Discussing innovations in journalism

NiemanJournalismLab reporting:
Innovation and its discontents: Washington Post ombudsman Patrick Pexton inducing a bit of eye-rolling among digital media folks this week with a column arguing that the paper is “innovating too fast” by overwhelming readers and exhausting employees with a myriad of initiatives that lack a coherent overall strategy. J-prof Jay Rosen followed up with a revealing chat with Pexton that helps push the discussion outside of the realm of stereotypes: Pexton isn’t reflexively defending the status quo (though he remains largely print-centric), but thinks there are simply too many projects being undertaken without an overarching philosophy about how or why things should be done.
Pexton got plenty of push-back, not least from the Post’s own top digital editor, Raju Narisetti, who responded by essentially saying, in Rosen’s paraphrase, “This is the way it’s going to be and has to be, if the Post is to survive and thrive. It may well be exhausting but there is no alternative.” GigaOM’s Mathew Ingram said he was just about to praise the Post for its bold experimentation, and the Guardian’s Martin Belam argued that Pexton is actually critiquing newness, rather than innovation.
J-prof Alfred Hermida argued — as Pexton himself seemed to in his chat with Rosen — that the issue is not about how fast or slow innovation is undertaken, but whether that innovation is done in a way that’s good or bad for journalism. Former Sacramento Bee editor Melanie Sill responded that many newspapers remain stuck in 20th-century formulas, blinding them to the fact that what they consider revolutionary change is only a minor, outmoded shift. She noted that all the former top editors she’s talked to have had the same regret: that they hadn’t pushed harder for change. And Free Press’ Josh Stearns pointed out that we should expect the path toward that change to be an easy one.
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