You need to reach out to the newspaper industry for ideas, professional networking, and a better understanding about the newspaper company for which you are working. To understand the industry and find your niche, you need to overcome three big cultural hurdles:

• There is a tendency in today's newspaper industry to ignore the professional training and development of employees. Some will deny it, but it's a fact, especially for those on the commercial side of the industry. Deal with this in compensation negotiations, or learn the budget game. If you can't argue training and development on its merits, remember this: US$3,000-US$5,000 a year in memberships, conferences, and workshops is a major benefit that is not taxed.

• Another tendency, especially among larger newspaper companies, is to do all training within the company or locally. Yes, this can be slightly incestuous over time. To combat this, go outside of your market and outside of your company. Even outside of your industry. See other newspaper executives, other newspapers, other cities, other countries. The newspaper industry is a big place.

• Newspapers being deadline machines, you may find yourself sucked into The Deadline World even though you don't work in the editorial department. Make time for learning more about the newspaper industry. "No time to learn" equates to bad time management.

Now that you have overcome these pesky hurdles, let's get down to how you can learn more about the newspaper industry, and how you can find your niche.