Training: Work or Perk?

Each February, The Oregonian daily newspaper in Portland sends a few lucky people to the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in St. Petersburg, Fla. The purpose of the trip is training — but it has developed a reputation as a desirable perk for the newspaper's reporters and editors, who either make a pitch to managers for a course they would like to take or are selected for the trip by the company's director of training.