Worst jobs for 21st century

From a Forbes story on job prospects over the next few decades:

“Another endangered species: journalists. Despite the proliferation of media outlets, newspapers, where the bulk of U.S. reporters work, will cut costs and jobs as the Internet replaces print. While current events will always need to be covered (we hope), the number of reporting positions is expected to grow by just 5% in the coming decade, the Labor Department says. Most jobs will be in small (read: low-paying) markets.

Radio announcers will have a tough time, too. Station consolidation, advances in technology and a barren landscape for new radio stations will contribute to a 5% reduction in employment for announcers by the middle of the next decade. Even satellite radio doesn’t seem immune from the changes. The two major companies, XM and Sirius–which now have plans to merge–have regularly operated in the red.”

The U. S. Department of Labor stats identified a few growth areas: Health care, education and financial services.

Scott Adams: The future of newspapers

“…I see printed newspapers lasting until you upgrade your phone two more times. But the newspaper business can thrive online if it changes how it gathers and edits content. And clearly there will be massive amounts of consolidation. There won’t be 3,000 newspapers online. There might be a dozen. And local news will come from hometown bloggers who self-syndicate to all of the newspapers.”

It’s a brilliant post and I encourage you to read it.

OK on XM

Radio Iowa News Director O. Kay Henderson will be doing a weekly shot on XM Radio’s POTUS’08 channel (XM 130). Few details yet, but looks like her bit will be around 1:10 p.m. Central time. I’ll try to remember to record and share snippet here.

Update 8-Oct-07: And here’s the snippet. Kay gives the low down on the campaign in Iowa to XM host Rebecca Roberts. Runs about 10 min and my apologies for the audio quality. I recorded on the nano, holding the wee microphone up to the car speaker. But this clearly illustrates why the Big Kids can’t get enough of Her Kayness.

Top traits for hiring new people

“I just returned from a three-day seminar with Paradigm, a highly-respected sales training firm, and they recommend that managers ensure that new account executives are “adaptable” and “resilient” before hiring them. In fact, these two traits should be at the top of the list in the hiring process because the media world is changing so quickly.

Wouldn’t it be interesting to apply this same thinking when hiring for new journalists? That adaptability and resiliency are just as important as storytelling skills, for example? Of course, those traits not as easy to identify as watching a resume tape and looking at online writing examples (both of which should be required for reporters, by the way), but it means we need to ask job candidates to explain specific examples of how they’ve flexed with change and bounced back from failure.”

— Cory Bergman, Lost Remote

ABC News forming one-man bureaus

“Taking the one-man band news crews a step further, ABC News President David Westin announced today that they will open seven new bureaus around the world with only one person per bureau. According to TVWeek, the reporters will write, shoot, edit and feed their material digitally from DV cameras and laptops wherever they are in the field. Assignments so far put people in South Korea; Jakarta, Indonesia; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Nairobi, Kenya; Mumbai, India; New Delhi, India; and Dubai, United Arab Emirates.” — Lost Remote

Sorry, I’m a radio reporter. I do interviews, cut up the sound, write the wrap and anchor a three minute newscast. You’re just gonna have to hire some more people do to that other stuff.

Newspapers doing radio (and TV)

I just listened an interview that Mark Ramsey did with a couple of guys from the San Diego Union-Tribune (runs 17 min). Twenty minutes ago I’d have described Ron James and Marc Balanky as newspapers guys. Now, I’ll call them media guys.

And they’re gearing up to do what we used to call radio (and, eventually, TV). A couple of things they said jumped out at me:

"We have a newsroom that works 24 hours a day" and "…we have more than 300 reporters."

I flashed on all the empty or near-empty radio newsrooms out there. These guys are serious as a heart attack and I’d be damned worried if I were "just" a radio station in that market. On the other hand, if you aren’t already well down the road to being more than just a radio station, don’t sweat it. Squeeze what you can from old Bossie and remember the good times.

The news we want or the the news we need?

“Mainstream media outlets may not be offering up the stories online users most want to read, according to a new survey that found user-generate new sites like Yahoo giving top billing to different stories than mainstream outlets. The study, from the Project for Excellence in Journalism, took a week’s worth of news from three user-driven sites, and Yahoo, and compared it to top stories on various mainstream outlets. The result: online users gravitated toward different topics than those from traditional news outlets.”

— Editor & Publisher:

Queen of Live Blogging

Google_earth_kayI rely on sites like engadget and gizmodo to live blog events like Wednesday’s big product launch of the new iPods. And I’m always amazed that anyone can listen/think/type that quickly.

But I’ll put my home girl Kay up against one and all when it comes to live blogging. Check out her coverage of Fred Thompson’s announcement in Des Moines yesterday. Seriously, it’s like being in the room…minus all the sweaty reporters.

Key to efficient blogging

Pick3This post at E-Meida Tidbits is aimed at journalists who worry about the additional time it takes to blog. But I think this is good advice for any blogger.

“…the key to blogging efficiently is this: DO NOT treat it like writing an article. That is, make blogging part of your ongoing processes for research, notetaking, and communication.

A blog post is not (or at least, it shouldn’t be) a writing assignment you must prep for and deliver as a finished package. Let go of the idea that you must have everything nailed down, organized, and edited before you publish.”

I’ve been stressing (just a little) about my light posting of late and had this idea for a T-shirt.

Time to rethink the AP model?

Cory Bergman at Lost Remote raises some interesting questions about the AP model in light of Google’s deal to host AP stories (rather than link back to newspaper websites).

He also points to a blog post on the "prickly issue of local broadcasters pulling local newspaper stories via the wire and posting them online (and occasionally vice-versa). Now that both mediums have expanded to the web, they’re direct competitors. And the local wire goes a long way to beef up the depth of content on a local TV site."

I’m pretty sure he’s talking about TV broadcasters. I’m afraid nobody is much concerned about radio stations getting their news from Google.