During my last years at The Philadelphia Inquirer, the staff moved out of our cramped, dysfunctional, and rodent-infested newsroom into a spectacular new space. The room was huge; it formerly accommodated 10 lines of presses.
At one end of the sprawling room were side-by-side offices for the Editor and Managing Editor — both of which looked out into the newsroom through walls of glass.
Talk about working in a fishbowl. Gone was any mystery about whether the editor and I were in our offices and whether we were alone or awake. The arrival of each visitor to our fishbowls offered the staff new opportunities for conjecture: Is he getting fired?Are they talking about me? Is she really getting that promotion?
Truth is, those offices were a great metaphor for one of the absolute truths of newsroom management: Nothing an editor does or says goes unnoticed.
Am I exaggerating? Let’s take a quiz.
Your editor typically works well into the evening. This means:
A) Only one train runs to her town and it’s a late one.
B) She likes to work late, but believes everyone else on the staff should establish a balance between their work and personal lives.
C) You’d better work late or your career is toast.
That was too easy, don’t you think?
Here’s another.
Your editor frequently has lunch with reporters on the staff. This means:
A) He likes talking about stories.
B) He’s most comfortable talking with reporters.
C) He hates copy editors.
Now, now — we’re sounding paranoid. Let’s do one more.
Your assistant managing editor for visuals sent you an e-mail today saying he really liked your photo on the front page. He asks that you stop in to see him; he wants to talk about why you decided to shoot from that particular angle. This means:
A) He hated your photo.
B) He really hated your photo.
C) He thinks you should go into catering.
Fact is, no matter how far up in the organization we are, we all look for signals from the people who manage our work lives. And it’s also a fact that managers often send mixed, unclear, and sometimes unintended signals to the people on their staffs.
Jan Leach is a former editor of the Akron Beacon Journal; she now teaches media ethics at Kent State University. Jan recalls times when the signals she sent had an unintended impact on her newsroom.
“Once, in the afternoon news meeting, we started talking about whether we should run photos of dead bodies on the front page,” Jan recalls. “I just wanted to have a conversation about it — though the fact is, I leaned toward not using them.
“But before I knew it, the newsroom had gone and adopted a rule about running photos of dead people on the front page. Not only were we not running dead bodies, but we also weren’t running body bags — or even mug shots of dead people. I asked an editor, ‘How did this happen?’
“Because,” he said, “you said you don’t like dead bodies on the front page.”
Sometimes, of course, an editor can send messages that can affect the very psyche of a newsroom. Editors who have managed staffs through layoffs, buyouts, long periods of attrition, and other financial squeezes know how much their every move is analyzed by people desperate for answers to their questions:
- Is my job in jeopardy?
- Is the company going out of business?
- Is the newsroom still interested in good work?
- Should I stay?
- Should I leave?
Jan recalls what is was like in the Akron newsroom in 2001 after the company announced the first layoffs in the newspaper’s history.
“It was horrible in every sense of the word. We already had gone through a lot of cutting, but now we were going to lay off 10 people. Privately, in conversations, I was telling people that we had to move forward, but publicly, I was very sad and upset — and people reacted to my reaction — they told me, ‘We can see it on your face.’
“I realized that especially in difficult times, I needed to be very aware that my words, my mood, even my body language were sending messages — and I needed to be conscious of what those messages were.”
So what’s an editor to do? I can’t work late, I can’t offer constructive criticism, I can’t even look sad? Should I just hide in my office, adopt an expressionless face and issue all messages in writing — and only after endless vetting for possible negative interpretations?
Of course not. (After all, the staff will interpret that to mean you’re unapproachable and hate them all.)
Instead of hiding, how about considering the flip side of our “Nothing Goes Unnoticed” axiom: Everythingan editor says or does has the potential to improve the newsroom.
Let’s repeat that: Everything an editor says or does has the potential to improve the newsroom.
Does that mean we can consciously shape our newsroom’s culture?
Listen to Jan reflect upon her reaction to the layoffs: “If I had to do it all over again, I would do some things differently. I would continue to be open — and I wouldn’t pretend that everything was just fine. But I also would focus faster and harder on what the newsroom still had the ability to achieve — and on what we were doing well.”
It is important to take note here that in the aftermath of the layoffs in her newsroom, Jan had made an important decision — she had decided to stay. She had committed to moving her newsroom forward.
How did she do it?
By focusing on the journalism.
In the weeks after the layoffs took place, Jan said, the Beacon Journal published in-depth work on a rash of “shaken baby” deaths that had taken place in Akron that year. It was work, she said, that was truly important for the community and it reminded the staff that despite the bad times, they still could do excellent work.
