Changing a media career: dead tree to CRT

As of today, I am no longer the "web ed" at The Santa Fe New Mexican. I wrote a little farewell post for our readers here, and I'd like to thank all those who expressed their support via the comments.

I can post here that the new position I am taking is as Digital Content Manager for KOAT-TV in Albuquerque. It's a newly created position across the Hearst-Argyle chain, and Albuquerque is the first test case. So I'm the guinea pig, so to speak :) A lot more to it than this, but in short I'll be responsible for planning, developing and optimizing digital initiatives for the station. Technically, I'll be reporting to Internet Broadcasting Systems, which manages the Hearst-owned television sites, among other properties.

The position appealed to me for several reasons. Primarily, it is a chance to think more strategically and conceptually. As a colleague recently advised me, it was time for me to find a job where I can be utilized more for how I think and what I know, rather than being weighed down almost single-handedly with what needs to be done for the day-to-day operational tasks (though I'm certainly not afraid and not beyond doing whatever it takes to make the operation effective, current , and valuable). This gig allows a more birds-eye view, and that had tremendous appeal.

The chance to implement and team -build creative initiatives is ineffective without backup, and this was another selling point for me. Over the course of several visits and interviews, I've seen a tremendous amount of energy and enthusiasm across the board, from KOAT to IB to Hearst-Argyle. Just as important is the confirmation of buy-in, support and resources I saw to back up that drive. Everyone's committed and pumped up, and in turn that inspires me to inspire further.

The other challenge and appeal was the switch in media platforms. Coincidentally I had started to look in general at other media platforms to see what they were doing on the web, so this opportunity was another bit of auspicious timing.

My initial impression from that early research shows something of a paradox at play (note: what follows stems also from research, observations, and colleague discussions. It is an assessment of the newspaper industry as a whole, and is not directed at any specific newspaper. I have tried to be as former-employer-neutral as possible).

Newspapers want to innovate on the web -they're desperate to do so because of collapsing circulation and advertising, etc. - but print culture has two very heavy counterweights to innovation: a) it is a very risk-averse culture in general, and b) philosophically, fully mining the potential and nuances of the Information - Technology - Social Use Nexus (ITSUN, which I'll be writing more and more about), is quite antithetical to their deeply -established professional practices, methodology, and training . These two factors alone create a downward spiral of inertia and hesitancy, and in tandem conspire against fully committing the innovative ideas floating around newspaper new media circles into full swing.

Gradually, more and more papers are coming around - but they're not taking what initiatives I do see far enough or deep enough, marrying them to that described nexus effectively enough, and none of it done with the urgency I think necessary. There is still a lot more thinking and talking than doing out there.

Frankly, I don't see this changing much over the next ten or twenty years, because the fundamental paradigm shift needed that will enable the print professional mind-set to wrap around what's happening now (much less what's coming ahead) needs to be occurring in print journalism curricula and newspaper internship programs now. Teaching multimedia story-telling techniques is great, setting up comments is even better, but its all still surface, its not a deep enough core shift, unless one starts to explore the intent and purpose behind those techniques. I run the risk of digressing here, so I'll explore this idea in a later post.

By contrast, television already has a leg up on several fronts. Technologically, there are already hours of video at one's disposal (though even then I think it could be better optimized for web use). More critically, TV is better equipped philosophically (not nearly as risk-averse, more comfortable with the idea at least of emergent technologies) and professionally (much better poised for breaking and continuous news, for example).

These factors, when viewed against a general newsprint industry-wide quagmire and malaise, led me to ask myself -what platform is better poised to remain and succeed as a viable and valuable resource of information into the next ten, twenty years? Even based on my early research, the answer was clear - so when it came time to seek other frontiers, I kept an eye out beyond the newspaper arena.

TV's advantages aren't quite the magic cure, however. The paradox I alluded to earlier lies in the fact that the TV news industry is in a relatively healthier condition than their print counterparts ( though there are some signs that the TV landscape is changing also). They haven't felt the crisis-driven need to innovate as acutely, so local TV news web practices have been a little complacent, generally.

Newspapers are trying to innovate, but face obstacles to successful implementation. Conversely, TV perations have fewer hurdles, but haven't been pushed to innovate.

The KOAT operation struck me as a clear exception to TV's comfort zone - they're pushing themselves, and want to push even further forward - and so it will be my goal to help build and guide that drive, and bring some cutting edge concepts and ideas into the TV digital presence.

Its a fresh challenge, because I'm also aware that you can't apply the best newspaper online innovations automatically to TV. The user goals and expectations are different, the crosspoints of web TV's SUTIN are different enough to require some fresh applications.

I'm energized and excited...