is, who the editor is, and who the
technologist is that will bring it all together. At what point
will telecom workers become involved as well as the people in
television and other entities that come to create new products?
Traditionally in the print media, for instance, we had
printers, journalists, sales and marketing staff and so on, but
now all of them are working on one floor from one desk."

Formerly, the production staff was keying in the articles, and
not the editorial staff. Journalists and editors could now type
in their articles online, and these articles went directly from
text to layout. In book publishing, digitization speeded up the
editorial process, which used to be sequential, by allowing the
copy editor, the image editor and the layout staff to work at
the same time on the same book.

Michel Muller, secretary-general of the French Federation of
Book, Paper and Communication Industry (Federation des
industries du livre, du papier et de la communication), stated
that, in France, jobs in this industry fell from 110,000 to
90,000 in the last decade (1987-1996), with expensive social
plans to re-train and re-employ the 20,000 people who lost
their jobs.

He also explained that, "if the technological developments
really created new jobs, as had been suggested, then it might
have been better to invest the money in reliable studies about
what jobs were being created and which ones were being lost,
rather than in social plans which often created artificial
jobs. These studies should highlight the new skills and
qualifications in demand as the technological convergence
process broke down the barriers between the printing industry,
journalism and other vehicles of information. Another problem
caused by convergence was the trend towards ownership
concentration. A few big groups controlled not only the bulk of
the print media, but a wide range of other media, and thus
posed a threat to pluralism in expression. Various tax
advantages enjoyed by the press today should be re-examined and
adapted to the new realities facing the press and multimedia
enterprises. Managing all the social and societal issues raised
by new technologies required widespread agreement and
consensus. Collective agreements were vital, since neither
individual negotiations nor the market alone could sufficiently
settle these matters."

Quite theoretical compared to the unionists' concerns was the
answer of Walter Durling, director of AT