Intro
Cultural change: newspapers (finally) welcome multimedia training
Multimedia infusion at the cost of quality?
The management training gap
To in-house or to outsource training
Is online training the future?

Intro

PA counts about 1200 staffers, the majority of whom (about 850) work in the small town of Howden. PA’s training department counts 10 fulltime staffers (not all trainers) as well as outside consultants. PA conducts training for all types of media outlets, mostly newspapers, both regional and national.

Cultural change: newspapers (finally) welcome multimedia training

PA took its first steps towards multimedia about four years ago, when it hired specialized broadcast journalists. But it’s only as of January 2006 that PA launched its first multimedia courses, a 16-week introductory program for young journalists.

“There has been a massive change (in newspapers’ mentality) in the last 12 months,” said Johnston. Before then, many journalists in the UK still considered online as a second-class medium. Nowadays, this has been reversed. It’s more of an ‘old-world’ versus ‘new-world’ divide. “And everybody wants to be part of the New World.”

Many of PA’s recent training programs for newspapers have been multimedia-centric. Recent work with the Northcliffe newspapers and the Daily Telegraph put a lot of emphasis on videojournalism. PA is also working on a new course specifically designed for video editors, a position still widely inexistent in newspapers.

The Daily Telegraph, despite its impressive in-house training program, chose to send 10 new potential recruits to PA for a six-week course (more below on why). The apprentices covered the basics of multimedia production (video, podcasts, slideshows and more), but also studied other new media-related issues such as search engine optimization.

At the end of the project, all students produced a multimedia package including video, pictures and text, reporting on an old murder case that had occurred in Teesside. With lots of importance put on practical assignments, PA organized a live reconstitution of the events, and the student reporters filed live Web updates during the reconstituted press conference.

Nationals aren’t the only ones to have opened up to both training and multimedia. The regional Express and Star, in Wolverhampton, has been at the forefront of videojournalim coverage – it now has fulltime videojournalists – since it sent staffers to train at the PA.

However, Johnston insists that the core journalism training programs (production courses, writing, elementary journalism skills) are still very buoyant. Multimedia isn’t yet the dominant sector, but “it’s unlikely we will still run single-media foundation courses for new journalists,” said Johnston. In other words, the majority of PA‘s training programs still revolve around basic reporting skills – which they should – but in the future courses will increasingly be centered on multimedia.

Multimedia infusion at the cost of quality?

Doesn’t this multimedia craze, with its emphasis on hits, increased audience, and bells and whistles, risk taking journalism the wrong direction?

Multimedia is simply what’s asked by customers (newspapers and news organizations in the case of PA) as well as the audience, explained Johnston. Although some journalists don’t like to think of themselves as profit-making companies, “it’s ultimately about business.”

But the basic journalistic requirements and points of contact with the audience haven’t changed – people still want to hear about their local school and hospital. Simply the ways in which information is delivered have changed. So, as long as journalists continue to learn how to produce quality journalism, as well as multimedia, there’s no reason for quality to decrease. (Not to mention well-led multimedia storytelling can improve journalistic coverage too).

Cross fingers.

What about the potential abuses of popularity-driven news? Newspaper videos can tend to be lighter and less newsy than traditional content. But it’s still up to editors to decide how to use this new multimedia content, said Johnston (echoing a similar answer by Jeff Jarvis). “There will always be shock and horror stories,” but it’s the editor’s job to uphold the quality content they seek and defend their brand name.

Granted, as journalism speedily evolves, it’s hard for editors to keep up with the right calls. UK’s Press Complaints Commission made its first ruling about video after a Scottish regional paper posted a user-generated mobile video. What if the paper had simply published a link to a YouTube video? That would have been a much harder decision, according to a conversation Johnston had with the PCC.

Said Richard Austin, veteran freelance photographer who attended Dunkley’s videojournalism course at PA: “I think everybody has just jumped on to this bandwagon, and there’s a lot of let’s see where it goes,” but one “thing’s for sure, obviously the Internet is here to stay.” And “if you stand still, you’ll be left behind.”

“The multimedia model isn’t established yet,” Johnston concurred.

The management training gap

How can editors, who may not have comprehensive knowledge about new media, evaluate the work of their newly formed journalists? Admittedly, journalistic training “is still coming to grips with that,” said Johnston.

There’s a “skills gap on the management level,” and inevitably editors are going to have to acquire those sets of skills. PA does offer the Editors Chair Course, aimed mostly at deputy and assistant editors who are about to take the main job, and takes them through best practices at other papers, national and international.

