Last Updated: February 03, 2000
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ASNE on the move
So far this year, the Human Resources and Management Committee has been
busy, reports Jeannine Guttman, chair of the committee and editor of the
Portland (Maine) Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram. Here are its plans
for this year:
Web page. The committee is building a Web-based resource guide
that will be linked from the main ASNE site. Last month, ASNE purchased
software to enable the committee - and others - to build an online reference
tool.
The purpose: To create a central site where editors could find articles,
advice, ideas and connections to journalists on management and human resource
challenges.
Some of the topics: Pagination; building relationships with a new publisher;
community publisher; union issues; converting to the 50-inch web; TV and
online partnerships; downsizing and making ethical news decisions. For
all those topical areas, the site would include advice from editors who
have been there, done that - and succeeded. It would list editors' contact
information. The committee sees this site as an extremely valuable, easy-to-update
resource guide.
Terry Greenberg, committee member and editor of The Elkhart (Ind.) Truth
is spearheading this initiative, which he conceived. Greenberg is collecting
content for the site, which ASNE hopes to launch by March.
In his letter to members, which included a survey asking for areas of
expertise, Greenberg wrote:
"It's happened to all of us. We face a tough ethical decision or a management
mess. We use our best judgment and get through the situation. We try and
call a friend or colleague who has some experience in the critical area,
but they're on vacation. Later, we find an article that could have helped
us. Or we remember an article that ran in one of our many professional
periodicals three years ago, but we can't find it. Using the Internet,
the ASNE Management and Human Resources Committee has an idea that could
help editors for years to come ... a living, growing resource to help us
make decisions."
The committee sees the online site as a way to give editors immediate
help and suggestions when they are faced with an emerging challenge or
a crisis.
Benefits survey. The committee will be sending out a targeted survey
to 50 newspapers in this month, asking a variety of questions relating
to benefits and incentives. The deadline for completing the survey form,
which we will make concise, will be in late January. Members of the committee
will be contacting selected editors in early January to encourage participation.
The survey will examine whether newspapers are keeping pace with changes
in benefit offerings. For example, are newspapers offering tuition reimbursement?
Sabbaticals? Domestic partner benefits? Day care? Relocation costs? Job
sharing? Stock options?
The future. Jennie Buckner, committee vice chair and editor of
The Charlotte (N.C.) Observer, is laying the groundwork for an initiative
in 2000 that would look at ways to better communicate the hallmarks of
leadership in our profession.
