Reflections

After last night's post, and two days out of the office in a training course, I've been taking stock of things. And I've decided I need to start looking back a little rather than just racing forward.

Which is why I was delighted to come across this eulogy for the newspaperman, written by Spokesman Review editor Steve Smith. He writes eloquently and compellingly about the joy of working in the ink-stained newsrooms of decades past - times which will never again be seen. It's powerful stuff.

I can't look back to the same world Steve Smith does - many years and many more miles separate our experiences. But even in my brief career, things have radically changed, and it's time I remembered how things were for me and most of my peers were when we first entered the industry.

But I'm definitely going to share this with my team. And one of the reasons is that instead of raging against the dying of the light, it is forward-looking too. And the comments add so much more too - this one by Ken Paulman particularly struck a chord with me - the importance of harnessing the new online audience rather than trying to save a dying print product. Because although we can stem its demise, print is never going to grow again.

Speaking of debate, and as I said yesterday, discussing ideas and perspectives like this one is something I need to be doing more of with my team, so high on my to do list for next week will also be setting up some kind of forum for sharing the conversation - delicious or Google Reader are likely candidates. Any advice gratefully received.