Working for a website

It is becoming increasingly evident that the means of delivering the news is evolving. More and more newspapers are pushing a "digital first" approach and more new websites seem to be coming online.

The skills many of used in print and/or electronic journalism seem to be readily transferable: we investigate, analyze, report, edit, etc. Thus it would seem this sort of business is ripe for former newspaper (or TV) people.

So, just curious how many here have made the transition and what challenges you faced in doing so. Now, please understand, I am NOT referring to newspapers who have a website and a tired copy editor just uploads content at the end of a shift. I am referring to someone whose primary or exclusive job deals with a site, be it as a reporter, editor, manager, etc.

What has it been like?

 

There's so many opportunities to shape-shift online content in ways you can't in print. So I enjoy that, plus the immediacy and being able to work from anywhere. My experience suggests to me that the skills involved in "original content creation" are the same even if the delivery platform differs. I've worked as an editor and reporter in print and online, and found the transition pretty straightforward. Learning any new program or system takes a bit of time and trial and error, but it's not rocket science.

I *think* it's fair to say that most online-type editors these days are working within well-developed -- think plug-and-play -- content management systems (cms), platforms that might not be too far removed from what you would encounter on a basic Wordpress blog. So you figure it out, and get better and more creative as you go. *Most* online publishing environments will have some "producer" types for you to lean on when the tech gets tricky - you want to befriend these people and shower them with praise and gifts, because they will regularly save your ass and make it look good too.

 

Truer words have never been typed.

 

after exploring dozens of entrepreneurial career options, i finally made a huge leap and started an online community news site covering a suburban city of about 140,000. no print product at all. not making any money yet but not losing any either. expect that to be the same for the remainder of 2012. making it by the first six months or so on national and regional ad sales (more than just google ads but those are there, too) thanks to a stroke of luck to be involved with a national network. should be an interesting adventure but there is an opportunity to succeed. one interesting thing i've noticed is that most of the things about sending stories/photos for every little tournament, etc., that people bitch about on the dear dimwit thread are things i welcome because we don't have any space limitations and every single page view matters to my bottom line.

 

As an aside, I always find it irritating when I read a job ad that says something like "CMS experience preferred," or "CMS a must!!!!!" I mean, goodness, I have plenty of experience with it (11 years worth), but it's not like you can't learn it in 30 seconds.

At my last shop, we sat through a two-hour power point training session on CMS to teach us what we already knew. Paste the story into the box, type the headline in the right box and the byline in the right box and hit "publish." Jeez, and they wonder why they're going out of business. They wasted about 100 man hours with that horseshit presentation.