November 08, 2007
The New Role of Editors, Writers, & Journalists
Right now the publishing industry is going through a wave change in terms of next generation content strategies. Web content management, and syndication of content is the hot topic these days.
One aspect of this change is the role that editors, writers, and journalists are expected to play in their organizations. While some publishers elect to have an online editorial staff as well as a traditional print staff, most publishers are moving towards the goal of a content platform agnostic editorial group.
While technology decisions must be made to help facilitate this goal there are often a lot of strategic considerations that need to be considered first. No longer is a column or feature only going to appear in print. Many times the same content will be published online simultaneously or prior to the print edition. Print and online mediums both have their own unique set of challenges and constraints. With print you are constrained with physical space. You constantly need to cut or expand thoughts to fit the page, to work around art that is positioned. Widows and orphans, word breaks and hyphenation are all concerns. These challenges that exist in the print world do not exist in the online world. In the online world you have to make sure that URLs are properly encoded, keywords, and metadata are identified. Headlines and decks will need to be modified so that they make sense from an SEO standpoint.
All of these responsibilities will fall to the editorial groups and departments to help maximize both platforms and make each a sucess. This can be a very difficult and radical change for editorial departments if not handled with care. The editorial department needs to understand the overarching strategic goals for moving in this direction. They need to not only "accept" it but they need to embrace it. Their content now serves a much larger purpose, it will be read by many more people, and will serve as the backbone for the organization's future growth.
Organizations need to realize what they are asking of their editorial departments and need to get in place technology and processes that will help facilitate these goals. Asking a writer to follow three different processes for each content medium isn't going to work too well. Asking writers to author in 3 different tools won't fly too well either. If this is to be done properly a solution needs to work well for the editors and without a ton of hoops.
Posted at 04:42 pm by Ivan Mironchuk
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