Paula Devlin says she’s learned to stop worrying about the Web and embrace it instead.
After more than 25 years in a variety of roles on the copy desk, Devlin was named an online news editor at The Times-Picayune in New Orleans.
Here’s what it has taught her:
- It’s fun to be back in the breaking news business, competing with radio and television.
- Journalists need to learn to love their readers wherever they are. Even though print readership is dropping, online readership is increasing. And readers look to newsrooms to stay informed.
- Reporters and editors get constant feedback from readers in real time on the Web.
- The news cycle has been extended dramatically because the Web never sleeps.
- Print journalists need and can learn new skills.
- Journalists are finding online jobs.
The good news, Devlin said: “More people today read content produced by American newsrooms than ever before.”
She said she’s learned that “the delivery device doesn’t matter. What matters is whether the journalism is being read.”
_ Sue Burzynski Bullard, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
