John Burke has a thoughful commentary on editorsweblog.org in which he observes:
"Journalists – and this may not come as a surprise – are hypocrites. We lecture the rest of the world on the urgent importance of change in everything from American foreign policy to food labelling. Yet the same journalists loathe the effort and uncertainty of change as much as anyone else; their extensive experience of recommending change does not translate into any higher skills in actually facing up to it. Journalists react to digital technology’s disruption of their industry with the same queasy resentment as any other group of professionals required to rethink what they do.
"I may not be in a majority in my line of work, but I like the current technology-driven havoc precisely because journalists have to go back to first principles."
Comments
Burke's balderdash
When the industry has started acting as if it really UNDERSTANDS that the margins to which it has grown used are going away permanently in the very near future -- by providing journalists with the equipment to do their jobs in new ways, expecting them to use the equipment, and training them to do so -- THEN Burke can talk about journalists' willingness to embrace chaos. Until then he has no credibility. I'm tired of waiting, on average, seven years between the time management SAYS it has embraced X until the time it actually makes the technology to DO X available in the newsroom.