Young journalist? Stick with it
Someone asked me yesterday, “Are you glad you became a journalist?”
I answered without hesitation, “Yes,” adding, “Why do you ask?”
The reply: “I’m just curious.”
That conversation didn’t happen with a student in the “boot camp” writing course that I’m currently teaching at the Newhouse School, nor with a colleague, nor during an interview for a job.
The question came from my 81-year-old mother.
And it gave me an opportunity to think about the journalism career path I took 31 years ago when I landed my first job, on the copy desk of the Democrat and Chronicle in Rochester, N.Y. Who knows where I would be now, if not for that initial opportunity?
I have worked for a newspaper, a wire service and as a member of a research and development unit tasked to create online news and information reports. That R&D work happened way back in 1984, when Gannett Company, Inc., began to focus on giving readers what they wanted, when and how — quick reads, by 8 a.m., on a computer. Over the years, that R&D developed into what we know now as usatoday.com.
A lot has changed in three decades, but one thing has not, and that is what it takes to produce online news. A former student shared a New York Times article with me last week titled “In a World of Online News, Burnout Starts Younger.”
When I was producing online news and information, I was in my 20s, starting work some days at 2 a.m. And my day did not end eight hours later. But it did not matter because the journalism I was doing was exciting and the pace exhilarating. Were there times when the schedule was grueling? Of course. But it was worth it in the end.
Today, as the journalism profession evolves, and as talk focuses on print vs. Web or, as I prefer to think of it, Web AND print, I can approach the conversation with background and history from both perspectives. I am still learning.
My hope is that the young journalists who might be feeling burnout now will work through the pain so they will be the next generation of journalists who can approach the next evolution in our profession with background and history. For them to do that, they must be able to make a living, and that is where the comparisons end — because I consider that I was well-paid 30 years ago to do what young journalists are doing today for little or, sometimes, no pay.
My “Think Like an Editor” co-author, Steve Davis, who also worked in the online R&D unit, wrote in this space recently about the MOB conference he had attended — MOB standing for Monetizing Online Business. Once that challenge has been met — no easy task — perhaps the young journalists will have more control over their destinies.
In the meantime, I am looking forward to engaging in conversations about journalism with academic colleagues at the AEJMC convention in Denver next week. Now that I teach at Syracuse University, these types of opportunities are readily available to me.
But I truly believe that without the experience of getting up at 2 a.m. — and sticking with it — I would not even be at a university today.
Emilie Davis
Distinguish yourself: Three key qualities
Curiosity. Energy. Persistence.
These are the most important qualities, some would say, for any journalist. They emerge this weekend in a short Q and A in The New York Times about Aaron Levie, CEO of Box.net, a company that specializes in online file storage. In the Corner Office feature, Levie is talking about the qualities he looks for when he’s hiring. There are also some great thoughts here about managing and leading in a competitive and changing and innovative environment. … Sounds like a newsroom.
I like to look elsewhere for lessons about what we do — and often come across gems like this one. It’s affirming and even inspiring to see that the qualities that make us good are universal.
You might think if these qualities are so obvious and so universal, each of us would “carry” them in equal measure. Clearly, we do not.
Being persistent, energetic and curious is a decision you make. A choice.
You might be surprised to find how many colleagues don’t demonstrate any of these, or only some of these. I don’t say this as a downer, but as inspiration. It’s easy to set yourself apart in the newsroom — if you decide to make that your choice.
Steve Davis
Work from a checklist: Video
“You can check that off the list.”
We say that all the time. Intuitively, we recognize that making a list, and following it, ensures that the job gets done. That it is complete — and done right.
But when it comes to journalism, we are often suspicious of anything that sounds like a “formula.” It challenges our feeling that our work is creative, and that every piece evolves in its own way. I have plenty of empathy for that, but also for the opposite. When you don’t have a checklist, things can be forgotten, skipped, or left out. The result: Time lost, work wasted. People irritated.
I make the case in our video that checklists are liberating, not limiting, because they free you up to work with confidence on the creative side, knowing the basics are covered. Checklists also are a hedge against miscommunication; if reporter-editor teams are working from the same checklists, their expectations match. We often talk about a shared language and shared vision, where team members work in harmony. Checklists are the foundations on which these are built.
Eventually, as it is with all good habits, working from a checklist becomes second nature. You do it naturally, intuitively.
I noted in the video that I’ve been using a mental checklist to improve my golf swing. Sadly, this has not happened yet. But I have faith in checklists, and that eventually I will hit a straight ball more often than not!
You can download our video about trying checklists to your iPod or other portable device. Or, you can view it — and others in the archive — via our YouTube playlist, right off the Web, or in the player on our home page.
Steve Davis
Take 10 steps to better enterprise ideas
In thinking about enterprise story ideas — as master’s students are doing now in their six-week news writing boot camp at the Newhouse School — I am reminded how difficult it is sometimes to develop, as some say, “a story from nothing.” Or so it may seem.
But, in fact, the beauty of enterprise ideas is that they start from something, not nothing, and it is usually a story in the news. That’s because true enterprise, not to be confused with a feature story, is a piece of a story. It is an unanswered question to a story that has been published, or an ongoing story. It is an idea that takes a writer (and readers) in a new direction. It is an idea that develops into a story that sometimes in no way resembles that initial story in the news — except that the initial story provides the peg.
