Thursday, October 20, 2011

Right Person for the Job !

Listeners of the World,

Online news, hyper - local news, social news.....what do you think of when you hear these words?  Most people will say - websites, breaking news, news at your finger tips, and so on, but nobody ever thinks about the person behind the site!  Now I am not talking about the big sites like CNN, but the smaller truly hyper local sites that bring the ground breaking community news to their sites.

These are the people that have to be more than just a journalist, they have to be a small newsroom in one or two people!  They write the stories, take the photos, shoot the video, curate the sites, respond to the comments, and so on.  These are people that work hard and will never stop because of how important it is to them.  Now many may ask what type of person would be able to do such an (at times) overwhelming job, and that is the answer that a lot of larger news networks are trying to figure out as well.

I have talked with many experts, editors, journalist, community members, and businessmen across the nation and they all seem to have different opinions on what qualifications make the perfect candidate for the job.  Here at OurTown we have seen over 1,000 different applications from people with many different backgrounds and experience and are still working on the description of the perfect candidate.  We feel that in the end there will not be one perfect description, but a base of qualifications to work off of to find people who can and will get the job done.

We have found that just looking at journalist and editors is the wrong way to go when you are trying to find the right people to run their own online news site.....you must think outside of this box.  You need to think of a person who can handle many different aspects of creating and maintaining the site, along with managing their time, and promotion skills.  Now these are not the only skills needed, but they are a few that get overlooked when someone is trying to find that "right" person to run their own news site.

Everyday we working on finding this mysterious person who can do the job right, sometimes we find them and sometimes we don't.  But, we believe that enough of these people exists and we will always keep trying to define and fine them!

Your OurTown Hero,

Chris


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