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Have You Heard the News(letter) Today … ? November - December 2004 “The greatest problem in communication is the illusion that it has been accomplished.” – George Bernard Shaw Any newspaper managers who don’t provide regular feedback and guidance to their staffs with an internal newsletter are ignoring an easy opportunity to address one of the most persistent and bemoaned bugaboos afflicting our newsrooms – lack of communication.
Here, for example, is David Elbert of the Des Moines Register: “I have this theory that newsrooms are among the worst businesses anywhere when it comes to internal communication. Journalists are poor communicators from the top down and from the bottom up.” Here is Sharon Peters, now editor of The Gazette in Colorado Springs: “Giving feedback of any type, constructive criticism in particular, is perhaps the most dreaded of all management duties. … Hundreds of newsroom employees who participated in ASNE’s 2001 Leadership study identified (lack of) feedback” as a major shortfall. And, here is Jill Geisler of the Poynter Institute: “Those at the top need to present a vision for their team that is clear and compelling.” Add me to the list. After looking over a generous sampling of newsroom newsletters graciously shared by their authors, I’m convinced there is no simpler and more direct tool for bridging the communications fault lines that divide many newsrooms into insular fiefdoms. At best, these operate without a common purpose under varying standards, and, at worst, they actively war with their neighbors across the aisle using defensive tactics to undermine any new initiatives seen as incursions into their turf. While newsletters are no substitute for day-to-day feedback and coaching, they are vehicles that can:
Newsroom newsletters are as varied in format and frequency as the newspapers that spawn them. Some, such as Above the Fold, the work of Laurie Hertzl, the enterprise editor and writing coach at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, are “occasional” publications distributed as PDF files. Others, such as Word Witch, authored by Rusty Lang, the general editor for writing and training at the Tulsa World, come out weekly. Some newsletters take the simple form of email feedback, such as the twice or thrice monthly electronic missives on writing and leadership, while a few, such as Inklings, the quarterly newsletter conceived by George Rede, director of recruiting and training at the Oregonian, are elaborately designed publications.
It’s hard to replace a legend, so in March 2001 when legendary (ahem) Oregonian writing coach Jack Hart typed a “-30-“ at the end of his monthly newsletter, Second Takes, after a dozen years, the newspaper took a newsletter hiatus. Inklings arrived in March 2004 with an unusual format (5.5 x 17 inches, printed at the local Kinko’s), a name chosen by popular vote from among 80 submitted by staffers and the goal of being a “worthy successor” to Second Takes. The 12-page Inklings touches on all the crafts in the newsroom and focuses heavily on the people of The Oregonian, using various sections to introduce newcomers to the paper or to go “Behind the Byline” with a Q&A profile of a staffer that has questions similar to this one asked of writer John Foyston: “Bikes or beer? If you had to choose …” A good half of Inklings is devoted to the accomplishments of the Oregonian staff. It chronicles their prizes, fellowships and election to professional boards and offers opportunities to tell, in the first person, how their stories, photographs and graphics came together. The other half of Inklings is craft-oriented, with articles on issues ranging from the meta (Tom Goldstein on reporting and writing) to the minute (keyboard shortcuts on the Harris pagination system).
Inside Scoop is rich with craft information. Photographers tell how they captured the “photo of the month,” a reporter-turned-author discusses “making the leap to hardcover” and a report from an IRE conference offers nine suggestions for how to “dig deeper, dig smarter.” Sheila Garland, director of newsroom training for The Journal-Constitution, says that in addition to Inside Scoop the paper also produces a weekly email, Around the Newsroom, that is sent out on Fridays and “is much more devoted to news about employees.” What really makes Inside Scoop successful, says Garland, are “pieces by employees for employees.” “Each month,” she says, “I ask folks to do a piece about: the story behind the story (How did you do this piece? What challenges did you face? What type of coaching/editing did you receive? What did readers say about it?), a story about a workshop or event we did here, a profile about a new employee, how did we execute a great photo or visual.” Inside Scoop is designed in-house and printed outside of the newspaper. Other newsletter authors echo Garland’s reliance on contributions of staffers to Inside Scoop. “There’s a lot of expertise in our room and at other newspapers,” says Laurie Hertzel of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, who has been honchoing that paper’s newsletter, Above the Fold, for nearly four years (with a short interruption to oversee coverage of the Iraq war). “… I never planned on writing the thing only by myself. I would have to be out of my head.”
Baker not only shared his enthusiasm for newsroom learning – “There are only two kinds of journalists in the world,” he says, “bad ones and ones that are improving.” – but he brought along his lists of 10 Things Reporters Want from Editors (“Get off your butt and walk around … Don’t be a bureaucrat.”) and 10 Things Editors Want from Reporters (“I want you to respond with 100% effort to each assignment, whether it’s your idea or mine.”) Like that of many newsroom newsletters, the tone of Above the Fold is primarily positive, concentrating much more on what’s right than on what’s wrong. “Pointing out things that didn’t work doesn’t work,” says Hertzl, “because there is too much you don’t know (about what happened) and it makes people defensive.” Hertzel labors on the newsletter as time permits, spending altogether about two days a month writing and compiling it. She distributes it via the Star Tribune intranet as a PDF, but also produces a paper copy that is stuffed in staffers’ mailboxes because “people still like having a piece of paper.”
