1. Nobody knows anything
While analytics can be incredibly useful for figuring out what people want to read, and you can get a lot of instant, real-time information, it can often be a complete mystery why some stories outperform others. Certain types of story, especially big, meaty investigations and shocking breaking news, will always do well, but it's never as simple as that.
Stories that deserve to go far and wide just die on the vine, and idiotic filler stories that took five minutes to bash out suddenly go viral, and there isn't any rhyme or reason. You could be a digital journo for years and years, and you'll still be surprised every day by a story that doesn't get the audience it should, or spreads all around the world. All you can do is put out the best mix of news possible, and hope for the best.
2. Digital journos might be the last subs standing
The sub-editing role is one that has been utterly annihilated by the constant restructuring that has gone on in the news media companies in recent years, because that kind of grunt work always looked so disposable. Only it turned out that they're as vital as ever, because all the newsrooms are putting out more copy that ever before on all sorts of different platforms, and it's still incredibly important that this copy is clean, readable and grammatically correct.
Digital journos do a lot of work on their own stuff, but also are the last line of defense before every piece of reporting from any newsroom goes out. They might have to take TV or radio copy and clean it up for public consumption, and that can take a lot of work to reformat and repurpose. Digital journalism might be a fancy new way of doing things, but the old-school principles of good subbing are as strong as ever in the field.
3. Running a homepage is like driving a car
Homepage editors in all the big newsrooms are some of the busiest people in the office, and are flat out all day. But it's only a job that can be done by one person - trying to split that duty, or having other people ducking in to muck around with the story order never, ever works. You need one person who can keep track of everything, and might have very good reasons for not using a story at a particular time, or not leading the whole website on it.
It really is like driving a car. You can take a lot of advice, and be given directions, and even be specifically ordered to go in a certain direction, but only one person is in the driver's seat, and trying to grab the wheel from them doesn't work out for anybody.
Unfortunately, when it all crashes into the side of the road because somebody told you to lead the website with one of those fucking Air NZ safety videos, it's always the driver that takes the shit for it.
4. It is a massive amount of work
Everybody recognises the great work that by-lined journos do on a constant basis, but there is a massive amount of work going on behind the scenes to get these stories ready and readable.
Digital journos have to deal with the constant demands of breaking news, and have to keep half an eye on what competitors are up to, and be aware of the latest shit-fight on social media. If they're lucky, they might get to work on bigger, long-form and in-depth pieces, but spend most of their time on basic shit - they have to write several dozens headlines a day and spend a huge amount of time finding the right picture. They have to be across everything that's going on across the newsroom, and have to make sure all the grammar and spelling is correct. And it never, ever stops.
5. Headlines are really fuckin' hard
A quick word about headlines - a nice pun is always welcome and might get loads of attention on the Twitter, but can be rubbish for getting people to actually read the stories. It's not just a SEO thing, it's just that playing it straight will always be more intriguing than any clever wordplay.
6. Shit happens, get over it
So a typical day for a homepage editor will literally involve thousands of tiny decisions - (about 80 percent of which will be going through a stock image website and rejecting all the awful, awful options it offers ) - small decisions about headlines and wording and story placement and the importance of getting it all right.
But they're still human, and inevitably, some of these decisions will be totally, objectively wrong, or just plain fuck-ups. And if even the tiniest sliver of a proportion are the wrong call, they're really going to stand out.
Unfortunately, while most people are able to get away with their inevitable screw-ups on the job before anybody notices, a mistake on a digital story is out there for the whole fucking world to see and screen-cap, for everybody to laugh at, and then you get shitheads moaning about how everything used to be better, and that the people responsible for this mistake should lose their fuckin' job over it, as if their shit never stunk.
7. Things can be fixed easily
Fortunately, things can be fixed very quickly, and any kind of fuck up can be quickly sorted out with a few keystrokes.
But there is no longer period of time than between fixing a mistake on the homepage and the time the published change goes through. Sometimes these can take minutes, and it's one of the most unbearable parts of the job, hoping that some smartarse doesn't notice and spread it everywhere.
8. You never get bored
There are other aspects of digital journalism that make it appealing for a certain type of journo, and it's perfect for anyone that has a short attention span. You're not just working on one story all day, you might have dozens and dozens of them sliding through in the workflow, and there is never a chance to get bored. It just keeps coming.
9. You're constantly breaking new ground
And on top of that, you also get to do things that nobody has ever done before in journalism. The multi-media mix means you get to do things with videos and infographics and data journalism that are genuinely ground-breaking, and full of novelty.
It does mean you're more likely to make mistakes when you're doing this kind of pioneering work, because there is no other example to follow, but it's totally worth it to be the first to try something.
10. But it's not for everybody
There is a huge churn problem in journalism, with the pay standards and workflow pressures driving out a lot of great journos every year, and the digital crews at all the newsrooms are constantly having to get in new staff and losing irreplaceable experience and knowledge.
But that whole 'jack of all trades' thing doesn't appeal to everybody, and getting stories out incredibly fast with a minimum amount of mistakes requires a certain kind of journo. Some editorial staff thrive on this shit, but others find that pressure unbearable.
The ones that are sticking in there really are trying to do the best job they can, and could be better at blowing their own horn about it, but their queue is getting out of control, and they can't find that picture they need and they have to get on top of that right now. Maybe they'll get into that tomorrow.
- Ron Troupe / Steve Lombard
Posts
