Old Media Dogs Can Learn New Tricks

Philip Stone September 18, 2007

No story ftm has written in our three years of existence has raised as much reader comment and mail as our story a couple of weeks back asking if Old Dogs Can Learn New Tricks – in our media world can those who are approaching senior citizenship within a few years learn the new digital trade? And more than one correspondent asked directly whether this writer is himself “an old dog”.

It seems we have hit a nerve – not one talked about very often, but one very much on the minds of many people in our media industry – from the managers who need to get new jobs done and are faced with some older folks who didn’t grow up in a digital world, to those older folks who didn’t grow up in the digital world wondering whether they will be given the training and opportunity to prove themselves worthy of what it means to be media person these days.

And to set the record straight, UBS, this writer’s super-efficient Swiss bank, without his asking automatically upgraded his bank account to “60 plus” so, yes, Virginia, this writer is an “old dog”.

An old dog who, incidentally, worked for one of the world’s major news organizations but really didn’t get very much training when it came to living and working in the new digital world. What saved the day was the sure self-knowledge that if one did not self-learn what needed to be learned then one wouldn’t be able to hold down that job any more. It was as simple as that. Greatly aiding the cause, of course, was being surrounded by young whipper-snappers who upon hearing the frequent cry of anguish, “Why in Hell did the program do that?” would come rushing to the aid of their managing director (there is something to be said for open plan) and each “mistake” became a training lesson.

So with that as background, there is absolutely no question that old dogs can indeed learn new tricks. And it was really interesting to read comments from our readers that basically fell into two categories:

• “We’re going to offer our employees the training they need to fulfill their new responsibilities and give them every chance to succeed, but if given that chance and they still can’t make it then that’s it.”
• Praise was heaped on such companies as Gannett and Lee for their training programs and not taking the easy way out and getting rid of the expensive older dog so two new young dogs who know all there is to know about digital media could be hired instead.

So let this writer offer just one personal example of how an old dog can really learn new tricks. The Internet was still fairly young in 1995 but Reuters America was right on top of the developing phenomenon selling news services wholesale to emerging news sites such as Yahoo. Reuters Media in Europe, on the other hand, was headed by an old dog who watched the Internet with some suspicion and while he had no objection in jumping in with both feet he wanted to ensure that the traditional business remained safe and solid because who knows what could happen with the Internet (like the bubble burst that happened just a few years later and practically destroyed the US New Media business for a time).

But the pressure was on for the Old Dog to show he was Internet savvy and so in a meeting with the whipper-snappers it was decided we would jump in fully clothed – we would start our own advertisement-supported retail web site carrying all of Reuters sports news on a site we would call the SportsWeb. Now, naturally we had no money or budget to do this, or even permission from on-up-high to do this, but Old Dogs never let such irritations get in the way of a good idea.

So, with Greg Pasche, who was then starting out as the European Internet Media Manager (now global head of Reuters media marketing), Pat McCarty, now retired from the Reuters sports desk but then appointed as the SportsWeb Editor, and Toby Russell (a Reuters Internet technical expert in London who now runs his own Internet consulting company), an unauthorized hosting deal with Dec (if we had done it in-house we’d still be waiting for permission) and help from others who thought we were quite mad, but what the heck, and we were off. Within six months SportsWeb was born, we had automated almost its entire operation with – and this was a first at the time – having pictures automatically matching text stories -- and the whole operation ran on 2 ½ people (and sometimes part time for them).

And did the Old Dog get kudos for this giant jump? Our colleagues in America were so angry they couldn’t see straight. Here they were selling their products wholesale to various entities and here we were in Europe in the retail business with those same stories. You just could not imagine how it all hit the fan!

But one way or another the SportsWeb survived and got rave four-star and five-star reviews from within the industry. But the US pressures just became so great that finally a deal was struck to sell the Sportsweb to one of its US wholesale clients – CBS Sportsline, and once they got their hands on it the SportsWeb brand was dead.

The only consolation in all of that was that some years later the Reuters media executive who agreed the Sportsweb sale said to this writer’s face that it was probably the biggest mistake he made while in that job.

And why mention all of this now? Because today, more than 12 years after Sportsweb was born what is Reuters Internet policy? It is retail. Reuters.com is out there fully advertising supported. Reuters was even willing to give up its CNN contract when it came to a decision on who actually owns the content and what can be done with it.

So, not only can Old dogs learn new tricks, Virginia, they can also be well ahead of their time, too.

Some of our correspondents also commented on how well, or badly, journalism schools today are facing the training of young journalists for this new digital world. When this writer graduated from San Jose State in California back in 1969 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism, there was a choice of specialization -- broadcasting, photo journalism , or writing for newspapers. For today’s world, of course, all of that has to be combined, but in those days there was very little carryover from one sector to the other.

The young journalist coming out of J-School today needs to know not only how to write for newspapers and the Internet, but how to prepare audio podcasts, how to shoot video and stills …It’s not just print, or TV or radio anymore, it’s now everything rolled into one.

The question that keeps nagging at this Old Dog however, is what could possibly be on the horizon so that by the time today’s New Dogs become Old Dogs, what are they going to have to learn to keep up with the times?

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