Mastering Leadership: A Conversation with Laurice Taitz-Buntman

Preston hasn't only been at the forefront of UK journalism education and training for more than 50 years. It's also become the place where journalism leaders worldwide learn.  

Since the Journalism Leaders Programme was established by François Nel in 2006, we've engaged with hundreds of editors and senior journalists from many of the UK's leading media houses, including Johnston Press, Trinity Mirror, Guardian Media Group and Cumbrian Newspapers, as well as others around the world through a wide variety of activities - from non-academic workshops, conferences, seminars and training courses, to postgraduate certificates and diplomas.

JLP graduate Laurice Taitz-Buntman

But last December five talented editors from South Africa, Bulgaria and the UK became the first to earn the Master of Arts in Journalism Leadership award from the University of Central Lancashire in Preston, home the UK's oldest journalism programme. Alison Gow,  Dilyan Damyanov,   Laurice Taitz-Buntman (left) Paddi Clay, and Steve Matthewson were the first ones to have pressed through to the end.

We wanted to find out about just why they invested in the experience. Here are the views of Laurice Taitz-Buntman, the former managing editor of the Times Online (now TimesLive) in South Africa, who heads the iSchoolAfrica Youth Press Team programme that is working with 21 South African schools, corporate and government sponsors and broadcast partners to train secondary school students to create newsworthy video content for television.

 Traditionally, journalists have moved up the career ladder by learning all they can from the person on the rung above them. Why did you choose to participate in the Journalism Leaders Programme?

Journalism is changing, and more than at any other time journalists are being confronted with the impact of global and technological shifts, the dissolution of traditional boundaries between the work and the business of journalism, and the audience and our role as purveyors of news. When I entered the programme I was working as a senior manager at one of South Africa's largest newspapers, in an organization grappling with transforming the newsroom from a purely print-based organisation to one more able to cope with the demands of a digital age. The kinds of changes being experienced had little precedent and it was clear that a new skillset was demanded. I chose the Journalism Leaders Programme because it combined a management programme with a focus on digital journalism.

The Journalism Leaders Programme offers non-academic routes for those who just want to attend residential sessions, as well as an academic route with exit points at postgraduate certificate, post graduate diploma and Master of Arts levels. Why did you keep going to the end – including writing a research dissertation – even though you already have a MA degree?

At the time of enrolling in the programme I had worked as a journalist for more than 10 years but had never studied journalism. My MA was in African Literature and while it served me well as a journalist in terms of giving me a more nuanced understanding of African politics, society and writing I grew increasingly hungry for a more  in-depth perspective of my chosen field. Each residential session stirred greater interest and a desire to find answers to particular questions. Completing my MA degree allowed me to focus on an area of journalism culture in an in-depth way which I found highly satisfying. Journalists are expected to master many subject areas and to do so with a weekly or even daily deadline in place. Taking the time to do in-depth research felt like an enormous privilege but also an opportunity to add knowledge to a profession I feel so strongly about. 

How would you summarise your JLP experience?

 

Some of the words that come to mind are challenging, fulfilling, a little maddening but mostly incredibly exciting. The residential weeks fired up electrical circuits in my brain with fresh ideas, debate and provocative discussions. My fellow students, media professionals with wide-ranging experience internationally, and the outstanding faculty led by Francois Nel made each visit to Preston precious time in which to be inspired and intellectually refueled. The JLP provided not only the big ideas, but ways to think about practical implementation. In addition, the opportunity to step outside the newspaper's deadlines and speak to and hear from journalists with diverse skills and to gain a global perspective was an invaluable experience. 

Earlier we also posted conversations with  Alison Gow , editor of the Daily Post in Wales; Dilyan Damyanov,  Editorial Director of Information Services at AII Data Processing in Sofia; and Steve Matthewson, Managing Editor: News, BDlive and Business Day in South Africa. We plan to post conversations withthe other graduates over the coming weeks. 

The first and only programme of its kind in the UK, the Journalism Leaders Programme continues to work with innovating publishers from around the world, such as News International, to provide custom courses that help equip exceptional talent for leadership. For more information, contact François Nel at FPNel @ uclan.ac.uk .

Spring 2011 Seminars and Workshops to focus on making, managing and monetizing data journalism projects

Spring Seminar 2011

There was a time when the typical editor’s job was pretty straightforward: he or she had to ensure that, when the presses rolled at a pre-determined time every day, the newsroom had produced enough pre-planned stories of reasonable quality and variety on pre-determined themes to fill the pre-set space between the advertising. That’s certainly changed.

Today’s mainstream media managers are expected not only to be custodians of existing operations and to satisfy existing (often shrinking) audiences, but many are also expected to identify new opportunities to reach new users using new formats on new platforms in print, online and on mobile. Increasingly, editors are expected to innovators.

The Journalism Leaders Programme's Spring 2011 seminar, Managing Multimedia Project: delivering innovation in the Digital Age, aims to help equip entrepreneurial managers meet that challenge.

Discussion leaders include a dynamic team of industry executives and senior academics:

• Tom Johnson works in the space where journalism and technology overlap. A former editor at the Scientific American, Tom is co-founder of the Institute for Analytic Journalism and professor emeritus at San Francisco State University. 
• Mac McCarthy is a sought-after management development consultant and senior lecturer in the School of Sport, Leisure and The Outdoors.
• Katie Taylor has spent many years as a self-employed consultant specialising in enabling communication between different levels of staff, especially during times of radical change. She is now Senior Lecturer in Agile Software Development at UCLAN.
• Nicola Grout-Smith is a master teacher of business accounting and finance for non-specialists at the Lancashire Business School.  
• Karla Geci is Strategic Partner Development for Facebook and former head of marketing for Bebo. Karla works with broadcasters, media companies and content owners who want to leverage the Facebook Platform to build social applications and experiences on their owned web properties and Facebook Pages. She will be speaking at the Digital Editors Network meeting, which is part of the week's schedule.
• Jack Riley is Head of Digital Audience & Content Development for The Independent , the i paper and the Evening Standard. Jack will be speaking at the Digital Editors Network meeting, which is part of the week's activities.
  François Nel is a digital media specialist and the founding director of the Journalism Leaders Programme.

