In last week’s This American Life, host Ira Glass lived one of my fantasies. He sat in on an editorial meeting of The Onion, “where there’s one laugh for every 100 jokes.”
“They start with over 600 potential headlines for their fake-news newspaper each week, and over the course of two days, in the very tough room that is their editorial conference room, they select 16 to go in the paper.”
Lost Remote’s Cory Bergman on why most TV stations haven’t done well online:
“I’ll give you these four reasons: 1) lack of investment in people and technology 2) unwillingness to take necessary risks 3) TV-driven power structure which results in the inability for web management to quickly allocate resources as they see fit and 4) a bizarre addiction to brand consistency, which limits creative ideas up and down the organization.”
I think these apply to most “old media” companies. Brand extension is not always the way to go.
That was the headline of a news release that came in to the Missourinet newsroom this week:
“Circus of the King” is sponsored by Show Me Clowns for Jesus National Conference. Currently the largest ministry clown conference in the world celebrating its 23rd year of training people to use clowning and the creative arts in ministry.
“The feeling in newsrooms, especially among the people on the new-media side, seems to be that there are an awful lot of people within organizations that aren’t on board with a vision of changing for the future. Even when top management has developed a new corporate vision for a digital, multi-media and less print-centered future, and communicated it to “the troops,” implementation is being slowed by many people in the organization — including mid-level managers — who still don’t buy into the idea that a total transformation of the news organization is necessary.”
“Everyone’s got work to do to put out the “daily miracle,” but in an era when the old industry model is in decline, we can no longer afford to have a workforce where the majority are solely doing the work of “putting out the paper.”
“The smart news organization in 2008 will be the one that encourages innovation — no, requires it — from ALL its employees. It will get everyone involved: in planning meetings; in committees charged with specific research and/or implementation projects. It will create some time in the schedules of everyone in the organization to do the work of innovation, and make that an integral assignment.”
“Most importantly, it will develop a training program to teach new-media skills to those still lacking, and regularly bring in innovation and creativity experts to guide both managers and employees. With the latter, exposure to and interaction with those experts will be company-wide.”
— Steve Outing at Editor & Publisher
Why? This from Seth Godin…
If you’re a salesperson, your prospects already do.
If you’re looking for a job, your prospective employers already do.
If you’ve got a job, your co-workers already do.What do they see? Do you know?
…and this from Mindy McAdams (Teaching Online Journalism)…
“If you’re a journalist — or a journalism student who hopes to enter the field — this should concern you. First, what results do you get when you Google yourself (first name, last name, no quotation marks)? Most important, what are the top two or three links? I hope they do not go to pages about you that make you look like an idiot, a sex fiend, or a drunk.”
They both offer suggestions on how to improve your Google juice.