By Mindy McAdams
Media, 3(4), 19-20. January 1997.
Many of the skills required to work in new electronic media are skills you already have. Online publications and CD-ROM reference works need writers and editors. But journalists do need to learn a few new tricks before they can successfully cross over.
As a content developer at Digital Ink Co. (The Washington Post's subsidiary for electronic media) from March 1994 to July 1995, I interviewed dozens of reporters who were too short on skills to do the job they had applied for.
Many had never been online or used e-mail. They didn't understand the environment they thought it was just text on a screen. Many of them were not aware of the differences between electronic media and print.
There are differences. That's the first thing you need to know.
Dumping text straight out of a magazine or newspaper onto a Web site will not result in a successful online publication. If you use the Web -- really use it -- you already know this.
That's the second thing: You need to saturate yourself in the new media before you try to shape them. Find out not only how things work, but how you feel about them, as a user. Learn what you like, what makes you want to stay online. Try out some CD-ROMs -- not only encyclopedias and documentary subjects, but also games and children's software, where some of the most creative work is being done.
You can't push the envelope if you have no experience to push from.
New media publishers seek out students and recent graduates to work long hours in low-paid, entry-level jobs coding HTML and tweaking graphics. These young employees come in with technical know-how and a keen feel for the medium, both of which are necessary. But the new media also require higher-level organizational skills.
There are selections, combinations, and connections to be made. We find that online users are impatient, they're in a hurry, they want a clear, straightforward set of options. They want overviews and summaries. When they're not doing a research project (and often, they are not), they prefer one good relevant link rather than a long list to work through.
Editorial decisions: what's important, what's peripheral, what goes on top, what becomes background.
Sound familiar?
In spite of the similarities to editorial work, the differences are significant. Many of the skills that will be in demand include those important to research librarians and the writers of abstracts. A sampling of tasks to accomplish in a Web document:
In the new media, a good editor can integrate new articles with existing articles to tell the complete story of a complex, ongoing situation -- such as a war, a political campaign, a social problem.
Creating this kind of story web requires a lot more effort from an editor than producing the usual news story, but it makes the online reading experience very active and participatory for the reader. And that's what keeps people online: a sense of participation. Online readers don't like to sit with their hands folded. They like to click. They like to keep moving.
We now have new ways of telling stories that allow a reader to easily get deeper information if he or she wants it. Someone reading an article about a dam project can, for example, click on the words "engineering problems" to get an explanation. If some readers have no interest in dam engineering, they can skip it -- and that's just as important.
The ability to provide depth and perspective as an option, without forcing all readers to plow through explanations they may not need, or care about, is part of what makes the new media different.
Another thing is the contact with readers. They can fire off an e-mail message to you without leaving the story. But to make this work to your benefit, you must invite and encourage the readers -- and you have to respond. The relationship between you and your readers changes almost immediately when you go online. You must be prepared to listen -- and make it clear that you're listening. Newspapers and broadcast media have not traditionally been responsive to their audiences.Online, that changes.
An unexpected difference (for me) in working on an online publication was the teamwork needed. Despite the fact that it takes a lot of people doing different jobs to put out a newspaper or a newscast, each of those people really does a specific, separate job. Tasks are finished and then the piece goes to the next person -- the editor, the copy editor, the typesetter.
To produce an online publication, you need people with different kinds of expertise, but there's a lot more overlap. Projects are passed back and forth and back again, and diverse groups often converge and work simultaneously on a piece. The ability to work as a true cooperative team, to invite and respect various opinions, can make or break an online project. Everyone has to be good at communicating in a constructive way what he or she likes and dislikes, and no one can afford to be overly possessive about (and thus defensive of) a story.
Writers and editors at an online publication learn a lot about graphic design and the technical aspects of the medium. What they very much need to keep in mind is that the artists and the programmers are also learning a lot about storytelling, and about news -- and their opinions should count.
As for technical know-how, you don't have to be an engineer to succeed in the new media. But you do have to be comfortable with technology. New software and hardware comes out all the time, and usually no one has the time to train you. You must be able to install new software and teach yourself to use it. You need to know how to turn your modem on and off. Everyone has known one of those crusty old newsroom types who seem barely able to file a story on the computer. That won't fly in an online newsroom.
The important thing is that there are jobs out there in new media, and they sorely need your journalistic skills. They also call for some skills you may not have yet. You can teach yourself those skills if you have an open mind and take time to learn. You can't make it without mastering some new tricks, so get started.
Author: Mindy McAdams
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