More thoughts on newspaper management
This post is adapted from a comment I left responding to a comment by Andy Dickinson on my last post:
First, I didn’t say that there aren’t talented old, white guys. The world is filled with them. I’m arguing that at least some management should not fit into that demographic.
To be sure, the core demographic for newspapers is older, white men. Newspapers would be foolish to abandon this demographic, but newspapers also need to expand outside of that demographic. Logically, it makes sense to have decisions makers outside of that demographic.
Rob Curley was a Vice President at The Washington Post at age 35, and a manager many years prior to that at other papers. Most newspaper management are overwhelming in the 40-70 crowd. The Post, especially WPNI, is a great example of having younger people making decisions. They have a lot of people making decisions with digital products who are actually big consumers of digital products.
When I say young, I don’t really mean my age group. Although, I do think it makes sense to actively consult people in my age group on decisions that involve digital products (and it might make sense to have some in project management positions, like some newspapers do). That doesn’t happen at many newspapers. however.
I’ve been to a lot of smaller publications, and often the people in charge are older. Ironically, many of the larger publications include younger people in the decision making process. That should be noted.
The point is not that older people can’t be great managers, they can (many of the top CEOs in American are above 40, but these people know how to surround themselves with great talent, too). The point is that if they were really great managers they would include younger people in their discussions about products and initiatives largely aimed at younger people.
I think it’s no mistake, however, that most of the Web titans are younger. Brin and Page are 34 and 35, respectively, and they founded Google in their mid-20s. Zuckerberg is 23. Bezos founded Amazon.com at 30. The list could go on and on.
Even programmer-as-journalist pioneer Adrian Holovaty was only 26 when he received his $1.1 million grant from the Knight Foundation to start Everyblock. I’m willing to bet there are other Holovaty’s out there who were never given the chance to shine by their bosses. Holovaty got to innovate at the most-innovative journalism company around, the Lawrence Journal-World.
The Lawrence Journal-World and their online arm, Mediaphormedia, have a culture of innovation that is sorely lacking at most newspaper. It’s a culture more akin to a Web company than a newspaper company.
But many newspapers wouldn’t know what to do if they had a young Brin or Zuckerberg or even Holovaty working for them. They most likely wouldn’t allow either to be included in important Web decisions. That’s a catastrophic mistake.
Let’s say you have 10 top editors. At least one should be a digital native (or enthusiastic adopter). How many newspapers can honestly say that?
I’m not even arguing that the majority of management should be in the under-40 set (this will vary form publication to publication), but it makes sense to have some employees in their 20s and 30s making decisions. At the bare minimum, I would actively consult younger employees about Web products.
Maybe it’s not even about having younger people in management. Maybe it’s really just about consulting them on important Web decisions. And maybe it’s about allowing younger employees the opportunities to innovate and giving them the freedom necessary to build desirable Web products.
Is this too much to ask?
May 13th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
I’m following your discussion with interest. Okay, I get what your saying but feel that you are slagging us older workers.
I’m an older (over the hill, you might say) 40 plus early adopter (web native? who knows and who really cares) that’s full of ideas on how to make her little universe at a major online company better. There’s a bunch of us toiling away here for at least ten years. Working in not the top jobs - but the jobs that are tops in terms of getting the work actually done, if you know what I mean.
But I’m regularily beaten down by the younger, blackberry flicking, let’s have a million meetings and then decide to do something that takes loads of time and cost a bizillion dollars. I think us - older - new media pioneers came from an age of do-it-yourself experimenting that’s currently not in the vogue. At least when you’re working in the majors.
We were never appreciated by the old guard because they just didn’t get what we were sayin. And the younger thans, don’t really care to hear what we’re saying, because well, we’re in a different generation, so what do we know.
May 13th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
@annette,
I get what you’re saying about the whole do-it-yourself vibe. That is becoming less and less true with younger generations. A lot of people my age have Facebook profiles and MySpace pages, but how many ever built their own Web page? I was toying around with those as as kid. Today there is so much technology around us that there is less reason to try to hack around.
