How to remain loyal to an initial ideal and survive throughout changing scenarios? It’s a challenge that newspapers for example have to learn how to face.

I think there is a lot to learn if we are willing to…

Even a conversational knowledge of the history of newspapers would get at the thought models that clarify what is basic and what is ephemeral.

It’s a problem that is compounded, in my humble opinion, by a single minded focus on the next big thing. It’s all good to look forward. But without a geographically specific historical context to evaluate what you see, it’s too easy to connect the dots using the resident patterns in your own head, instead of the most useful patterns that to capture the most important elements of what is going on.

Teaching in different higher education institutions I realized how sometimes my students held more conservative ideas about technology than I did. Some of the most “rebellious” ones complained a lot, but wanted to achieve change within preconceived institutional frameworks.

The economic and cultural or ideological background and current context of younger folk also has a lot to respond to. Some people have no problem in shifting from a career in journalism to one in business if they think they will earn more at the end if they do so.

In my view real change can only be achieved by consensus and collaboration between younger and senior participants in an organization. Those participants need to be passionate about what they do, too, while having the willingness to accept different ideas.

Without passion in any field, you get whining and blaming and pointing to others as reasons for failure. Frankly that’s kid stuff. If you don’t have passion for what you’re doing, do something else. Until you find something that you are passionate about. There’s no crying in baseball and no whining for grown ups.

The issue is not that a journalist student needs to become a business person. The point is that any successful person has to be driven by passion. That’s true for a teacher, a mechanic, a pressman, fireman or journalist.

The key to succeed is passion + 10,000 hours of practice. If you have that no baby boomer is going to get in your way. If you don’t have that, then don’t complain. It’s your decision. Pays your money and take your choice.

The journalism industry, on the other hand, is the exact OPPOSITE of the tech sector. It’s founded on tradition, old values and rules, strict methods. Gates taught himself how to be at the forefront of change, Woodward and Bernstein were taught by editors at the Post to follow suit, despite their “revolutionary” reporting.

In terms of Josh’s worldview, you may be right. Perhaps he doesn’t have the right attitude. But, what – pray tell – are the tools and military strategies would you offer to Josh in order for him to “beat The New York Times,” as if it were some sort of video game. Hmm?

In my opinion, he IS doing something. He is saving himself from taking a career path that might not evolve into anything that can provide for a sustainable living. Right now, the only job in journalism is that of a philosopher. Thinkers like Shirky, Rosen, and Jarvis have the time and money to be able to sit around and write prose on what the future of journalism might look like. And they have the reputations they have built over the last two decades to provide an audience.

Josh doesn’t. He just graduated.

And, by the way, the news business IS more like the tech world now. Have you not read about newspaper companies like the Cedar Rapids Gazette radically reorganizing their “newsroom” to resemble more of a tech startup than a newsroom?

And again with the Harris example — I’d argue that it’s easy for someone with 21 years experience just pack up and become an entrepreneur than a recent college graduate. I am just as sure that he relied “mostly on the reputation and institutional gravity of the organized [he] work[ed] for” in order to leave and start up Politico.

And how do you know that Josh “and his ‘generation’” DON’T know how to run a news organization the right way? Obviously the Berke’s of the world haven’t gotten the answer. So, in reality, it seems likelier that the answer might very well be in the hands of the Gen Ys!

Josh said “let my generation try all these ideas we have about how the news should be presented.” He didn’t say “move over and let me build a news organization.” Because perhaps news isn’t supposed to be organized in the same, OLD, fashion as it used to be. Maybe Josh’s ideas are so completely revolutionary that you can’t fathom their existence much like a 15th century peddler couldn’t possibly understand the internet.

Josh doesn’t want the rewards of management while bypassing necessary responsibilities and stepping stones. He simply doesn’t want to waste his time climbing a broken ladder.

Long story short: You lost me at Catholic priesthood.

The reason Gen Ys want to work for newspapers and not web is clear: It’s what their institutions have told them to want. The rigid professors who tell them to bring the NY Times to class every day. And those who have broken away have found that writing for the web isn’t less legitimate — it pays shit, that’s what.

So — as a 20 year old journalism student — I’m certainly not giving up. I’m with you on that much.

But do I look down on Josh for leaving the industry?

No way.

I’m about to graduate during one of the worse economic times in history. I have second thoughts about jumping into a dying industry every day. If it weren’t for my deep involvement in social media marketing consulting and efforts to build a reputation for myself on LinkedIN, I don’t know what I would do.

And despite inclinations to go to grad school for new media at NYU’s ITP program where I would actually take fun classes — I am now seriously considering dropping the idea to go business school.

http://www.newschallenge.org

You don’t even need to hunt down venture capitalists — they give you money. There are other grant opportunities out there as well.

Even without any outside funding, you can do. If you have a good idea and are passionate and driven, it can work.

Shameless plug: check out CoPress. We’ve applied for Knight funding, but we’re not twirling our thumbs while we wait — we’re rolling on ahead.

The students who worked on the college newspaper didn’t really care about online journalism. I pretty much had to do it myself. They wanted to work for the print edition, and working on the Web site was kind of like the minor leagues.

Now I do have a lot of Web and social media skills. But, along with what others are saying, I’m not wedded to working for a big newspaper. I’ve tried to get some new media projects off the ground. Some went better than others, but I’ll keep plugging away.

The kinds of people who only want to work for a newspaper are afraid of failure. That’s precisely why we cannot look to established newspapers to lead us to salvation, and, yes, we are in need of salvation. It is the people who aren’t afraid of failure who will take the risks necessary to get us out of this mess.

