Friday, August 24, 2007

The jobs are online *

[*UPDATE: Glazer writes a follow up, "The Difficulty of Putting a Number on Journalism Jobs". He concludes "It’s going to take hard work and focus to figure out how to successfully compete (and collaborate) online with the Googles and Yahoos of the Net world — and cutting staff indefinitely isn’t a solution." Check out the comment section for both.]

MediaShift's Mark Glaser says traditional journalism job cuts are being countered by digital job additions: "If you follow the world of traditional journalism, you can’t help but notice the seemingly constant stream of layoffs and buyouts at news organizations. But media observers don’t often emphasize the flip side: As newspapers and broadcasters slice their senior-level workforce, they are also quietly building their digital and online teams."

Glaser's piece is worth the read and here's some tidbits that should inspire you to click-click:

— As of today, there's 46 editorial interactive and broadcast jobs available at Tribune. As of yesterday, there was 645 "online/new media" job listings on mediabistro and 628 newspaper openings on JournalismJobs.com
— Companies want to hire digital folks because they’re trying to get the younger set, the technologically savvy journalist who doesn’t have the pay built up yet and has the skills of the next generation
— Newspapers who have cut print jobs to add digital positions are having a hard time finding people with necessary journalistic skill sets
— The talented people pushed out could have easily been re-trained, but most companies don't invest in training or "human capital"

Guild journalists negotiate training provisions in contracts with their employers that when exercised, benefit workers and the company. Journalists with the latest in tech-savvy skills have better job security.

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