You can also read here for some tips offered by Dunkley as to how editors can organize the evaluation of their (video)journalists’ new work.

To in-house or to outsource training

Newspapers have traditionally been reluctant – furthermore, mediocre – to formally train their journalists. Now that most realize change is a necessity, should they conduct their training programs in-house or outsource them to specialists?

For obvious reasons, Johnston wasn’t prone to argue why newspapers should train journalists in-house. “PA has more knowledge and expertise in media training,” he said. So one reason to outsource simply has to do with newspapers’ traditionally faulty programs.

Perhaps more instructive is why the Daily Telegraph chose to send 10 new potential recruits to PA for training, instead of going through its own elaborate department. “Our own program is significantly advanced,” said Rhidian Wynn-Davies, and is meant for experienced journalists. “It wasn’t appropriate for a post-graduate scheme.” So in some cases a newspaper’s in-house program simply isn’t the best fit for some of its journalists.

Secondly, PA is brilliant at establishing the basic skills of reporters, said Wynn-Davies. Institutions with a tradition of training and teaching expertise often have core courses that have made it through the test of time.

Third reason offered by Wynn-Davis: PA has an excellent regional network and contacts. This falls in line with the Telegraph’s renewed local focus (a trend affecting local and national titles internationally). “Despite being a national media brand, we’re determined to act more locally, more personally,” he said. In that respect, new journalists should learn how to make information more relevant to their communities, a relationship they might not have learned as well by beginning their careers at a national.

Finally, PA’s training through regional papers was pedagogically sound. “You don’t want to throw people in at the deep end,” said Wynn-Davies, where they might be quickly overwhelmed.

“There is no question that out-house training is the best, if it was viable, I would have all my staff trained here, in Howden, under the tuition of very experienced people,” said Martin Elliott, picture editor at The (Stoke) Sentinel, who also attended Dunkley’s video course.

“However it would be best if staff came here, because you’re learning direct from the source.” But there is always the problem of the relatively high cost of outsourced training for newspapers (about £4,000 for PA’s 17-week program, about £2000 for its two-week videojournalism program). Many regional newspapers with limited staffs also can’t afford to ‘lose’ their staffers to outside training – if only for a few days (PA recently trimmed a video course from 3 days to 2 for those reasons).

So to in-house or to outsource?

“We have a culture of outsourcing where appropriate,” summed up Wynn-Davies. The Telegraph’s own internal staff training program is a mixture of in-house trainers and outsourcing. “When we’re less good at things, we get others in.”

“It’s about appropriateness, really.”

Is online training the future?

The revolutionary advent of online video conferencing, and the development of various sectors thanks to this technology, failed to truly materialize – as of yet. Many activities, including journalism training, which were predicted to be entirely transformed by video conferencing, have carried out generally unchanged.

Yet two of the main difficulties of journalism training for newspapers, as mentioned above, revolve around their cost, both time-wise and economically. Online courses could drastically cut costs, but is it a realistic future for journalism training?

“Online delivery of training has its place, but the interaction of a group is still important,” said Johnston.

As far as distance learning, PA has launched 2 DVD-based training products, which could soon be made available online. Distance learning can work in knowledge-based areas, such as law-training and interviewing skills (the topics covered by PA’s DVDs), although interviewing skills, arguably, are hard to instill without face to face interaction.

PA is also experimenting with international-focused programs. It started a multimedia journalism MA this year in collaboration with Newcastle University, geared towards international students. While some aspects of journalism training are based on locality (law, some ethics, resources), much of the training about core journalism skills can be extended internationally.

PA holds daily video conferences for some of its classes, including its shorthand writing class. PA enjoys near-perfect quality online videos between Howden and Newcastle, but only because it specially set up the communications. In general though, the quality of video conferences is still limited.

And trainers tend to be skeptical of distance learning, since much of their craft is based on reading body language and human interaction, which are harder to pick up through a cold screen.

So while technology fans may advocate all the advantages of distance learning, these forms won’t come to replace traditional class work anytime soon. “There will always be course-based training,” said Johnston.


Also read: videojournalism tips gathered from David Dunkley’s videojournalism course at PA.
Related articles:

- Are journalism schools ‘getting it’?
- Videojournalism: How-to implement it and why newspapers can beat TV
- "In the future online video will be the norm for all newspapers"

Sources: Tony Johnston, head of PA Training – Rhidian Wynn-Davies, deputy editor of The Daily Telegraph – Richard Austin, freelance photographer – Martin Elliott, picture editor of The Sentinel – Presse Gazette – Express & Star