When browsing the many discussions posted on the blog pages of Poynter Online, I came across an interesting opinion regarding training sessions from numerous businesses, particularly Starbucks. One reader commented that the training was just a ploy for the media to advertise and explained why stores were reluctant to allow reporters sit in on training sessions, saying “If they wanted to train employees, you know how they’d do it? They’d send out instructions to each store, possibly a video tape, and employees would be told to take 10 minutes to watch it. Closing all the stores? Unnecessary. But it gets free advertising.” The discussion on Poynter was about the suggestion of taking time out in order to train newsroom staff, which I believe is a terrible idea, especially when time is money and society has moved into a 24/7 news world.
However, the Starbucks discussion does bring up questions about certain roles of the media. The media are supposed to be independent, but if a story like this simply is a way of advertising, how independent are they? Perhaps, editors should question the actual newsworthiness of a story before reporting on it. Any Starbucks enthusiast wouldn’t really care about a new training of employees and the company already is monopolizing the coffee industry. Secondly, if it was so important, Starbucks locations could have provided their own press releases explaining to customers why they were going to be closed for training.
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Starbucks training – real??? March 4, 2008
When browsing the many discussions posted on the blog pages of Poynter Online, I came across an interesting opinion regarding training sessions from numerous businesses, particularly Starbucks. One reader commented that the training was just a ploy for the media to advertise and explained why stores were reluctant to allow reporters sit in on training sessions, saying “If they wanted to train employees, you know how they’d do it? They’d send out instructions to each store, possibly a video tape, and employees would be told to take 10 minutes to watch it. Closing all the stores? Unnecessary. But it gets free advertising.” The discussion on Poynter was about the suggestion of taking time out in order to train newsroom staff, which I believe is a terrible idea, especially when time is money and society has moved into a 24/7 news world.
However, the Starbucks discussion does bring up questions about certain roles of the media. The media are supposed to be independent, but if a story like this simply is a way of advertising, how independent are they? Perhaps, editors should question the actual newsworthiness of a story before reporting on it. Any Starbucks enthusiast wouldn’t really care about a new training of employees and the company already is monopolizing the coffee industry. Secondly, if it was so important, Starbucks locations could have provided their own press releases explaining to customers why they were going to be closed for training.
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