Those of us not lucky enough to attend can follow along on the ACES conference blog, which 13 conference attendees are contributing to.
Here's a posting about one of the interesting sessions they had this week:
Who's afraid of the big bad Web?
The people packed into the "Leaving Print for Online" felt almost like traitors, seeing how the other half works. But the impression given by Jay Wang and Jim Kavanagh was more
positive than you might think. Turns out, you have all the skills you need to edit for the Web right now:Solid news judgment.
Snappy headline skills.
Passion for accuracy.
Ability to work quickly and efficiently.
No fancy HTML coding skills required. (Though, honestly, it probably wouldn't hurt.) It helps to be able to write different kinds of heds for the same story; for example, ones that read differently for the front page of a Web site vs. an inside page.
Most importantly, it seemed, was this message: Newspapers need to stop seeing the Web as a threat. It's a tool we can use for more content and a bigger audience than we've even imagined -- if we can get away from the way we're used to doing and thinking about things.
Posted by katie schwing
