SubScribe: Recruitment and Training of journalists Google+

Friday 22 November 2013

Recruitment and Training of journalists

David Montgomery's memo to staff: 
Recruitment and Training of journalists
The following is an outline proposal that needs to be further refined and debated. However the objective is to professionalise the Content Department of all of our franchise centres.
At the same time we need to maintain flexibility to admit recruits of exceptional creativity or with exceptional relevant experience and from unusual backgrounds.
A loose graduate only recruitment programme is suggested and certainly not necessarily from media studies departments. The key attributes are a high degree of literacy, inquisitive and presentational skills, strong but not necessarily confident personality and a broad general knowledge manifested in part through educational attainment.
It might be regarded that these are some of the accepted traditional requirements but the critical difference is that candidates should have a combination of the skills of multi-platform communication and organisational and management ability. Enabled with a broad and deep general knowledge, particularly in current affairs, this will allow the recruit to fly solo at an early stage. The old-fashioned publishing structure that acted as a hydra-headed nanny will no longer exist.
Training should be predicated with short print and online writing techniques courses but with no attempt to standardise reporting as has been the practice for decades. Instead there will be a tolerance to individual styles and an emphasis on comprehension in line with the culture where people are communicating successfully with each other on their personal devices minute by minute.
Then recruits should understudy a number of content segment senior journalists as well as becoming familiar with the content and commercial direction by following the executives in these areas.
All recruits would immediately develop a live content stream based on their own personal experience or activities provided it is relevant to the local community and then expand their role gradually working up to senior journalist status.
Finally none of this role definition defies the traditional practices of journalists. Each must be able to cover any unfolding situation or production task but these skills are a very small part of the expanded role of the new operating model journalist.

1 comment:

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