A couple of points. I think you can interpret the findings a few ways. One is that, from purely a “what do employers want” and “what are online journos being asked to do” standpoint, this is what the landscape looked like about a year ago.

Undoubtedly it has shifted somewhat since, but from the standpoint of someone looking for a job or of educators looking only to prepare students for today’s job market, this is what online newsrooms are looking for, whether we as forward-looking online journalists like it or not.

As Mindy suggests, however, it is the responsibility of schools to prepare journalists for the future, not the present: a world that requires journalists to be increasingly tech-savvy and online journalists to be jacks of all trades.

Secondly, separately from the question of the importance of tech skills, I thought it was interesting to look at what online newsrooms are really like right now. As much as we would love news sites to be innovative and online news jobs to be attractive to the technologically gifted, in many newsrooms, as recently as last year, the most important skills (aside from the somewhat generic “intangibles”) are copy-editing skills.

Taking nothing whatsoever away from the importance of copy-editing, I think this study could perhaps be viewed as a wake up call for news institutions that are looking for “answers” from online, but have created a workplace that is not conducive to the sort of innovation that you see at Web sites that are not directly tied to “old media” institutions.

In the other direction, of course, the study can be viewed as a triumph for “old media thinking,” but I think we’re a long way from having to worry that online newsrooms are TOO tech-focused.

We had editors from print news telling us for many years: “Don’t teach the students HTML.” Then last year they came to us, frantic, and asked, “Why don’t your kids know HTML?!”

I don’t mean to say EVERY news job requires HTML. But every news job hiring TODAY does require more than one skill.

I can honestly say that it’s not easy being “new media” –I’m often asked for my old media credentials. Doesn’t matter to old media types how much I know about how new media functions on a socio-cultural level (or what I’ve been doing in new media). That’s not as important as whether or not I took Journalism 101 or am just this side of a web designer.

Right now we are in a transitional period–and when transitions are going on, credibility is bestowed on those who know the old ways vs. those skilled and knowledgable in the new ways. Most believe the new cannot exist without the old providing necessary structure–then again, that’s what seems to be the thing that’s holding back so many of the old from moving forward. Talk about a catch 22…

Old media or new, you have to be able to tell a story and if you cannot and you cannot, as brother Safran says, write it, then you are in the wrong business.

all New Media provides are a variety of ways to tell a story in different ways for different platforms.

It begins, though, with the ability to recognize a story and tell it.

The ability to encourage and focus user conversation and contributions.

And I’d argue it’s just as important as the tenets of journalism.

Pardon me if I’m underwhelmed by the lead here, but that’s like saying that managers in the fast food industry believe skills like “fast service, attention to detail, and a sunny disposition” are key skills needed in their industry. So what? That seems like baseline stuff.

The things that everyone is burying in this story are the things that *are* different - skills like HTML and Photoshop, content management systems, and intangibles such as the ability to work in a team environment.

So traditional media folks who see this as a mandate to take over new media thinking are terribly mistaken.