I have spent the better part of my life – or maybe it just seems that way; you know how it is when you are frustrated, a day seems like a year – “reporting in to” people who have never spent a day in a newsroom.

I’ve spent the better part of my life – or so it seems to me; see above – shocked at how little effort there is, institutionally, to stay on top of emerging tools and technologies, to have constant conversations about how these new tools, these technologies, can be harnessed to the goal of making storytelling structures better. (Hey, while on this – if you have anything at all to do with storytelling, do follow Journalism Tools. You can thank me later – I have plenty of reason to thank that account.)

The net result has been, you talk story, idea, project. What you get is, ok, can you do a powerpoint/waterfall chart/excel on the “gives and gets”. You do that, and you get a conversation that goes on these lines:

“So, I saw your powerpoint, and I notice you haven’t addressed the question of RoI”

Eh? Sorry, what? It is a powerpoint about a great storytelling project…

“Yes but have you quantified the RoI?”

What do you need?

“Projections. How many updates a day? How many items of text articles, how many words each? How many images? Standalone or slideshow?  How about video? Clip durations? What is the traffic estimate for each of these elements – page views, time spend, unique users by geography?… You know, we need details…”

And that is when another idea goes off to die peacefully, in the media graveyard where so many good story ideas go to die unwept, unhonored, unsung.

I’ve often wondered why. Would you, for instance, take a journalist and make him CEO of a company? Or its CFO? Or head of its product department? No?

Why then this presumption that someone with “management expertise” is best fitted to make decisions about media, about storytelling?

I wondered, but never really nailed an answer that satisfied me, until I stumbled on this Rafat Ali (Who he? Here, check) “rant” that is so bang on target it would win gold at an Olympic shooting contest. Here it is, Storify-ed:

Words to the wise – from the wiser…

In passing: This is not a reference to any particular media house including the one I am currently part of. (God, the times we live in – you’ve got to put a caveat to anything, even a good morning, for fear what you say could get misrepresented.)