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Time was when a reporter with aspirations for the top job was expected to pick up most, if
not all, that was required for promotion by being resourceful and imitating those further up
the ladder. In a pinch, a working hack would be sent off for few days to pick up this or that
new production skill. Or, perhaps, to brush up on the latest in media law.

³There is no tradition of mid-career training in British print journalism,´ Prof Hugh

Stephenson of City University noted in his 2003 report for the European Journalism Centre.
³Indeed, the national newspapers have in the past not been involved in serious journalism
training of any kind, relying instead on being able to recruit experienced journalists from
regional newspapers.´

Thus it was that editors were apprenticed and, once appointed, seldom entertained hints that
there might be more to learn ± especially not from outside the fraternity. While most
industries came to see investment in staff development as a norm, turning MBAs into a must-
have for executives and phrases such as µour people are our most important asset¶ into
clichés, journalism relied on a cliché of its own - the School of Hard Knocks.

The result: ³The journalism side of media organisations are managed by people with less
formal training for the task that they are expected to perform than would be found in any
other comparable activity,´ said Stephenson. His observations were confirmed in a study of
148 senior newsroom staff that University of Central Lancashire colleagues and I conducted
last year: a small minority of respondents - four per cent ± reported having any formal

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postgraduate qualification in management and more than 40 percent said they had had no
management training at all. Indications are that is changing.

Yes, editors still like to reminisce about the days when reading newspapers was a national
habit and profits flowed like ink. And, yes, some still lament the oft-repeated trio of
demographic, economic and technological forces that is pushing down circulations and
endangering newspapers as a vehicle for journalism.

But increasingly editors also appreciate that fending off profit-hungry investors by focussing
with efficiencies - slashing expenses and firing staff ± has limits. Even if they haven¶t read
Philip Meyer¶s book, ³The Vanishing Newspaper: Saving Journalism in the Digital Age,´
many have heard of the University of North Carolina professor¶s calculation that, at the
current rate of decline, the last American newspaper reader will recycle his final paper copy
in April 2040. Even those who dismiss Meyer¶s premise as fear-mongering have a niggling
sense that where there is smoke, there may just be fire.

Many news executives now also concede (in private, if not in public) to what Tim Porter, the
associate director of the Knight Foundation-sponsored project, Tomorrow¶s Workforce, calls
the ³unpleasant truth´: journalists - and their managers ± need to share responsibility for the
decline in readership and relevance of newspapers.

Why is that?

Writing in a recent edition of the Harvard University p



, Porter doesn¶t mince
his words: ³Risk-averse newsrooms have spent several decades with their collective heads in
the ink barrel, ignoring the changing society around them, refusing to embrace new
technologies, and defensively adhering to both a rigid internal hierarchy and an inflexible
definition of ³news´ that produces a stenographic form of journalism, one that has stood still,
frozen by homage to tradition, while the world has moved on.´

'Risk-averse newsrooms have spent several decades with their collective heads in the ink
barrel'

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Parachuting in key expertise to help develop strategy is understandable, often essential. But it
is only a part solution. The key challenge facing the industry is not simply the ability to
conjure up a new multimedia formula to replace the old print ones. It¶s not even to update the
technologies and adapt to new work practices. It is changing the newsroom mindset. Just ask
Ulrik Haagerup.

The editor-in-chief of the Nordjsyke Medier in Denmark, Haagerup was a key player in the
unremarkable regional newspaper group¶s transformation into a world leader of media
convergence. From a single newsroom, Nordjyske Medier now tell news stories through a
website, a radio station, television channel, digital notice boards, mobile phone alerts, a free
commuter paper and, yes, a daily newspaper. And they¶re doing it with the same number of
editorial staff ± and mostly the same people ± that they had to start off with. In the process,
they¶ve reversed declining market share, re-energised the workforce, and advertising
revenues are up 33 per cent from 2002 to 2005.

Not surprisingly, Haagerup and other NM colleagues are in wide demand internationally as
speakers and their newsroom has seen a steady march of visitors ± foreign newspaper bosses
and academics (including our team at UCLan) keen to see how the Scandinavians have done
it.

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0
Perhaps it¶s not surprising that Haagerup is bullish about learning; after all, five years after
completing his undergraduate degree in journalism he headed off to spend a year at Stanford
Business School. However, it would be wrong to dismiss his comments as opinion grounded
in the experiences of a single, exceptional individual. Amongst Danish journalists,
Haagerup¶s attitude and even his educational background is not unique.

Unlike in the UK, there has been long and strong tradition of staff development in Denmark
following a 1979 agreement between the Danish Newspaper Publishers Association and the
Danish Journalists Union that all journalists should have one week¶s paid training leave a
year, which may be accumulated for up to six years.

Yes, the British experience is very different. But the investment by Johnston Press, Cumbrian
Newspapers and the Guardian Media Group in courses such as those offered by the
Journalism Leaders Programme is one indication things are changing.News organisations
have come to realise that to survive in this era of heady change and intense competition,
investment in talent is essential. Those that aim to thrive are training their journalists. They
are developing their managers. They are learning as institutions. Together they are
discovering that change is a thrilling phenomenon ± and learning is the oxygen for growth.

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