Skillset has provided funding for a National Occupational Standards Review and Scoping of Project to Incorporate Journals Publishers which is being project managed by The Publishing Training Centre in conjunction with the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers.

They have put out a call for comments on the working committee’s draft report. If you are a journals publisher and would like to take part in this consultation, go to their website to read the report and find out how to feed back.

The deadline for comments is 6th January.

First off, I owe you an apology for my air silence. I’ve been away on holiday for a couple of weeks and then straight back into a frenzy of conferences. 

While I was away, the news for the publishing industry has been pretty grim. The prospect of Woolworths going under is a major threat for trade book publishers who have large quantities of Christmas stock tied up at the EUK division. Pay freezes and major restructuring at regional and national newspapers continues to flag up the challenges facing media companies in an era of falling advertising revenues, profit levels and changes to working practices in the light of convergent multi-media. 

These tough economic conditions make it all the more important to ensure your remaining staff have the right skills to keep your business competitive during a recession. But that’s a tough call when training budgets are often the first to be cut. 

So it was with some relief that I attended the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ) Skills Conference in Salford, to find educators and editors debating the skills requirements for journalists in a converged media. The sense of urgency was palpable.  

The overriding belief was that well trained journalists and new entrants lead to better stories and engaging content, and this is a top priority for the industry. This in turn delivers news that readers want to read, which in turn leads to commercial opportunities that can help shore up advertising revenues. 

The conference included the initial research findings of the journalism convergence skills survey funded by Skillset and managed by the NCTJ. New skills highlighted include video, writing for search engine optimisation and multi-media platforms, assembling multi-media packages and understanding the Freedom of Information Act. However, core ‘traditional’ skills such as finding a good story, use of grammar and language, an understanding of media law and in particular for newspapers, shorthand, continue to be of primary importance. Read the report here.  

This is the first part of a National Occupational Standards scoping project that Skillset has funded which surveyed over 200 employers of journalists in television, radio, national and regional newspapers and magazines. The Broadcast Journalism Training Council, Periodicals Training Council and the Society of Editors also inputted extensively into the research. The full report will be published on Skillset’s website early in 2009.  Read about the NCTJ Skills Conference here.