I spent the day with a bunch of very motivated South African journos who are tasked with doing multimedia. In fact engaging, or should that be wrestling, with digital in a big, profound way. I have four more days with these guys and it feels exciting. I’m feeling equally scared and blessed to be part of the process.
We, well me more than them, talked a lot about disruption. So in that spirit, and in the spirit of a previous post where I highlighted the newspaper video yahoo group as one of those ‘worth repeating’ blogs, I want to point to a bit of inspiration and another must read – Howard Owens.
Even if you disagree with what he writes (and engage in a debate with him over it) if you read it, you can point others in the newsroom to him and say ‘read this blog and then let’s talk’.
This is one of the very few newspaper execs talking online – and honestly talking,
Sensible, informed, challenging debate.
Try reading it and then, to quote an academic phrase, discuss.
3 Responses
Howard Owens
September 3rd, 2007 at 9:37 pm
1Very kind mention. Thank you.
Andy
September 3rd, 2007 at 9:46 pm
2You’re more than welcome. Thought leaders are important at all levels and execs, no matter what they say, being actively involved in the debate and discussion is a vital and often too rare part of that.
I’ve spent too much time recently talking to journos who are second guessing what execs expect of them so it’s nice to have the perspective.
It also gives the day-to-day journo ammo to approach less than forward thinking execs with ideas they can debate. Do us all a favour and next time you sit down next to other news execs – get them to blog
Howard Owens
September 4th, 2007 at 3:29 am
3A few of them do …
–Howard Weaver, VP of news for McClatchy
–Stevel Yelvington, VP of strategy at Morris
–Bob Benz, VP at Scripps (though he writes purely a personal journal)
–My boss, Bill Blevins (though again, primarily a personal journal)
–Jay Small is a great industry blogger and is about my equivalent rank within Scripps.
One thing that maybe makes my blog different is I started it years before I became an executive, which I think lends itself to my having developed a voice that doesn’t feel constrained by corporate concerns. It helps that I work for a company that recognizes the value of my blogging. And that my blog was A) both well established when I joined the company; B) it helped me get the job (my boss responded to a post about my being out of work).
But Howard W., Steve (especially) and Jay can all be pretty forthright and transparent at times. I highly recommend their blogs.
Those are all the corporate execs I know with blogs.
There are also several property-level (newspaper) executives who blog about new media — too many for me to name, and in some cases I’m not entirely sure of their actual rank within the organization.
RSS feed for comments on this post · TrackBack URI
Leave a reply
Of interest
Stuff you may be looking for
Categories
Archives
Widget
JOURNALISMDAILY.COM
Disclaimer
Andy would like to point out that the views expressed in this blog are his own and do not reflect the views of the University or Department of Journalism.
RSS Feed
A word from our sponsors
What I'm twittering.
journalism
Mac
Online
Tools
video