A tentative agreement is reported in contract negotiations aimed at averting a strike at the Toronto Star.
Union representative John Spears of the southern Ontario newspaper wing of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada says the deal was reported at 2 p.m.
Details won't be released until after a ratification vote expected this coming week.
The Star wanted big cost concessions. I wonder who blinked on that.
And they apparently want everyone in the newsroom to be a multimedia multitasker, if the union is to be believed.
... the new Journalist should be able to interview people and write stories; shoot video; shoot stills; record audio tape; produce Flash and other graphics ... on it goes. Same for the editing jobs: Those people are expected to be as fluent in the digital and other high-tech skill worlds as in print.
But no protection
As you should expect, we have told the company that people must be protected in their current jobs. A reporter must not be forced to take video or stills, for example. A photographer cannot be forced to do an interview, for example. The company has flatly refused. They say a year or two at most is all the protection time they'll give existing staff, before this new "jack of all trades, master of none" journalism world becomes reality.
As one example, being able to create a competent static infographic, let alone an animated one in Flash, and report and write news are two totally different skill sets.
It puzzles me that in the pre-digital world, one had graphic artists and one had reporters, but now that the digital world is here, everyone has to do everything?
What it means to me is that a lot of stuff will get done badly and unproductively.
I've been doing online journalism for a while now. Over that time, I've come to the belief that there is an inverse relationship between someone's talent as a visual communicator and their ability to spell -- and vice-versa.
Just as production jobs are different from newsgathering jobs within the print newsroom, so it should be online.*
* I've also seen Java developers try to work on presentation-level stuff rather than code. It's not a pretty sight -- literally.
Once at CBC.ca, I saw one guy break a page by trying to put in his own HTML. "I haven't been trained," he repeatedly muttered in embarrassment. "And nor should you be," was my rejoinder after I fixed the problem. Coding modern HTML is not something for dabblers. Leave it to the professionals. A reporter or editor should never have to tweak HTML by hand; that should all be handling by their publishing tool.
If the Star gets its way, it may find out through trial and error that some degree of specialization is warranted.
What it may wish to consider is having people with some conceptual skills; i.e. a reporter who knows how Flash works, can conceive of how to best use the application to tell a particular story and can then work effectively with a Flash professional to make the magic happen.
To me, that makes much more sense that having someone with journalistic ability -- but who can't draw stick people -- try to choke their way through creating an animated graphic.
And now that I've said that ...
Nineteenth Century CBAs that specifically set out exactly what type of work can be done by a particular job description aren't useful in this day and age.
While you still need professional photographers, for example, that shouldn't preclude a reporter from taking a digital still or video camera on assignment and capturing some images.
One shouldn't need an audio reporter job description to grab a clip for a story.
Hopefully, the two sides reached some reasonable compromise that provides for a rational degree of flexibility in this new era.