That news meeting? The one where the editor introduced the New Business Model? Here’s what it looked like through the eyes of the intern in metro (because of course she blogged about it):
Through most of this meeting, I just wanted to shout, “Amen!” and “You go girl!” because Janet [Coats, editor-in-chief of the Tampa Tribune] understands what’s up. She can see the trend in the industry: Innovate or obliterate. She stressed more than several times that if newspapers don’t change then NEWSPAPERS WILL DIE.
Then there was that Baltimore Sun intern who recently blogged,in anticipation of just such a meeting, the following: “I love the smell of layoffs in the morning. It’s like leading lambs to the slaughter. I’ll be there. I’ve always wanted to witness an execution.” (The post was linked on Romenesko; the blog is now “open to invited readers only.”)
Related (sort of), Adelle Waldman explains in The New Republic “why internships in journalism are bad for young people, and bad for the industry.” Writes Waldman: “Beware the intern you just sent on a coffee run.” But not because that intern might be live-blogging your news meeting. More because “journalism internships discriminate on the basis of financial wherewithal” and “the internship culture … rewards young people who know exactly what they want to do and immediately begin strategizing about how to get there” such that “news is delivered by people who harbor…similar ambitions and come from…similar backgrounds.”
Liz Cox Barrett is a writer at CJR.