Some people may look a what I do and think I’m just throwing things at a wall to see what sticks. In many ways I am, but I can’t say for sure what will stick. So, I’m just going to keep trying again and again.

You know what? Most of what I try won’t stick, but I understand that going in. Failure is part of the learning process. One day, however, something really good will stick.

A few points. First I really agree with your assessment of the “other Josh.” Old folks in upper management aren’t the problem (well, they are part of it, but it’s not because of their age.) As you point out, everyone has the option to innovate and invent.

An as a lifelong “recovering” Catholic, I love your analogy to the priesthood. Never thought of it like that, but I think you’re right about the John Paul priests.

Anyway, back to journalism. This graph really resonated with me:

“But for those 23-year-olds who still want to work at a newspaper — a lot of them sound as if they want nothing more than a fedora with a press card in the brim. They view a story in the paper as somehow ‘real’ and a piece on the web site as less than legitimate. (This, despite the fact they haven’t read a printed newspaper in years.)”

Here’s why it resonates so much. I’m not young. I’m 42, and in my newsroom I’m younger than most of the upper managers but older than many reporters and editors.

I don’t think age is the issue. In my newsroom, of the people who most embrace new media, social media, the interactive Web, the “new journalism — none are what most people mean when they say “young.”

In general, the 20- and 30-somethings in my newsroom aren’t really embracing new media or at least not to the extent of some of us “middle-aged” folks. I don’t think that’s because they are young.

Perhaps it is because they have tapped into the “fedora with the press card in the brim” myth that hasn’t really been the reality at newspapers since long before I walked into my first newsroom. Perhaps it’s because newspapers in the past 15 years are attracting a different type of person. Perhaps it’s because some people are just more open to new ideas (early innovators) than others, and that has nothing to do with age.

But I do think it hurts the industry.

What he and some of the other speakers said about young journalists’ Luddite tendencies had so much of an effect on me, in fact, that I had an almost-immediate change of heart. In less than a years’ time, I’ve learned how to shoot an edit video, record podcasts and run a campus news blog by myself.

But as other commenters have pointed out, the problem isn’t necessarily getting the younger crew to embrace the digital age; we have a native intelligence when it comes to technology. But rather, as Non Vivant asks, “Why are people who want to be reporters being asked to be businessmen?”

I’ve complained about this to some of my professors and to professionals, and the answer is to the tenor of: Too bad. And I agree. It sucks. I don’t wanna’ be a business man. But I also want to be able to make a living out of doing what I love best, so if we must, we must.

But you must remember that we’re talking about the young and self-entitled [myself included], so to ask gumption of us is reasonable, but to ask us not to whine while we innovate is entirely out of the question.

I agree with your first sentence, Leo, but I think the latter part of your response demonstrates that you’re still stuck in the same institutional mindset that Josh B is decrying. You assume that the only option available for a journalist who doesn’t want to work for a dead-tree publication is to go to a startup and eat ramen. But there are far more jobs than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

A good way to think of it is that being a good journalist helps you develop important core skills — such as effective communication and project management — that can be effective in many different jobs, including a few that most of us have probably never even heard of. Instead of asking themselves, “How can I get a job at a newspaper?” aspiring journalists should be thinking about what they’re good at, and how those abilities can translate to the job market.

More on this topic here:
http://thedigitalists.com/2009/03/20/getting-past-institutional-mindsets/

In is metaphor, are bloggers equal to deacons?

Can we read? If we read, can we comprehend?

[[Let’s be realistic: What’s a 23-year-old with a J-school degree going to do to round up venture capital?]]

Well, Non: Generally, you come up with an idea. You hone the hell out of it, and you write a business plan. Then you start knocking on doors on Sand Hill Road. You network with any angel investor you can find. In short, you do the same thing you do as a reporter – except instead of looking for answers, you’re looking for money. Step One: Start a blog, throw Google ads on the sucker, and learn.

[[The dot com start-up fantasy applied to journalism is great for the people who are willing to eat ramen for the next decade, but some of us want a house and to be able to feed our families.]]

Leo, you remind me of some of the factory workers I covered early in my reporting career, who acted as if companies like International Harvester and J.I. Case *owed* them a lifelong sinecure. And do you think Sergey ‘n Larry dined on foie gras while they were slogging through their graduate work at Stanford? You think they’re feeding their families now?

Unwittingly, both of you served to personify the rather broad generalizations Josh made in his post. Journalism won’t be saved by cowardice. It might be saved by people who are willing to take some risks and *do* something.

Both of you brag about your skills. Confident in ‘em? Do something with them.

Let’s be realistic: What’s a 23-year-old with a J-school degree going to do to round up venture capital? And why are people who want to be reporters being asked to be businessmen?

The repoters Josh talks about from the previous generation didn’t have to come up with a new business model. They just had to be good reporters. When he points out that industry myopia has screwed people who want to follow in those footsteps, the response is that he ought to start a whole new business model?

I’ve got years of writing and new media experience and I’m aggressively trying to develop a reputation as a one-man brand. But I don’t control the purse strings, and the same generation that does controls the unions that, bless ‘em for their benefits, are just as focused on defending the jobs of reporters who’ve been in the game since the 70s. The consequence? I can write circles around my higher-paid peers, take photos, handle content administration, HTML, CSS, know new media like the back of my hand, and I still can’t get a damn job that pays more than $22K per year. Who’s hiring anyway? Every gig that opens up has me competing against hundreds of laid-off journos with more experience and more opportunities.

A lot of us have every reason to feel like the game is rigged.