First, let’s deal with the name. “I came up with that name,” says Lang, “because I figured that mentally everyone would be calling me the word that rhymes with ‘witch.’ I beat them to the punch and hopefully added some self-deprecating humor. The nickname has certainly caught on.” Word Witch usually opens “with a short lesson on writing, grammar, ethics, issues, etc. then goes into the local part that everyone wants to read,” says Lang, referring to her comments on the best and worst of that week’s work “I hope they get something out of the top part before they move on to see if they’re mentioned.” Lang doles out praise by name, citing “inviting leads,” a “catch of the week” by the copy desk (“so they can get some pats; they are so needy.”) and solid reporting. Lang spares the producers of less laudatory work the ignominy of being named, but she highlights their miscues in sections labeled Misfires, Clichés, Garbles and, my favorite, Jargon Basement. (“What is an outparcel?” she asks.) Lang leads with the positive “so that people can just read the good stuff at the top and skip the negative if they are too sensitive to read it.” “People in all newsrooms don’t get enough feedback,” says Lang. She views Word Witch as a partial solution to that shortcoming, one that permits criticism in a non-emotional manner. “Spontaneous and instant feedback is a good thing,” she says, but off-the-cuff comments from managers can sometimes do more harm than good because “they are not (said) in a thoughtful, polished form.” Lang devotes about two hours a day to a critique of the World, which she presents in abbreviated form at the daily news meeting. She draws on those critiques as a basis for her newsletter, which she publishes on the paper’s intranet. Of course, not all newspapers have the in-house resources of a large regional newspaper like The Oregonian or The Journal-Constitution, or even the luxury of a full-time writing editor like Lang.
Gregg McLachlan, associate managing editor, of the Simcoe Reformer in Ontario, Canada, produces a monthly newsletter entitled The Write Way. Its slick design, clever writing and utilitarian approach belie the circulation of the Reformer or the size of its newsroom – 9,000 readers and handful-and-a-half of news reporters. Recent editions of The Write Way included the ungarnished story of a reporter “on the trail of a bunless burger,” a feature on offbeat questions, a plea (borrowed from the Los Angeles Times) for more details in stories (“Details. Get them all. Not just black shoes. Black shoe with laces and little heels.”) and the cover page anchor, Groaner Watch, which McLachlan writes with Garrison Keiller-esque wit to deflate the value of a given cliché. Here’s a Groaner Watch skewering the phrase “hold the fort”: “Never write that someone or some group will ‘hold the fort.’ Nobody holds the fort. OK, some people try. Davey Crockett tried to hold the fort. He died. The outlook is not good for people who try to hold the fort.” McLachlan has been publishing The Write Way for two years. It grew out of tip sheets he handed to reporters for years, many of which ended up in the trash cans at reporters’ desks. “I started the in-house newsletter because it has an immediate connection with the staff,” says McLachlan. “It addresses stuff that's happening in our newsroom and it speaks to them. Sure, some still end up in the waste basket, but many more are retained by the staff. In fact, some will even ask when the next issue is coming out. I even have some staff asking if they can contribute to it. “One of the biggest strengths of doing a newsletter is that it reinforces daily coaching. When you see a problem recurring with a reporter, you can ask them in a friendly tone if they remember the article in the X issue. They may say no, so you can just give them another copy.” Laurie Hertzel of Minneapolis also says newsletters, whether stored on a newspapers’ computer system or lying in the clutter of paper piled on a reporter’s desk, provide an archive of readily retrievable advice. Above the Fold, she says, “seemed like one way to get things down so people can refer back to them.” McLachlan says The Write Way not only contributes to a growing library of tips, tools and techniques, its presence in the newsroom causes a secondary influence even on the staffers’ who don’t read it. “Even when you have the reporters who throw stuff in the waste basket after they receive it, you can see changes because they notice the newsletters on other reporters' desks long after the issue date. It's the peer thing,” he says. “If the other person is reading it, maybe I should too.” Finally, George Rede of The Oregonian supplies the reason why every newsroom should be publishing a newsletter devoted to improving journalistic quality and staff morale – those who don’t do it could be losing out in the recruiting game. “Although this (Inklings) was conceived as something by and for The Oregonian newsroom,” says Rede, “I've found that it's become a recruiting tool for us. I think it shows in a very tangible way what our newsroom does to walk the walk when it comes to newsroom training.” |
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Lamentations abound of the lousy communications skills of people paid to communicate, as do exhortations urging newspaper managers to do a better job or risk losing the hearts and minds of the newsroom to naysayers.