There are older people who are digital natives (or enthusiastic adopters or whatever). And it’s those people I want helping to create great content. Now, I don’t work for a major publication, so I don’t know how internal generational politics work at one, but it sounds like you are in a pickle. You might want to find a new venue for yourself. Mark Potts is an excellent example of someone who is older that understands how to make cool Web content.
I’d be very vary of Blackberry-toting 30-year-olds too (I’m not a fan of Blackberries). It sounds like your publication might have a problem understanding who actually has the talent and the ideas. A bunch of slick people with fancy devices can fool a lot of people, but it doesn’t fool me. And it doesn’t fool you.
My brother who is only five years older than me isn’t anything close to a Web native (and I wouldn’t trust him with Web decisions, no matter how many Blackberries he owns). People his age, and a little older, didn’t grow up with the Web.
It would be a mistake by people in upper management to assume that people in their upper 20s and 30s know about the Web. Many do, but the ones who do are like you: they learned with that do-it-yourself hacker ethos.
But this is what I’m talking about with management. A good manager would recognize who had the actual talent. A bad manager would be fooled by slick-talking, device-wielding snake-oil salesmen.
May 13th, 2008 at 9:04 pm
Pat,
Allow me to take issue with two sweeping statements you make without much evidence to support them. First, that “today there is so much technology around us that there is less reasoning to try to hack around.” If this were the case, why then have technology companies increasingly released APIs for information, or provide services like Amazon’s S3 and EC2, which are dependent on people just hacking around. Or how do you explain the rise of XML, JSON and other formats to transfer data between applications and servers, thus freeing people to access information they otherwise might never have gotten. Or the plugins written and used for blogging apps - these are not signs of a slackening interest in DIY. Quite the opposite. I’d be curious to see any evidence you have for your assertion that fewer people are making their own Web page. Whether you come to HTML via Notepad, Dreamweaver or Blogger, you’re still building.
Second, the “People his age, and a little older, didn’t grow up with the Web.” I don’t know about you, but “grow up” is a relative term to me. I’ve been on the Internet since 1993, and that’s a good long time. Plenty of other folks my age have been online for that span, too. Growing up with the Web doesn’t have to happen when you’re a teenager or younger. You might want to give other folks just a bit less of a backhand. Sweeping statements may sound great when you say them to yourself just before writing, but sometimes you should resist the urge to enlighten us older, less native folks.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: you wanna have some influence? Then build something. Talk — particularly when it involves sweeping statements - is cheap.
Derek
May 13th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
@Derek
First, I think we should note our different backgrounds. You work for the NY Times and the Washington Post before that. Most of my posts deal with my experiences around smaller papers. Much of what is said here may not apply to your experiences.
I will stand by my statement there is less reason to hack around these days. Now, I don’t mean people like you. I mean everyday people. It’s so easy to do things on the Web today. And my comment is really about how people assume people my age are all Web All-Americans, but just because someone is on Facebook, doesn’t mean he knows how to build anything on the Web.
Plenty of people are building Web pages today. That’s not the point. The point is that Web technology is so advanced that people don’t have to hack around to get things to work. That’s a good thing, but it can be a crutch.
It’s hard to say that I even grew up with the Web. I was born in 1984. I, like everyone else, was never on the Web in the 1980s. Today, many kids start using computers and the Web at a very young age. I had a computer when I was very young, but I did not have the Web until around 1994. But my point had nothing to do with age. My point again had to do with people assuming that people in their 20s and 30s were Web All-Americans. That’s simply not true. To be good at the Web, you have to want to be good at it.
With my posts I try to start a conversation. I sometimes contradict myself. I don’t always agree with what I write. I often play devil’s advocate.
I want to start a conversation. Judging by the long and thoughtful responses you leave, I think I am accomplishing my mission.
And since this blog doesn’t monetize, I’d say talk is priceless.
May 13th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
Just because I now work at the NY Times doesn’t mean I don’t understand what it’s like to work at smaller organizations, having done so for most of my career. Really, this isn’t about you playing devil’s advocate or contradicting yourself. This is about saying things that demand a level of evidence that doesn’t appear here. People don’t have to hack around to get things to work? Hosting provider forums are filled with evidence to the contrary. Wordpress upgrades usually require some level of knowledge. If there are more people publishing their own Web sites, then it follows that more people (not all, but more than before) are becoming more familiar with the process. You, meanwhile, provide nothing to bolster your assertion. Well, you do “stand by” it, I guess.
