Need to feed the Web pits papers against new employers
"If you thought hiring copy editors was tough and getting graphic
artists was driving you insane, you ain't seen nothing yet."
So how you going to keep them down on the farm after they've seen
Gay Paree?
Your new media staff has seen the glittering lights, and they are not on
newspaper delivery trucks. While they spend their days -- and nights -- putting together
your stock tickers, Java applets and shovelware, they see their peers cashing in as
instant Internet zillionaires and want in on the action.
If you thought hiring copy editors was tough and getting graphic artists
was driving you insane, you ain't seen nothing yet. Newspapers, not known for lavish pay
scales or normal hours, now have combined their Scrooge-like pay scales with the insane
working environment of companies operating on Internet time. And those other Internet
companies, always on the lookout for people who can handle pressure, have found newspaper
new media departments to be fertile hunting ground.
"People who can work effectively on deadline are good," says
Tony Byrne, vice president of strategy and development for IDEV, a consulting company in
Silver Spring, Md. "We have had good experience hiring people with journalism
backgrounds, so long as they have the other skills that can help implement that
transition," he says. "What they bring from their media background can be very
helpful."
Byrne recently posted several openings at his company on a listserv
specifically for newspaper new media managers. He's not alone. Looking through the
archives of several similar lists, about half the help-wanted postings were from companies
that have little -- if anything -- to do with newspapering.
Byrne, and others like him, are frequenting the listservs, bulletin boards
and chat rooms where newspaper new media types hang out. They have found that the staffers
we have trained make good employees. And though they can't offer better hours -- Internet
companies keep hours as bad as those at any newspaper -- they can offer better pay and the
big kahuna, stock options.
How are newspapers responding? Not very well. Just as newspapers have done
an abysmal job bringing minorities into the newsroom and stand by as high school newspaper
programs go belly up, we are not doing much to train our new talent. Job requirements
often seem designed to turn people away rather than fill realistic openings.
A quick look at postings seeking editorial types on several of the
listservs had requirements for editors familiar with C++, Perl, JavaScript and a handful
of other applications. Oh, yes, they also had to have been an editor with project
management experience. Throw in slicing and dicing and julienne fries, and you have the
Veg-o-Matic of employees.
Mark Blanchard, on-line editor of Jacksonville.com,
a web site of the Florida Times-Union, has been dealing with this for a while.
"One position we had, it took us six months to fill," Blanchard
says. "We needed journalism skills, HTML and it would have been helpful to have an
audio background and video."
With the increasing demand for people with these skills, it's going to get
harder for newspapers to fill these slots, something to which Blanchard has given a lot of
thought. "We may have to drop our requirements," he says.
Mark Choate, director of new media for Nando.net in Raleigh, N.C., has
similar problems, complicated by the general low unemployment rate and the demand for
high-tech workers in his market, which includes Research Triangle Park. Choate just filled
one position and will add three more slots soon.
So just how do you keep them down on the farm? Giving special benefits
such as Internet-style stock options isn't possible at most newspapers. And for the few
papers that have put their Internet operations into separate divisions, granting options
to that group would lead to open revolt at the mother ship. Choate and Blanchard have a
starting point: boosting salaries for the webmeisters.
"We have made some adjustments in the pay scale," Choate says,
"though we haven't formally looked at it."
Newspapers have a secret weapon they are not using, according to John
Sanford, vice president of design at New York's Interactive Bureau, a web design firm.
"Newspapers have news, they have content," Sanford says.
"It's not like working in some e-commerce dungeon."
The Interactive Bureau has handled the design work for MSNBC, Newsweek,
Wall Street Journal Interactive, Drugstore.com and
a host of other web sites. Sanford says the steady stream of content, of news, is
something newspaper new media people should play up when recruiting.
"Newspapers have a serious recruiting attraction," Sanford says.
"News can be compelling, can be moving, can be beautiful. I would do everything I
could to structure jobs around it."
-- Steven E. Brier
From NEWSINC.,
Dec. 6, 1999, Copyright © 1999,
All Rights Reserved.