A good exercise any time is to look at a news story playing out for a week or longer in the news. How do news organizations develop enterprise? Look at the wide range of content that is spun off. What stories/ideas are duplicated? Who consistently seems to come up with the best enterprise ideas when and after news breaks? Think about the oil spill in the Gulf, and the many questions you have. Then check the archives of any major news organization through Nexis or a simple Google search or two and see how these — and many others — are addressed through enterprise. Daily stories of all kinds can be an inspiration to you as well. It’s all about being an aggressive thinker. Example: Today’s fascinating piece of enterprise in The New York Times about the people who are paid to review pornographic or violent content posted by users. How often have you read stories about this kind of thing? Local disputes, court cases, videos that pop up on YouTube, Facebook, etc., that spark debates about “where the line is.” Some smart reporter or editor had an enterprise epiphany: Who reviews all these things? What kind of job is that?
Consider these “10 Steps to Better Enterprise Ideas”:
- Make a list. Think of every question that comes to mind after reading a story of interest to you.
- Think about change. What are the effects a story will have on you and your community?
- Think about the unusual. This could mean odd or bizarre, remarkable or outstanding, or just uncommon or different.
- Ask yourself what interests you. What stories do you enjoy reading?
- Think about the next steps. Go beyond what is the “news of the day.”
- Think about the people. Stories about people who appear in the news could be the peg for a variety of enterprise stories.
- Apply the five W’s. Think about the who, what, when, where and why of a story. Any of these might be THE focus for an enterprise story.
- Ask how. When you ask “how” about any story, ideas will come.
- Ask others. Take time out of your day — even 10 minutes — to dream up story ideas with others. Think big first, and then narrow your focus.
- Read. The more you read, the easier it will be to generate enterprise story ideas.
This list is elaborated upon — in Strategy 3: Enterprise — in our book, “Think Like an Editor: 50 Strategies for the Print and Digital World.”
And there is another important element of thinking through story ideas, and that has to do with the writer-editor team planning the story together. As we say in Strategy 2: 10 Steps to a Better Story Idea, working together to plan a story is a lot like the relationship between a professional golfer and a caddie. The two strategize the golfer’s next move. They talk. They talk before a shot, and they talk after the shot. A golfer needs a caddie, and a caddie wouldn’t have that job without a golfer. After a good shot, the golfer gets the applause and the caddie remains in the background. Just like a writer and an editor.
This is a good analogy to keep in mind, especially at the point when fatigue might set in from thinking so much about a story idea. Should that happen, remember to tap your “personal caddie” for a quick talk about the best way to proceed. Top golfers do it all the time.
Emilie Davis
Try New Things: Video
Sometimes our inclination is to rule out something new based on a simple gut feeling: “I don’t like it.” Or, “I don’t think I will like it.” Or, “I don’t see the sense in it.”
This came up recently in a discussion about the phone app foursquare. Some in the discussion said they weren’t really interested in it.
Be careful with this. It’s important to not get caught up in our likes and dislikes (see last week’s video post, “Avoid the ‘I’ Word”). Instead, experiment. How often have you said you didn’t think you’d like something, and then were surprised that it was OK, after all? Maybe it was spinach. Maybe it was sushi. Maybe it was a new social media tool.
In our business, if people out there are using something relevant to media (old or new), we had better check it out. We don’t have to like it. But we should know it and understand it — so we can use a shared language to talk about it.
You can download our video about trying new things to your iPod or other portable device. Or, you can view it — and others in the archive — via our YouTube playlist, right off the Web, or in the player on our home page.
Listen to your “guests”
Recently, I attended an interesting conference in New York called MOB — Monetizing Online Business. The conference was organized by colleagues at the Newhouse School.
An interesting talk was given by Thomas Kruczek, executive director of the Falcone Center for Entrepreneurship at the Whitman School of Management, Syracuse University.
On Day Two, Kruczek said he was surprised at how seldom the concept of serving the customer had come up during the initial day. After all, the discussion was all about making money online, and money comes from customers. Those customers include readers and advertisers, but Kruczek was referring in particular to readers.
From the audience, I commented that the traditional media (well-represented in the crowd) really has trouble with that idea. And no one challenged me. Indeed, there was a murmur of agreement.
When I became editor of The Public Opinion in Chambersburg, Pa., in the early ’90s, following my time at USA TODAY, the idea of community journalism was catching on in newsrooms. Some veterans like myself didn’t quite feel that listening to readers and including them — giving them what they wanted — was a new idea. I guess it wasn’t. What was new was that we really were supposed to listen at last, and to genuinely include our readers. To be honest, most of us had gone through the motions before. But with profit margins beginning to fall out of the 30 percent range, and eventually right through the 20 percent range, we were supposed to aggressively take this on.
But I’m not sure anything changed then, or has changed now.
We remain really bad at this, and we really don’t like it all that much. It’s not even top of mind, as our speaker suggested. I’ve heard it all, and still hear it today (which must tell you something, like we don’t get it):
- Readers don’t understand the business.
- Readers will pick the “wrong” stories. They don’t know what they need.
- Readers are ill-informed.
- Readers are biased, a lot more biased than we are.
A lot of us like to point to letters to the editor in newspaper print editions, and to online comments at websites, as evidence to support this bullet list. True, as a group these posters and writers don’t always show off our most thoughtful customers.
But we know there are thoughtful customers out there, and we have to listen to them. It’s a tenet of any business, Kruczek rightly said.
“How do we get over our problem with this?” I asked.
Perhaps it’s in the language, he said. “Think of them as guests, not customers.”
I thought that was an interesting way to help adjust our mindset, and think about real, genuine methods to include our readers. Social media provides good tools, but if we genuinely don’t care, what difference do they really make?
So think about it.
How do you treat your guests? Better than your customers, perhaps?
For more, Kruczek’s talk is online, running from around 4:45 to 56:30.
Steve Davis
