It’s an important, tough-to-answer question.
I’ve said before that many of the top journalism students never go into journalism. Instead, they choose more lucrative fields that have more stable futures. I can’t blame them — that’s probably the smart decision.
Still, many very smart people go into journalism. Are newspapers capable of keeping them, especially the talented Web people? I’m not so sure.
I already know several talented young journalists who have left the field. I think the fundamental issue (besides the horrible pay, hours and uncertain future) is that newspapers traditionally have been very rigid organizations.
Producing the “daily miracle” required a great day of institutional control. It required many layers of management and a rigid structure to ensure a daily product was produced on a medium — print — that is not a good daily medium.
The Web is the opposite. It’s instantaneous. It’s open.
The Web is immediate. Change can happen in the blink of an eye. The Web is an incredible platform for innovation.
Therein lies the problem. Will talented, young technologists really want to stick around institutions that are often risk-averse and slow to adopt new technology? Those people could find a lot more freedom to build cool and useful stuff in other fields.
William M. Hartnett thinks that newspapers have too many managers and too rigid of a management structure to keep around a lot of talented, entrepreneurial young people:
I, for one, am not terribly patient about the changes that we all know need to happen. I’m guessing quite a few people much smarter than me are even less patient and, dare I say it, far more entrepreneurial. Do we seriously expect talented, impatient, entrepreneurial young people to put up with our strictly hierarchical newsrooms?
“Great idea, whiz kid. A really killer app. Now just take it to your boss. Then up one level of management. Then another. And another. Just a couple more levels to go now. Whoops, looks like you’re not even being invited to the meetings anymore.”
Right. That just screams innovation.
For me, I think I love journalism too much to seriously consider another field at this point in my life. But that doesn’t go for every journalist. For many, journalism is just another job.
And if working for a newspaper is just another job, a person won’t hesitate to take another one in another field if its a better situation. That’s a major issue for the future of newspapers and journalism.