The goal of Brazilian newspaper Folha de S. Paulo’s new program to train people 40 years of age and older was to attract qualified professionals who were new to the market, either because of the economic crisis or because they were reaching retirement.
"Today people are retiring too early and start to do other things. They do not stop working. Many go to the third sector or return to school. And we, at Folha, wanted to try to take advantage of this momentum in journalism. We decided to test this idea on the assumption that there are, due to the crisis, many qualified people available in the labor market,” Suzana Singer, training editor at Folha who came up with the idea for the project, told the Knight Center.
Carlos Eduardo Lins da Silva, researcher from the Wilson Center and one of those responsible for implementing the ‘Folha Project,' the process of modernizing the newspaper in the 1980s that led to the creation of training, the new course is positive. Although no longer at Folha, Silva was a reporter, editor, managing editor, deputy executive editor, Washington correspondent and ombudsman for the newspaper.
"I think training for experienced journalists is a great idea. In its journalism Master’s program, Columbia University [in the United States] accepts many people who have trained in other careers, sometimes well over 40-years-old, and this is one of the strengths of the program. The large number of entries proves the success of the initiative," he said.
At Folha, demand was also high: about 1,500 subscribers; Traditional training courses from the newspaper have between 2,000 and 3,000 entries, the paper said. Folha is currently organizing the selection process, which includes proof of general knowledge and interviews. Training begins on Oct. 3 and will last two months.
According to Singer, the course will have a different format from their traditional courses, with a reduced workload in relation to training for younger people. Students will not spend the whole day at the newspaper - classes will be at night and on Saturdays. "For this older age group, many people can work and do not have the day free for the course," the editor said.
Therefore, the idea of training is to get basic knowledge of journalism and not necessarily to form reporters and editors, like the other trainees. "But we can train employees, for example. A person who was an executive for a lifetime, has good knowledge of the financial market, and now could write special reports, comments or analysis for Folha," Singer said.
In principle, the course was aimed at professionals from other fields, older people who want to change careers or learn new skills, to collaborate with newspapers. However, Singer said that there was a great demand for the course from journalists.
"I imagine there are people who never had the opportunity to work in large newsrooms. And maybe they want to know how it works. The course will also be open to these journalists, of course," she said.
In addition to collaboration, there is also the possibility of hiring trainees, as in other courses. But, there isn’t a forecast of offering higher wages. The value would probably be similar to what a journalist starting his career would receive.
"People will have to have that disposition. Of course we will see what will come, but we have no intention of offering big salaries and big jobs. I'm not saying it will be an entry-level salary, but it's starting again: changing their career to journalism or learning a new ability,” Singer said.
In the context of newsrooms with fewer experienced journalists, the 40-year-old trainee may seem outside of the norm. How can you explain this training program when journalism companies tend to replace older professionals with younger and cheaper workers? Is it a backward movement or a way to attract qualified and experienced professionals, at a lower price?
According to Singer, the trainee does not fit into any of these options. "Indeed this movement [closing vacancies to older people] of newsrooms exists, but this is not the point of the training. If that was the goal [to be a substitution] we'd take journalists older than 40-years-old, imagining that they are unemployed and desperate, willing to accept a smaller position. It is not that. Those who were recently cut because of high salaries will not be replaced by one of those trainees we are teaching. These are two different things," the editor said.
For Silva, the expulsion of experienced journalists from newsrooms is very negative. "That's bad for the paper and for the reader. I do not think it's a good human resources policy," he said. However, Silva does not think the trainee serves this purpose. "I do not believe that this training is an effort to replace large numbers of journalists," he said.
Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
