4 candidates for top Guardian editor job spell out their vision of a journalism future

I was intrigued by this tweet by NYU journalism professor, media critic and prolific tweeter Jay Rosen:

If you teach digital journalism, you might make these statements required reading and discuss them in class. http://t.co/rZEibb8rnE

— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) February 24, 2015

That link led to a page with links to four “Candidate’s Statements” and the heading:

Editor in Chief of The Guardian
INDICATIVE BALLOT
Organised by the Guardian and Observer Chapel Branch of the NUJ

OK, what?

It turns out the NUJ is the National Union of Journalists, a trade union in the United Kingdom and Ireland. What’s happening is that Guardian and Observer journalists are voting on a candidate to replace Alan Rusbridger as editor-in-chief of Guardian Newspapers. The four candidates were to present their cases to the journalists at a hustings Wednesday night.

According to the Guardian, the winner of the vote won’t necessarily be appointed editor, but will be guaranteed a spot on the short list of candidates the Scott Trust, which owns Guardian Media Group, will choose from.

Before that meeting, each of the candidates posted a statement of their vision for the Guardian at the above link. That’s what Rosen wants students of digital media to read. The candidates, as described by the Guardian, are “Emily Bell, director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University and a non-executive director of Guardian owner the Scott Trust; Wolfgang Blau, GNM’s director of digital strategy; Janine Gibson, editor-in-chief of theguardian.com; and Katharine Viner, editor-in-chief of Guardian US.”

I agree with Rosen that the candidates’ statements, which are about 1,000 words each, are worth reading to see what some of the most prominent journalists in the business are thinking about how to lead a major media outlet.

Janine Gibson:

Everyone—moderators to developers—should feel able to contribute to what we make, how we think, how we run ourselves, and more. We’ve always been a journalists’ paper. Expanding what makes a journalist is part of our future.

Emily Bell:

I see a necessary reallocation of resources and costs, but not a reduction in our number of journalists. In the next phase of its existence, the Guardian will have to accelerate the skills needed at the heart of a modern news organisation. We need more data and computationally literate reporters, editors and designers, we need thorough digital security training and practices, and we need journalists who understand how to use the vast amount of information on the social web using search and verification techniques.

Katharine Viner

Journalism and technology have merged. To produce and deliver journalism that is relevant today, we need a close relationship between editorial, product and engineers, developing stories together, working out what to do about mobile, loyalty, data; plus a super-charged approach to helping readers find our journalism.

Wolfgang Blau

In regards to our journalistic portfolio, I would like to propose that we substantially increase the diversity of voices—politically, as well as ethnically—and that we also identify those areas of our coverage that are neither able to sharpen the Guardian’s journalistic profile nor to attract our readers to come visit us more frequently. The result of this exercise might be that we produce fewer stories than today, but with greater impact.

When reading such things, I always try to find ideas, advice and ways of thinking for my own career.