Enjoy the conversation. I won’t be back.
May 14th, 2008 at 11:20 am
I think you’re taking a dangerous road here. Managers, god bless them, don’t make things go. They manage. To be a good manager doesn’t even require any journalistic sense. It’s just putting the right people in the right places to get things done.
I don’t think any good can or will come of top-down change in this industry. It’s going to come from worker bees doing what they can to build something better. And I think that means keeping those of us with ideas, the will and the knowhow to make them happen in positions where we can see them through. If that’s management, great. But I think it’s often not.
I also don’t think it has anything to do with age. Some people just get it. Others don’t. There are enough head-in-the-sand kids in J-school right now to replace all the bad ideas and bad form that you’re attributing to old, white editors.
As for not needing to hack around: Should the news industry be in Google’s pocket? Or should we aim to be better than/different from Google?
Generally, I think you’ve got good ideas. I just disagree here.
May 22nd, 2008 at 10:38 am
Yeah, I’m over 40, male, white … so I don’t know shit. My more than a decade experience of doing online journalism doesn’t mean a thing.
But how many 25-year-olds have I met who think blogging is stupid, video a waste of time and if it isn’t in print, it doesn’t matter … the number is about equal to the national debt.
May 22nd, 2008 at 12:52 pm
@Howard,
I think you are missing the point. There are plenty of people like yourself who know their shit. The point is that newspaper management needs a bit more diversity.
And I don’t think it’s really asking that much to at least consult people in their 20s and 30s on big Web decisions. That seems to be the least that could be done.
Yes, there are plenty of 25-year-olds who don’t know much about new media, but there are plenty of 40 somethings that don’t either. And how many of those 40 somethings do you really think know what 20 somethings want in a Web product? Part of the problem newspapers are facing is that they appeal to a very limited demographic — a demographic that seems to be well represented in management ranks.
May 22nd, 2008 at 2:07 pm
It’s not a generational thing at all.
While it would be great to have wunderkinds or fearless leaders that know the online ropes and press the issue hard, that isn’t always the case. And there will always be push and pull. So pushing too hard may be detrimental.
Some managers (and subordinates) may be complacent or ignorant of the Web. Not that I’m saying they’re stupid, just that they weren’t brought up in the Web environment or haven’t bothered with it for various reasons. That also doesn’t mean they don’t have an interest. They might love the Web on personal time, but haven’t had a chance to do anything with it at work. They may not know where to start.
It all comes down to knowledge and application of that knowledge.
If you’re fresh out of college with a degree in writing, chances are you don’t give a crap about databases or you were never properly introduced to them. If that’s the case, you’re going to have a hard time pulling a small multimedia project out of your ass, let alone set off a revolution in your company.
The same can be said of managers. If they don’t know what to look for in Web-savvy people, they don’t know how to manage them by putting them in situations where they’ll shine. And if they try, they may be shooting blindly.
My style is to do things much smaller than top down. Identify small needs and show how technology can help. Then build on that base of knowledge. Eventually you’ll root out people that begin to put the pieces together for themselves. Work closely with these people as they’ll become your mouthpiece in the day to day operations.
Because of this knowledge gap, if you try to cause change in large swaths from the top, you’ll be met with swift animosity and blowback. It’ll set you back and make everyone miserable.
The truly great managers (and this is true of any business, really) find where the corporate goals intersect with staff ability and needs. Then they grow from there.
May 22nd, 2008 at 9:20 pm
Rob Curley said it first — it’s mindset, not skill set.
When I’m hiring, or dealing with people on how they do their job, I pay attention to mindset, not age, color, gender, religion, etc. etc. etc.
It’s all about getting it.
When I advertised a job opening for a recent college grad, it wasn’t about age, it was about flexibility in relocation and career risk.
As it turns out, I hired a veteran of the news game. Yes, a younger vet, but still somebody with some experience, with some “newsroom baggage” as I put it back in those comments, but as it turned out, he had the right mindset.