Print media needs a new
talent strategy
It must look at itself as a tech business and journalists must understand technology and design
Technology is changing Work,
Workers and the Workplace everywhere. Print Media is no exception. These three
elements are intertwined. Each one impacts the other two. When the nature of
work changes, the kind of skills needed from workers changes.
Look at the methods and technology
being used to create content for print media. In the analogue world, print
media was the only source of truth. It was corroborated with information that
came up through television and radio. News was episodic.
In the digital world, news has
become a continuous trickle over social media. People do not need to read the
newspaper to get the news.
Readers are also creating content that competes with print media. Whether it is
short-form video or tweets or blogs or graphics, each time a reader becomes a
subscriber, print media has a new competitor. Every content shared on WhatsApp
takes away a slice of time.
Every journalist competes with
such content now. Digital media is all about breadth and variety. Every content
is short-lived.
Boundaryless thinking
In a content-abundant world,
print has to compete with multiple platforms from Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat,
Twitter, Tik Tok, etc.
Each platform has its own
grammar. When the same content is repurposed for multiple platforms, it takes
time and resources. There are sites that offer AI-created content by crawling
the web.
In advertising, the saying was
that the best writers thought visually. The best visual thinkers were the ones
who understood words. The digital world is boundaryless. The best journalists are
the ones who understand the digital platforms. The stalwarts of print media
have to be comfortable being the novice in the digital media space. It needs a
change of mindset to thrive in a non-hierarchical world.
Tech, design and journalists
All businesses are tech
businesses. That means the business must generate real-time data on the media
consumption habits of readers. Insights come from millions of data points
generated every day across each platform for each individual journalist and for
each story.
The editors must also understand
how they need to tweak every variable, from word count to the keyword used and
visuals, to break the clutter. When Amazon created ebooks, they did not convert
the word documents to a PDF format. They redesigned the reading experience.
That is why data scientists, designers and journalists need to work together to
reinvent the business model. Washington Post is a terrific example of tech, design
and journalists working to create a product the reader is happy to pay for.
New skills, attitudes
There was a time when all we had
was a landline. Today, every individual has a mobile. So many households do not
have a landline at all. The medium of print is going through the same churn. It
needs to be reimagined if it has to thrive and be part of the new ecosystem.
They have to rethink their way of working. Print media has to invest in
upskilling and reskilling the talent. Editing in the print format has the
luxury of time. Digital is often done in a shorter, breathless manner. Being
able to adapt to the demands of the media needs new skills and a new attitude
towards learning.
Bridge digital-print divide
Print media has to become part of
the digital ecosystem. Today, in several news organisations, there is a sharp
divide between the print media and digital. Creating small squads of
journalists drawn from both print and digital to work together will be the best
way to expand the talent base. When a war correspondent writes about the war,
the most compelling stories come from people who are there on the ground. Being
able to leverage that ability to observe, empathise and articulate has been the
hallmark of print. Bringing the same skills to a broader ecosystem is the
investment media houses need to make.
The talent ecosystem
Every consumer brand has a story
to tell. So does every talent brand. Learning to tell multiple stories from
multiple perspectives can be a powerful way to get the user to connect with the
talent base in print. Market research used to be like that. The consumer used
to be brought into a room and market researchers used to observe them through a
one-way glass and draw conclusions. Today, the best market researchers step
into the shoes of the people they wish to understand. Print Media could follow
this model.
The workplace as a talent brand
Talent has a way of sniffing out
which jobs and sectors are attracting the best minds. Philosophers were the
highest paid profession in the Ancient Greek civilisation. That attracted the
largest talent pool.
As a talent scout, when I went to
various educational institutions, I got a great view of which sector attracted
the best people. That changed every year. If Consulting got the prime slot in
one year, the next year it could be Banking or Retail walked away with the
brightest people. People with the same qualification chose different sectors
every year depending on a number of factors. Print Media has to discover that
element which will encourage them to compete head to head with everyone else
for talent. They must, in turn, take a unified view of talent. When it comes to
hiring engineers or designers or journalists, the print media has to compete
with other employers. The fine balance between work, workers and workplaces is
a great place to start.
Abhijit Bhaduri is a digital transformation coach to
organisations across the world
Source |
Business Line | 5th December 2019
Regards
Mr.
Pralhad Jadhav
Master of
Library & Information Science (NET Qualified)
Senior
Manager @ Knowledge Repository
Khaitan
& Co
Twitter
Handle | @Pralhad161978
No comments:
Post a Comment