Who’s in the wings, awaiting an opportunity to be among the “Next Top Editors” in the newspaper industry? Who is not there? How diverse — in all ways — are the editors who are on their way up? What is the path to the editor’s chair? What experiences are providing the building blocks for a future newsroom leader? What will underpin their journalistic leadership?
Those questions reflect the vision of a recent UNITY/ASNE seminar for 14 editors who hope to, one day, lead a newsroom. The purpose of the seminar, which Poynter helped design, was to provide experiences and insight that could help the editors advance their career goals.
For three days, the participants absorbed advice from executive editors and publishers. They put themselves in the editor’s chair to resolve operational dilemmas familiar in today’s newsrooms — setting priorities, cutting budgets and positions, and creating new initiatives. And they deepened their understanding of cultural and racial differences, through the work of two anthropologists who have worked on diversity issues in the news industry.
Executive editors talked about what they do and what they wish they had known before stepping into the top position:
- Be aware of how much your words and actions are magnified and how what you say and do must match.
- Encourage discussion of journalistic issues, hear many voices, seek varying perspectives. But recognize in the end that you are responsible for the ultimate decision.
- Demonstrate the importance of life outside the newsroom. If you model balance in your life, you set that example for your staff.
- Work constantly on your people skills. By the time you reach the executive editor’s chair, you should have developed advanced human relations skills.
- Be prepared to lead and sustain change in your newsroom.
At the end of the three-day seminar, John Carroll, editor of the Los Angeles Times, joined the group to talk about the challenges of turning a newsroom around. It’s much more fun, he said, to build a newsroom than to merely tend it. Then he offered seven ways these aspiring editors could make a difference at the top of a newsroom.
1. Be the editor, that’s your job. Carroll said he touches the journalism every day in some way. “The newsroom needs you to be a journalist,” he added. Teach the newsroom to do better journalism, side by side with you.
2. Run the paper; don’t let it run you. The day-to-day can push you off-course. Don’t let it. Set the direction and go forward.
3. Treat every hiring opportunity like gold. Hire people who have talents that will make the paper better; don’t just fill a vacancy.
4. Play all the notes in the newsroom. “Build a symphony of the crafts,” he said. Editors tend to give the most attention to the newsroom department they know best. Put every craft and every department on a path to success.
5. Engage every single person in the newsroom. Morale depends on everyone being involved. Help people see how they can contribute.
6. Do the math of hard decisions. If you have a problem editor, face the facts: you have a group of journalists who aren’t being developed, a newsroom that isn’t being served, and readers who are being short-changed in coverage. “Make the change,” he said.
7. Build an idea factory. Get people talking about ideas. Tap all levels of the newsroom. The best brains are at the bottom of the newsroom. Don’t stifle people. Value their ideas.
Carroll’s advice reverberated with the seminar group. In the short time the group had together after his remarks, these seven steps dominated the buzz.
Their reactions to Carroll’s advice, and to the seminar as a whole, reflect not just the potential growth the participants experienced but also the potency of this general insight: Newsrooms need well-developed editors who can stand up to the journalistic challenges of the future. Up-and-comers need to be groomed now. It’s vital for today’s top editors to reach out and bring the next top editors along — whether they are helping those in their newsrooms or whether they are reaching beyond to help the industry as a whole.
