Skill-sets for the new journalism

The future of journalism in Birmingham begins Oct. 1, when The Birmingham News ends seven-day publication after 125 years and switches to online all-the-time with only three days of print.

That has meant a major change in who will gather the news and write about it in Birmingham. Centuries of experience have walked out the door, and a leaner, mostly younger staff will proceed.

Those who are departing have shown a tremendous level of class, dignity and professionalism since they were told in mid-June they no longer would have jobs come Oct. 1. The three reporters whose bylines graced the front page of the final daily edition of The News have something in common: Gone. Gone. And gone.

In each of the last two daily editions, a top leader of the new media group has, essentially, said the departing journalists lacked the “new digital skill set(s)” required to continue gathering and presenting news for the new company.

No, the changes to staffing, compensation and working conditions were not a reflection of our abilities to present news in the new media. It was a bottom-line business decision.

Those comments made me think back to the articles I wrote for the paper’s food section in 2009, and all of the “how-to” cooking videos I had shot to accompany the text online as part of our new mandate to “think digital.”

I thought about the package of stories I wrote in 2010 examining and explaining the prevalence of young killers and homicide victims in Birmingham. The crown jewel was an interactive montage, which two colleagues and I put together and posted on al.com.

Here it is: (Killing Years) Roll over each defendant’s photo and you’ll get a synopsis of the crime and learn about the victims. Links on some defendants’ photos lead to longer stories about particularly notorious crimes among this age group.

What skills were required to put that together? First of all, there was no single source compiling all the information about homicides in Birmingham and Jefferson County in the period I examined, 2006-early 2010. I had to build the database myself, first of defendants then of their victims, drawing details and cross-referencing from nearly a dozen sources.

The list of defendants allowed us to know which mug shots to obtain from the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department. There were 140 of them. Then I confirmed all of the defendants’ mugs for accuracy, researched and wrote the text about the crimes and loaded that into the blogging tool. Same thing with the larger vignettes. Once the ace designer loaded it all onto the graphic, I had to confirm each was done accurately and supervise alterations.

The Sunday the main story ran, I spent the day monitoring the comments on al.com, flagging those that were inappropriate and interacting with commenters by leading or directing the conversation in other ways. The next day, a Monday, I was the first metro news reporter for the paper ever to lead an online chat.

That doesn’t even bring into account the traditional journalistic skills required such as the years spent in courtrooms that allowed me to identify the trend and know the stories that would illustrate the main points. It wasn’t just a matter of knowing how to put together the research that confirmed an anecdotal suspicion; it was knowing who best could help put my research into perspective – and them knowing me.

When Gabe Watson went on trial earlier this year for the Australian honeymoon drowning case, I spent every waking moment posting multiple unique updates daily on al.com, dashing upstairs at the courthouse to tweet updates at every break in the trial (cell phone service was impossible inside the courtroom), participating in video-update shoots and making sure my articles for the next morning’s paper would be posted online the evening before, when a sizeable Australian audience was waking up and looking for a trial update.

In May, I conceived an elections page for al.com, where we could post relevant information about candidates months before that information traditionally has been available in print. This is beyond the routine we did daily: Find out information, and post it in online and print formats.

Those of us who have been in the business two or more decades have done nothing but adapt to changing technology and industry economics. We continued to do so, and do so effectively, during the transition to online news presentation.

Those of us who were not invited or who chose not to be part of the future media company were treated decently. Few layoffs are accompanied by weeks of additional paychecks and severance afterward, and the company went even farther to help cushion the blow.

I understand that the new media group has a sales job to do; change always requires that. It must convince its customers that this tectonic change is an improvement.

But, as part of that sales pitch, please don’t even insinuate that the departing reporters and editors lack the skills to be part of the new journalism. That is unfair.