Journalism culture must change and old school hacks must ‘get over it’, says Guardian exec
Pilhofer
Traditional media companies, and the culture of journalism and newsrooms within them, must fundamentally change to become more data driven in order to keep pace with the digital world, a senior Guardian executive has said.
Aron Pilhofer, who oversees the newspaper’s digital operations, urged old school journalists who don’t like the prospect to “get over it” and “have an open mind” to change.
Pilhofer told a conference today that organisations must stop obsessing about the home page, and begin to think more scientifically about how, where and when its content is delivered.
It’s a shame some of the old school journos have quit or have been monstered out of the business. I’m thinking about the reporters and subs from multi-edition afternoon papers who could turn around great stories in a very short time and publish them accurately. A lot of the so-called hot shots I’ve seen recently may be quick, but accuracy is going out the window. At the end of the day, the news sites that survive and prosper will be those that can be trusted to deliver content that is well written, factual and timely.
@BD 100%. The ever increasing emphasis on data and engagement discourages ‘real’ journalism ever being pursued as too risky, this instead turns ‘news’ into recycled click-bait articles or sensationalism at best. Irrespective of whether you’re at Buzzfeed or The Guardian the outcome is the same.
The only way real journalism can survive is to go down the subscription model route. Only by not being beholden to metrics like “user engagement” or advertisers will real journalism survive.
Amusing that this guy thinks this is novel. News wires have done it forever. People don’t buy news wires.
After reading Buzzfeed for too long,10 types of brainfog swept in. Now looking for 6 types of news writing that may clear brainfog. 8 oldschool journalists please apply.
BD 10000%. Had you heard my talk (and I’m wondering if the reporter here did), you would have taken exactly that from it. Sorry this piece gives the impression I said otherwise. But, what can you do?
I wonder if the metric: how we pay the bills; ever occurs to anyone at the guardian? Talk about la la land!
Hi Aron
Just to be clear, I was at your presentation at the Storyology conference. And I stand by my story which clearly reflects the main thrust of your observations – that the culture of journalism and newsrooms at traditional media companies need to change. I think we can all agree that trusted sites and publications with great, well written content will prosper. My story does not suggest you have a different view to that. It articulates your belief that times have changed for journalists and that our approach to the job also needs to evolve.
Cheers
Steve Jones – chief reporter, Mumbrella
Hi Steve,
Not here to pick a fight, but we’re just going to have to agree to disagree. The piece you wrote here is about a talk I did not give, tonally anyway.
By embellishing words I did use with a loaded, pejorative term I absolutely didn’t — “old school” — you’ve changed the narrative and subtext to something it wasn’t without technically misquoting me. I’m an old school journalist. Been in this business now 20-plus years. I know this isn’t accidental.
It’s too bad, and actually somewhat ironic, because the thrust of my talk couldn’t have been more the opposite of that. It was an upbeat message of inclusion. It was about how journalists — all of us, even old schoolers like me — need to come together and take ownership of our collective digital future, and how we can do that.
My second to last slide was “Our future is a team sport” for god’s sake.
The “get over it” line you quote twice, and I said only once, had less to do with newsroom culture than organizational culture. What I actually said was that we (all of us) need to “get over” our reluctance to engage with the business side and start working more like our native digital competitors.
We need to do that because the business model supporting the institutions we love is crumbling, and we simply need to start building better digital things. That can’t happen unless editorial is a full partner, and not a passenger.
I wasn’t addressing old school journalists or new school journalists, who, by the way, are just as reluctant. I was addressing journalists.
I’d say maybe it was me — maybe I wasn’t clear, or maybe I misspoke. But based on the Twitter stream, questions in the room and comments from people afterwards, I don’t think it was me. The Walkley student blog got it right, and I’d encourage people to seek that out if they would like to read about the talk I actually gave.
Sorry for being so critical. Normally, I would shrug something like this off. But if you knew me you’d know I am the very last person on earth to stand on a podium, wag my finger at “old school hacks” and lecture them about getting with the program or getting out of the way. In part, as I said, because I am one. But also because I’ve spent a good chunk of the last ten years or trying so hard to build bridges — see: Hacks & Hackers — rather than creating divisions.
You can imagine, given that, how it feels now to have people tweeting and retweeting this piece, effectively attributing your words to me.
Just kind of a bummer is all.
aron
I was at the talk and agree with Aron. Steve’s report might have been factually correct (for the most part) but he got the tone of Aron’s speech completely wrong. Aron very clearly conveyed that traditional journalism skills are at the heart of everything that journos do and will do — no matter how much technology may evolve.