IT HAS BEEN ALMOST TWO MONTHS SINCE HIS ABRUPT DEPARTURE as editor of The Oklahoman. Stan Tiner is back in Mobile, Ala., knee-deep in his search for another job.
He’s reading the classifieds. He’s going online. He’s making phone calls — a lot of them. He even told a reporter at the Mobile Register, where
he served seven years as editor before moving to Oklahoma, “If someone
in your reading audience has a good job offer, I’m looking for a job.”
In an ideal world, Tiner says, he would like to find a top-level
editing job at another daily newspaper. But the 57-year-old veteran
journalist says he realizes that the opportunities are few and far
between for people with his level of experience, so he is keeping his
options open.
“I’m looking at academic possibilities, business opportunities, just
anything where I can use the skills that I’ve acquired over the years,”
he says.
One option Tiner and others in similar situations may want to
consider is a move to new media, where senior-level journalists are
currently in demand, says Joe Grimm, recruiting and development editor
for the Detroit Free Press.
“A lot of the skills people are looking to hire into their (web)
business — editing, writing, experience in managing people — these
are skills that are hard to find, and experienced journalists have
them,” Grimm says. “If you’re good, if you can learn new things, if you
can innovate, then you’ve got a great future. The new media skills that
the younger people have, the seasoned professionals can learn. It
doesn’t work the other way around.”
With the increasing rate of turnover in the news industry, Grimm
says, there are more job openings than ever before — in print and in
new media — many of which are suitable for experienced journalists
like Tiner.
“The new information economy is not going away,” Grimm says. “The
demographics have changed to where we don’t have enough people to fill
the spots. We need everybody we have and more.”
THE KEY IS TO REINVENT YOURSELF, says Sunny Bates, whose agency, Sunny Bates Associates,
works mostly with new media firms. Bates says it should not be hard for
experienced journalists to get hired, as long as they are not married
to the newspaper’s way of operation.
“The jobs are changing because the medium is changing,” she says.
“The kind of experience that is being valued right now has to do with
transmedia skills, from print to web to broadcast. It is very important
to embrace and change and understand along with the technology. Anyone
who is willing to be fluid should not have a problem.”
Jerry Ceppos, vice president of news for Knight Ridder, says he does
not think the growing job opportunities in new media pertain to top
editors.
“Most of the dot coms are looking for business journalists or
younger people,” Ceppos says. “But I think that if you have as good a
track record as Stan does, you won’t have trouble getting a top job if
you’re willing to move or take a number two position, like a managing
editor position.”
For former editor O. Ricardo Pimentel, who found himself job hunting after a merger at The San Bernadino Sun, a move down the management ladder proved to be a good choice.
“I’m enjoying independently producing something that I’m really
proud of and seeing it through to fruition,” 47-year-old Pimentel says
of his new position as an editorial columnist for The Arizona Republic. “It’s just a whole different ball game.”
Pimentel says he “saw the writing on the wall early on and put out
some feelers” before the merger was complete. His efforts resulted in
three job offers, none of which were top editor positions. Pimentel
chose to pursue the columnist position because he says, “I had been
writing a column once a week as editor and realized that it was a part
of the job that I really liked a lot.”
Although Pimentel admits there are certain aspects of being a top
manager that he misses, he says that if an opportunity to be editor
presented itself, he probably would not pursue it at this time.
“I’m enjoying myself too much right now,” he says.
MEANWHILE, TINER CONTINUES TO EXPLORE HIS OPTIONS
and to maintain a high profile in journalism circles. He plans to
attend several conferences in the coming months. “There’s great value
in keeping your name out front,” he says.
Tiner says he found Grimm’s remarks encouraging and plans to expand his job search to include new media opportunities.
“My experience has been with print, so the people that I know to
talk to are in the print industry,” he says. “But I’ve always thought
from the day that I went to work in journalism that I was not afraid of
new technology.”
Although he declines to comment on his departure from The Oklahoman, Tiner describes the change as a “devastating blow.”
“Nobody would want to be in this position,” he says. “Ideally, if
you were going to change jobs, you would want the other job in your
pocket before you make the change.
“Certainly I have a life and responsibilities and there’s some
stress in that, but I wake up every day and think to myself, ‘Today is
the day I’ll get the phone call.’ Of course, there’s some anxiety the
more days and the more weeks that go by that the phone doesn’t ring
with that type of a call.”
Still, Tiner remains upbeat and optimistic.
“Understandably there aren’t that many jobs open at a given time,
and you just have to wait until the opportunities come forward. I’m
just hopeful that before the spring is over, jobs will be blooming as
well.”
