CoPress

Innovation can’t happen without a knowledgeable staff, but a knowledgeable staff isn’t born into existence — it takes training and education on everyone’s part.

That’s what this video is all about: invest in your staff and make sure they’re properly educated for the Web. Furthermore, make sure that their education is a continual process. You can do this by encouraging the knowledgeable people in your newsroom to lead lessons over pizza lunches or by teaming up staff to compete on specific projects.

Investing in your staff isn’t only a matter of training, but of hiring the right people. Newsrooms should have at least one or two Web developers who are proficient in HTML/CSS, PHP, and/or Python to continue developing your website. Be resourceful about it; look to your college’s computer science department for budding programmers who have the skills and the passion.

You’ll be surprised at how many good ideas will come when you all sit down together and brainstorm. Don’t underestimate the power of team planning with your staff. Figuring out how your newsroom is going to work and grow together is the foundation for innovation. If you need conversation starters, we have plenty of ideas to get you started and even more on the way.

Hosts: Greg Linch and Emily Kostic

Guests: Howard Owens (@howardowens), publisher of The Batavian, Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) of The New York Times, and freelance writer Jonathan Fitzpatrick

Summary: Howard Owens and Brian Stelter discuss along with Jonathan Fitzpatrick discuss how to train a web savvy staff, how to wain your readers off the print edition and how staff members should see themselves as circulation managers.

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