and this is my scientific conclusion, we suck at managing information. (tags: data theory journalism) Share and Enjoy:These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]
June 27th, 2009 at 1:49 pm (#)
one of the failures of most newspapers has been their inability to realize the value of the information they possess, from historic photo and clip archives, to databases they should be archiving for future use and more.
with probably only a few talented folks – like the librarians the papers have laid off – they could not only make connections in this information for their newsroom, but repackage slices of it for – get this! – profit. there are businesses out there using newspaper and other databases to do research for corporations and reselling it at reportedly hefty rates.
June 29th, 2009 at 4:35 am (#)
Interesting post. I think your point “a news organization’s information belongs to the organization, not just to individual reporters and editors,” is really important.
To be honest a lot of the reason that data gets put in to silos within newsrooms comes down to individuals not engaging with even the simplest of sharing techniques. Forget about tags or meta or social bookmarks. Even just sharing contacts is like pulling teeth for some. We all know why. That’s your individual journalistic equity – you arent going to give it away.
No amount of api’s, sharing etc will work until that mindset is gone. People will subvert it, ignore it and kill it before it starts. Large organisations need to shift perspective more to the idea that this will benefit the individual journalist first. Help them build a brand online. Help them with their own, individual process. Then you’ll see the benefits.
June 29th, 2009 at 11:04 am (#)
[...] The Fundamental Training Need, The Scoop [...]
July 15th, 2009 at 11:26 am (#)
[...] The Fundamental Training Need, by Derek Willis, calls for journalists to get much, much better at the fundamentals of organizing information. “In general, and this is my scientific conclusion, we suck at managing information.” [...]
July 27th, 2009 at 10:01 am (#)
[...] The Fundamental Training Need :: The Scoop – "yeah, teach those CAR and multimedia skills. Have everybody Twitter. But please, let’s find a way to address the fact that for many journalists, Microsoft Word is the primary tool for organizing any and all kinds of information" I think the best way to do that is to teach them CAR and all that stuff and wean them away. [...]