Jay Rosen
Jay Rosen may have overstated when he told journalists to quit their jobs if they can’t understand their organization’s business model. But Gawker’s Hamilton Nolan way overstated in telling journalists not to listen to Rosen.
I highly recommend reading both pieces. Rosen’s post is full of good advice for understanding the path your business is taking and contributing to making progress along the path. Nolan’s post is fascinating, the kind of scornful dismissal of Rosen’s visionary digital thinking that I normally expect from those clinging to legacy media, not one of the digital upstarts that the troglodytes are so scornful of.
Jay made 15 points that I recommend reading. I’m going to address seven points, somewhat repeating and overlapping with his:
- Journalists should absolutely try to understand your organization’s business: how you deliver value and how the company plans to make money from that value.
- Business models change, sometimes with little warning, sometimes for the better and sometimes not. You won’t always be informed immediately of the changes.
- Colleagues need to understand and believe in the value you provide.
- We can protect our integrity and still discuss and understand the business.
- Learn the language; you always have.
- Leaders are critical to the success of a changing organization.
- Business model issues are worth changing jobs over, but I recommend trying to change the organization before quitting it (and finding another job first, too).
I’ll elaborate shortly, but first I’ll defend Rosen against Nolan’s anti-intellectualist insult. Noting the New York University professor’s brief career at the Buffalo Courier-Express before joining academia, Nolan said Rosen “makes money by producing proclamations about journalism rather than by producing actual journalism.” (more…)
The Buttry Diary 