On failing young journalists

Posted: April 25th, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Notes | Tags: , , , , | 3 Comments »

The Washington Post’s Ombudsman Patrick Pexton says the Post has failed some of its young journalists:

But The Post failed her as much as she failed The Post. I spoke with several young bloggers at The Post this week, and some who have left in recent months, and they had the same critique.

They said that they felt as if they were out there alone in digital land, under high pressure to get Web hits, with no training, little guidance or mentoring and sparse editing. Guidelines for aggregating stories are almost nonexistent, they said. And they believe that, even if they do a good job, there is no path forward. Will they one day graduate to a beat, covering a crime scene, a city council or a school board? They didn’t know. So some left; others are thinking of quitting.

Without guidelines, training and vision from the top how can you say a blogger failed?

Source: Washington Post.

  • Bryan Murley

    I’m not sure which direction your closing question is pointed toward. Are you asking how you can you say management failed? Or how can you say the young blogger failed?

    • http://twitter.com/pwthornton Patrick Thornton

      I’m asking how someone can say that the young blogger failed without better guidance from management. I might tweak that last line to make that clearer.

      • Anonymous

        That makes much more sense, and I agree with what you are saying.