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Marta Wohrle
As President Obama’s “Jobs Bill” is debated across the nation, it seems appropriate to pause and think about what is going on with regard to jobs in the media industry. What jobs, you may say. And I’m guessing that many of you have long been advising your kids, god children, or anyone else who cares to listen, to not even think about a career in the media. But the more I think about it, it isn’t the jobs or the lack thereof. There is something much more profound going on.
I first started in journalism nearly 30 years ago, and right now, despite the economy, I am hiring for my online start up, which happens to be a content site (revenue is driven by ecommerce). But the skills I utilized in my early career and the ones that I am looking for in new hires now are a world apart. Let me explain.
In the early 1980s, when I graduated, there was an economic recession. I had a BA Honors in Media Studies and enough fear of being jobless to take the first thing that came along, which was on a magazine called, of all things, Disco International. Yep, a trade magazine for the nightclub industry. Within about five years, I was on a national newspaper thanks to a finely honed but very limited skill set: I could write crisp and grammatical prose, ferret out information and cradle a telephone handset between my shoulder and jawbone whilst furiously scribbling notes. I still use the first two on a daily basis, but haven’t made a phone call in order to retrieve information in a very long time.
My phone is now a smart phone and I have acquired a host of additional skills that I couldn’t run my online site without. Working in the media today is a complex business that is like trying to keep a lot of plates spinning at once. Content isn’t just about writing an article and publishing it. An article online has to be thought of in terms of a relational database so that it can be found by surfers and searchers, so that it can throw up relevant related content, and so that it can be used in multiple ways. It needs to be tagged and categorized and the writer has to think like a taxonomist.
A writer in my office will on most days touch at least five publishing platforms: the main content CMS, the email newsletter platform, our Twitter feed, Facebook page and Tumblr. And just because they are under 30 don’t assume that it’s in their DNA to do all this. My first hire (aged 25) came with a Masters in Publishing from NYU. She came with the same skills I had 30 years ago – curiosity and a good writing style. And, apart from a great work ethic and willingness to learn, that was it. She was one of only four students in her year who elected to focus on online (rather than print) media. I wonder what has become of all those print-focused graduates.
From where I sit, there are media jobs. But they are jobs that very many people already in the media are not qualified for. And even more alarming is that hardly any new graduates are qualified for them either. I see a need for writers who know how to make their content connected. Anyone creating content these days has to be willing to spend as much time conversing with their readers as they do writing stuff. My assistant editor spends a great deal of her time editing articles submitted by the audience (another major shift).
Video is becoming a key way of communicating and, in need of a videographer, I am sending a writer, who became our Facebook manager, to video training classes. I need people who can use Photoshop. I’d love it if they knew even just a little HTML.
When I started my business, I assumed that I would be creating content and selling advertising against it. What has transpired is that ecommerce has become the dominant revenue stream by a very large magnitude. My business plan is out the window along with the provision in it for hiring a head of advertising sales. Instead, I have found an ecommerce manager, who learned on the job at another start-up (he also taught himself Photoshop).
In short, there are jobs in the media, but no one is being trained for them. Unless that changes, bringing in the right talent to scale the new generation of media businesses is not going to get any easier.
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