For more information about the seminar, which runs from 23^rd to 27^th May 2011 in Preston and forms key part of the academic module JN4055, please download the flyer here. To participate in the seminar only, please complete this enrolment form. To find out more about how your participation can help you earn academic credit towards a postgraduate certificate, diploma or MA degree, please see the programme website and contact the programme director François Nel at FPNel @ uclan.ac.uk .

Note: This Spring the Journalism Leaders Programme and Vision+Media are sponsoring the Digital Editors Network’s two-day data journalism workshop lead by Tom Johnson of the Institute for Analytical Journalism. More information about #djcamp2011 on 19^th to 20^th May in Manchester is available here.

Research findings: Innovation at the top of the agenda for news executives worldwide

When almost 500 newspaper owners, publishers, editors-in-chief and senior commercial managers take the time answer 21 detailed questions about the issues that face their businesses today and their plans for the future, the results are bound to be fascinating. But I believe they're also important - and give cause for optimism about the future of the industry.

The World News Future & Change Study 2010, which  Journalism Leaders Programme director François Nel has been conducting in collaboration with Martha Stone at the World Association of Newspapers & News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) and Erik Wilberg of the Norwegian Management School, is the largest and most comprehensive study of its type.  Nel says the findings clearly show three key points:

1. The impact of the global economy recession is easing. No, we're not out of the woods yet. Far from it. But a third fewer publishers (18.5 % in 2010 vs 28% in 2009) reported severe revenue declines – that is more 20 per cent. Declining print advertising revenue was the biggest driver of overall revenue decline, with more than 80% of the respondents saying they lost between 1% and more than 20% of their print ad revenue, with the most pronounced declines happening in Northern Europe and North America regions. Meanwhile online advertising revenue and content revenue did not take the same hit as print revenues, with half of the respondents reporting growth, many reporting no change, and a handful, less than one-­quarter, reporting a decline in the last fiscal year.
   
   
2. Advertising-supported print products are no longer enough. The vast the vast majority of the world's news publishers recognise their traditional revenue sources of print advertising and newspaper subscriptions will no longer provide the financial returns of years past and, in response, the publishers are making it a top priority to diversify their revenue streams and to development new products and new channels.
   

   
   

   

   Publishers are bullish about mobile.

   
   

3. Innovation - and mobile - are keys to future success. One question summed up the publishers’ collective desire for the future of their business, and that is, new business growth. Respondents in both 2009 and 2010 spoke loudly and clearly: the way forward is through investment in new product development for new revenues. We consider this to be one of the most important findings of the study. Other clear investments for newspaper companies were marketing and branding for newspapers, increased audience research and investment in customer relationship management. In 2009, investment in new product development was followed by marketing and branding for the newspaper, increased audience research, investment in customer relationship management and investment in editorial technologies. This year, investment in new product development was followed by marketing and branding for the newspaper, and then "mobile platforms."  When asked, “Please consider which of the following platforms could be opportunities for your organisation over the next three years,” the top choices were mobile phones (58%), followed by Websites (54%) and then e-readers, such as Kindle and iPad (53%.). Clearly the emerging importance of mobile is an important take-away from this year’s study and, of course, we’ll be investigating this in some greater depth in 2011. 

Innovation and growth targets might be set in the boardroom, but they're enacted by those in the newsrooms and backroom offices. 

Helping build the capacity of those charged with making the future of news happen remains the focus of the Journalism Leaders Programme which, after having the winds taken out of our sales somewhat by the global economic recession, is once-again accepting applications for our innovative executive development courses that will run from after Easter 2011.

A  free summary of the study is available for download on the WAN-IFRA site. And, of course, François Nel would be happy to answer any questions about the research or any other Journalism Leaders Programme activities [Twitter @francoisnel / FPNel @ uclan . ac . uk ] .

"We’re already working on the 2011 survey," said Nel, "and we're planning to expand the study to 10 languages by including Arabic, along with (in alphabetical order) Chinese, English, French, German, Greek, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish."


For academic citations of the report, please use: STONE, Martha, NEL, François and WILBERG, Erik. (2010) World News Future and Change Study 2010. Paris, France: World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA).

World Newspaper Future and Change Study 2009 results previewed at #WANindia09

The results of the World Newspaper Future and Change Study 2009 were summarised in a presentation to the 62nd World Newspaper Congress in Hyderabad.

I Tweeted (@francoisnel) a few of key points:

#waninindia09 World Newspaper Future & Change Study: only 1/3 of repondents say corps R prepared 4 changes required 2 survive, thrive

#waninindia09 WNF&C Study: Top priorities 4 training r 'new biz dev/innovation', ads sales, e-biz + management & leadership development

#waninindia09 WNF&C Study: journos & editors still reluctant 2 change. Australasians rate 'em even more resistant than printers & admin

#waninindia09 WNF&C Study: 84% say need 2 maintain or increase media & leadership training, while 1.8% will cut that & 7.3% don't invest

The study, conducted in collaboration with colleages at the World Association of Newspapers & News Publishers and the Norwegian School of Management, will also be reported in an upcoming Shaping of the Future of the Newspaper report. And, of course, the respondents who chose to add their contact details will be receiving a copy.

The next study will be completed in time for the 63rd Congress in Lebanon in June 2010.