Identify talent and capability gaps in your newsroom

Once you’ve defined the talent and capabilities your newsroom needs, it’s essential to compare where you are now versus what is required. Do this at three levels: Individuals, teams, and newsroom (or news enterprise) as a whole.

Begin by surveying and evaluating individuals with key jobs or roles. For example, Philadelphia used this questionnaire to establish a baseline of current versus required skills:

Digital Skills Questionnaire:

With all the changes in our newsroom, we know it is important that all our journalists have the competitive skills needed to thrive in a digital environment. We want to provide opportunities for everyone here to grow their skills through training, workshops and documented best practices.

In order to do this, we need your help. Please complete the following survey to help us identify where to focus our training and education efforts.

Questions? Please feel free to reach out to Erica, Michael, Ellen or Kelly.

Part 1: What does a journalist in 2016 need to know?

Think big-picture here. If you were giving advice to a journalism student about the skills required of modern journalists, what do you think that student needs to know? There are some suggestions listed here, but feel free to add your own.

In 2016, all journalists should know how to … *

• Write a web headline.
• Add links to a story on the website.
• Add photos to a story on the website.
• Tweet
• Post on Facebook.
• Verify the authenticity of a source on social media.
• Identify when a topic is trending on social media and worthy of coverage.
• Make a correction to a story on the website.
• Use tools like Slack to communicate with other staffers.
• Moderate comments on the website.
• Other:

* This is a required question

Part 2: How comfortable are you with digital skills?

Now, think about your personal experiences here at PMN. This section will help us identify opportunities for training and skills workshops.

I can … *

• Write a web headline.
• Add links to a story on Philly.com.
• Add photos to a story on Philly.com
• Tweet on your personal Twitter handle.
• Post a story on your own Facebook page.
• Verify the authenticity of a source on social media.
• Identify when a topic is trending on social media and worthy of coverage.
• Make a correction to a story on Philly.com
• Use tools like Slack to communicate with other staffers.
• Moderate comments on Philly.com.

I would like more training on how to … *

• Write a web headline.
• Add links to a story on Philly.com.
• Add photos to a story on Philly.com
• Tweet on your personal Twitter handle.
• Post a story on your own Facebook page.
• Verify the authenticity of a source on social media.
• Identify when a topic is trending on social media and worthy of coverage.
• Make a correction to a story on Philly.com
• Use tools like Slack to communicate with other staffers.
• Moderate comments on Philly.com.
• I don’t feel that I need any more training.

Part 3: Open Forum (OPTIONAL)

Did we miss anything? When it comes to training, education, skills workshops, what do you want us to know?

What should we know about digital skills at PMN?

Your answer: ________

Your name: _________

In addition to asking journalists to describe/rate themselves, Philadelphia also asked others to evaluate folks in the newsroom and then scored folks against the requirements. By establishing this baseline, Philly could describe gaps for the individuals, for the teams, and for the newsroom as a whole.