Change means nothing without a plan.

Plans mean nothing without actions. Editors, publishers, share holders, etc are all saying the industry needs to change. If I got an e-mail one day from my top editor or the publisher that said, “We must change immediately to tackle new challenges, and we must embrace the Web as our future. Big changes are ahead for this paper,” I’d respond with, “What does that mean? Thanks for stating the obvious.”

I’d want a list of exactly what we needed to change and why we need to change it. I’d further want to know the steps needed to make those changes happen and who or what departments will be implementing those changes. Otherwise it’s all just talk and buzzwords.

Every paper needs to change, some more than others. No one is immune from change, but we need more than change. We need actions, and we need people willing to do more than just talk.

My paper needs a lot of change just like yours. But it does no one good if I say we need change, and we need to embrace the Web, without considering the details.

Here is a quick list of things that need to be done at my paper:

1. Databases - We need databases to help flesh out our content. But that means nothing. How are we going to produce them? We’ll need to hire someone to build them. But even if we hire someone to build them, what databases do we need to build and how can we integrate them with our traditional content? All of these questions should be answered.
2. Multimedia - Every paper needs more multimedia. That tells me nothing. We need to train our print reporters and photographers to be able to create multimedia. The Web staff simply isn’t big enough to create enough on its own. Traditional journalists at Stripes need to become multimedia journalists. But that still means nothing. We need to train them, but that means nothing. A real action plan would detail how and when we would train them. And then it would detail some upcoming projects we could work on to train people with.
3. New site design - Our site like almost every newspaper site is unattractive, hard to use, hard to search and not well liked by users. But we all know that. If we’re going to redesign our site, we need consider what changes need to be made, why they need to be made and most importantly how they will be made. Who is going to redesign and code the site? How well will a new design interact with our CMS?
4. Blogs - Our blogs and bloggers need work. That describes almost every paper. But how will we make them better? Saying that they need to improve means nothing. We need an action plan and someone to implement those actions.
5. Training - This is the four-letter word at every paper, but how can we honestly expect traditional journalists to become online or multimedia journalists without training? Magic? Is that our solution? No, if we want people to change, we need to figure out how they will change and what their new roles will be.

The devil is in the details. If you don’t know newspapers need change, you shouldn’t be working at a newspaper.

It is inappropriate for top editors and publishers to mandate change without a detailed plan for how to change. Frankly, most top editors and publishers probably don’t know what change really is needed, which is probably why their proclamations are usually so maddeningly vague. So, if you don’t know, ask someone who does.

Every newspaper has young, Web savvy people who can be a great resource. Heck your whole staff is a great resource. Ask your staff what resources they would need to implement changes.

How often do you ask random reporters, copy editors, producers, etc what they think of the product and how they would improve? Great leaders are also great listeners.

A quick check list for implementing change:

1. Figure out what needs to be changed and why. A good place to start is by asking your users — the people you’re supposed to be serving.
2. Figure out who or what departments will be working on what changes and when.
3. Figure out how each change will occur. Start from the bottom up, not top down. The people going to make the biggest splash at your paper on the Web are at the bottom of the totem pole.
4. If you need employees to have new skills, detail how they will obtain those skills. Will they be trained? If so, what kind of training will they receive and when? Or will they be expected to learn them on their own by a certain date?
5. If you want your staff to become more Web savvy, why don’t you have them complete a program like Howard Owens is suggesting for non-wired journalists? Just telling people to become more Web savvy means nothing. Tell them how to do it, with a specific check list of actions that need to be completed. Offer some sort of reward or compensation for completing the list within a certain time frame.

Change doesn’t happen because you say it will. Changes happens because you make it happen.

Make change happen.

The pre-primary polls in New Hampshire predicted a Barack Obama, not Hillary Clinton, victory.

They predicted a landslide, a race changing victory. Alas, Clinton won, despite Obama being ahead by double digits in many polls. The polls have been wrong twice now — even exit polls had Obama out front.

The real question is: why do journalists keep trumpeting these obviously flawed polls? If the polls cannot be remotely accurate (and they haven’t been) it’s our duty to not report them. Polls influence elections and democracy.

If these polls aren’t remotely correct, then they are perverting the democratic process. There are many theories as to why the polls were wrong, such as the “Bradley Effect.” The “Bradley Effect” is a theory that says people are more likely to tell a pollster they will vote for a black candidate than they actually would in order to seem more progressive.

Gary Langer goes over the New Hampshire polling mess as well:

There will be a serious, critical look at the final pre-election polls in the Democratic presidential primary in New Hampshire; that is essential. It is simply unprecedented for so many polls to have been so wrong. We need to know why.

But we need to know it through careful, empirically based analysis. There will be a lot of claims about what happened - about respondents who reputedly lied, about alleged difficulties polling in biracial contests. That may be so. It also may be a smokescreen - a convenient foil for pollsters who’d rather fault their respondents than own up to other possibilities - such as their own failings in sampling and likely voter modeling.

I’m not a pollster, and I don’t care why the polls we wrong. I’m a journalist. I just care that the polls were wrong.

Journalists have many ways to cover elections, and polls have always been one part of that coverage. If we cannot trust the veracity of polls then journalists should find something else to cover, like, say the issues. In the meantime, unless pollsters can figure out what is wrong with the polling numbers and how to fix the methodology, journalists should refuse to report on them.

I know this is tough in an era of journalism that is predicated on one thing — making money — but we owe it to our fellow Americans to report only the truth. We owe it to ourselves and our country to report the truth. And baseless polls are anything but the truth.

Otherwise we’re not producing journalism, and we’re not journalists.

P.S. I salute CNN for waiting until after AP and others called the race, because CNN didn’t feel comfortable calling it then. I’d rather them be late, and right, than earlier and wrong. Florida in 2000 anyone?