Then more reminders arrived — on September 11, 2001.
By the time the staff had finished producing an Extra and 15 subsequent days of extraordinary newspapers, Jan said, they knew what they were capable of doing. And Jan made sure they knew. She delivered to her newsroom a message she wanted everyone to hear, clearly: “We can do important, high-quality journalism. That is — and will be — our focus.”
What messages do you want your staff to hear? What do you want your newsroom culture to be? What values do you want your staff to hold sacred?
Whether you are an editor responsible for an entire newsroom or an assigning editor, design editor, copy chief, or graphics editor responsible for a staff, are you consciously behaving and speaking in a way that clearly promotes your desired values and culture?
It can be done — in big ways and little ones.
Legalize Fun
During his days as an editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer, retired Poynter President Jim Naughton was determined that working in his newsroom would be fun. So he wore funny hats, filled his cubicle with rubber chickens, and marked important occasions (retirements, important birthdays, etc.) with parties in the newsroom that sometimes featured live animals — including a camel.
He also oversaw some of the finest, most serious journalism done in America.
Be Quiet and Listen
David Zeeck, Executive Editor at TheNews Tribune in Tacoma, Washington, works hard to stamp out what he calls the Lone Ranger Complex. “As we get promoted, it’s easy for editors to begin thinking that we have all the answers — that we hold the silver bullet,” Zeeck said. “It’s hard, but I think it’s important for me to resist solving every problem.”
Zeeck wants the people in the newsroom to believe in their ability to find solutions.
“Ultimately, I think it’s the job of leadership to say clearly what it wants — the mission — and for managers and staff to answer how we should get there.”
He began sending that message to the staff right from the start, as soon as he arrived in Tacoma.
“For the first two months, I just listened and did a lot of asking. What are your priorities? What do you think our mission ought to be? What do you think it is? What are your dreams for the paper? What is its potential? What are the big themes of this place?”
He said he refused to answer the question he was most often asked by the staff: “What do you want us to do — to be?”
“After two months, I shared some observations with the staff and asked them to respond. At the end of that period, I began picking my newsroom leadership and working with them to set a mission.”
Now, he says, when a staffer comes to him with a problem, he fights his natural impulse to solve it.
“I just hold up my hand and say, ‘What do you think?’ Or, ‘Give me two possible solutions’ so there’s something to choose from. It makes for a much stronger staff if I play like Barney Fife and keep the silver bullet in my pocket.”
Keep the Table Set
Several assigning editors who recently attended a seminar at Poynter have adopted new behaviors in order to create more collaborative relationships with their reporters.
Theresa Klisz, an editor at Gannett News Service in Washington, D.C., makes it a point to stop by her reporters’ desks and chat, sometimes about a story but sometimes just about a reporter’s weekend trip. She keeps some snacks out on her desk to encourage visitors.
She’s also noticed how a fellow editor makes it a point to share success stories.
“When one editor has that ‘ah-ha’ moment where she’s reading copy and realizes a reporter has found a different way to get into a story,” Theresa said, “she e-mails the idea around the newsroom and credits the reporter.”
Talk Writing
Brian Breuhaus, a night editor at Newsday, began encouraging reporters to use more active — and fewer passive — verbs. Another editor heard Brian’s conversation with a reporter and decided to join the “voice” campaign. Then Brian mentioned his effort to members of the copy desk, and they also started focusing on verb usage.
“It’s not a sea change, by any means,” Brian said. “Maybe a pond change.”
Talk More Writing
Jeff Scullin, an assigning editor at The (Lakeland) Ledger, said changes in his approach to editing have had a contagious effect in his newsroom. He and his staff began talking about their stories at all stages of the reporting and editing process and not just to agree on slug, length, budget line, and deadline. They started talking about focus, about writing style, about “Why are we writing this story?”
“I notice that the more I ‘coach’ reporters in the newsroom,” Jeff said, “the more people are inclined to come up and talk about stories. … I think that these small gestures may go a long way toward change. People notice when I walk across the room to talk with them.
“It’s funny what people notice.”
These assigning editors value collaboration. And by consciously adopting certain behaviors — like editing a story alongside the reporter, sometimes at the reporter’s desk — they are sending the message that collaboration can be a shared value across the newsroom.
What is your staff focused on? Is it the focus you want?
What are your staff’s values? Are they your values?
What message is your behavior communicating to your newsroom?
What are you doing? What are you saying?
Remember: Nothing I do or say goes unnoticed.
But just think: Everything I do or say could make my newsroom better.
Just think.
