The secrets of great journalism

Recently, I was invited to speak to journalism students at Francis Howell Central High School near St. Louis about the lessons journalism serves up outside the classroom. Here, then, is the presentation I gave, listing practical advice over book-learning:

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'Pay for praise' undermines journalism's credibility

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The crisp suits and tuxedos are put away, the gowns and evening dresses are hung as well. America’s journalists have packed their finest threads for another year, and the shining plaques and embossed certificates that prompted such fashion displays are already up on shelves, bookcases and desktops across this wide nation.

This is because journalism’s two-month season of giving itself awards recently ended; everything from Pulitzers to proclamations went out in rapid order, ranging in purpose from national recognition to just a pat on the back. It’s an unabashedly narcissistic season in which we journalists look back at our work to see what we did best, or did right, this past year, and try to justify among ourselves the value and importance of it.

Absent unimpeachable proof from our readers and viewers that they think we’re doing the right thing, it’s the optimum means of self-gratification available to us.

And yet, the implied veracity has come into question with me. Thanks to a particular incident, I wonder, especially now, how many of those honors truly recognized laudable effort — or whether they are the result of cash guarantees.

I didn’t use to wonder. As president of the St. Louis Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, part of my responsibility has been to assist other SPJ chapters in evaluating submissions for their annual awards, so they could avoid the appearance of currying favors from friends and colleagues. To juxtapose even more space between thought and deed, SPJ urges contest administrators to seek that assistance well away from their chapters’ membership areas. The closest chapter I assisted this year was a six-hour drive from me.

This year, my third consecutive as a judge, I volunteered to assess submissions for five different competitions — one of them national and four regional, or two more competitions than last year. Looking back, I’m sure though that one of those chapters won’t ring up my number again.

Before the explanation, a little background: Besides recognizing excellent work and stroking egos, awards contests can rake in a lot of money. Organizers often attach entry fees per submission, ranging from a few bucks to tens of dollars, ostensibly to offset administrative costs but also to generate operating funds for the chapters. For example, imagine a particular award category attracts two dozen entries. Charging $10 per entry nets a fast $240 in pocket for a chapter before even the invitations go out.

Multiply that by, say, 80 categories spread across the spectrum of print, televised and digital media, and the chapter is looking at potentially thousands of dollars to not only spend on impressive looking plaques and certificates to hand out at tony venues where food is served and fashions much nicer than office wear is de rigueur, but also bank a few bucks for other special events, scholarships and professional training. 

This kind of thing is not unique to journalism; awards are handed out in much the same way across the scope of professions, each with its own rationale for assessing fees. One would think though that journalism, prominent among them, eschews guarantees of praise to go with those payments, if only to ensure the notion that its award-giving smacks of the same objectivity attempted in its news coverage.

Think again. As my award-judging obligation wound down I received an email from a contest organizer who was dismayed with my selections — not so much regarding my overall judgment as the lack thereof for a handful of categories. In other words, where I judged the entries to be wholly substandard, I left the category blank, ensuring no award.

“Perhaps I was unclear in my instructions, and for that I apologize,” the contest organizer wrote to me about a week after I made my choices. “These entrants paid the submission fee. We should show that they are getting something for their fee.”

Absent that, he continued, they may decide to not make submissions for future contests. And we need the money; the awards are central to our fundraising efforts.

I tried to shore up my position by reminding him that the five reporting categories I left blank had just one or two entries total for three potential awards — first, second, third and honorable mention — and that the entries themselves were laughably far off the award-winning mark: unenterprising, perhaps culled from batch-distributed public relations announcements and devoid of sourcing that might prove to me the reporters attempted to verify a shred of their PR content. In a couple instances, what struck me was that the florid wording of the original PR release had oozed through into the story.

Granted, I was not certain of the story origins. But after 30 years in this business, much of it spent coaxing good writing from bad, I have come to recognize patterns of writing, and that recognition is fairly bankable.

The awards organizer, perhaps immune to my argument, graciously deflected my concern.

“We appreciate your time and effort,” he wrote back. “Please send back the entries you judged for the categories in question, and we’ll have the awards committee review your decisions.”

I did as advised, and a few weeks later I checked the contest website for the results. Sure enough, there were the categories I had judged and left blank newly filled with winners in each and with carefully worded platitudes attached. The circle of this particular contest remained unbroken, no matter my noble intent.

Maybe I’m may be part of a dwindling contingent that believes awards and honors should recognize true exceptionality. The Pulitzer committee, at least, is a member of this group, charging $50 per Pulitzer-prize entry while not at the same time issuing awards like a supermarket coupon dispenser. That entry fee opens the door to contestants; it doesn’t ensure them one of the silver-and-gold medallions.

When any of us promise awards for the price of entry, no matter the profession, we cheapen not just the award but also the work it was intended to honor. The organizers for all journalism awards need to keep that in mind, lest their efforts to distribute praise and bolster funds also chip away the foundation of journalism’s credibility.

How to get a newspaper editor's attention

(This post first appeared in The Independent Journalist, the freelancing blog of the Society of Professional Journalists.)

The calls, emails and tweets started flowing in around during the holidays, coming across my desk at a rate of about half a dozen daily. Many more landed among my colleagues. They usually say something like this:

"I wrote this piece and thought you might like it," says the introduction to one email.

"Sure, it's a blog post, but it's a subject that interests everyone," says another.

"I'd love to write about sports. I'm a big fan," says one caller.

This time of year, aspiring writers drop hints, notes and whole unsolicited stories on newspapers like new snow with the intention of publishing those stories and getting paid for them. I think of it as a different kind of holiday tradition: as Christmas-related bills mount, these optimistic writers try to salve their financial wounds by banging out what they consider "news" and expecting a newspaper editor to read it as such, thus publishing it in the next day's paper and paying generously for the writers' work by week's end, or at least before the next credit card statement arrives.

But most of these gratuitous pitches and contributions wind up deleted, erased, ignored, because their writers failed at good reporting.

Sure, newspapers long have relied on contributing writers or freelancers to report news particularly when their full-time staffs were swamped with other work. The need for freelancers is acute now since newspapers nationwide have cut about one-third of their staffs over the past decade.

But today as decades before, newspapers do not accept anything and everything submitted to them for publication as "news." The stories appearing in today's print pages or online are products of careful planning, research and attention to detail. Even breaking news coverage requires rapid incisive analysis by teams of reporters and editors — freelancers sometimes among them — to determine how and why something happened and why it's what journalists like to call "newsworthy."

So, before you ship that free-form story to the nearest newspaper, stop for moment to understand first what it takes to attract a newspaper editor's attention:

First, you have to read the newspaper — This sounds pitifully obvious. In reality, it's pitiful how many solicitations that come to newspapers are ignorant on their face, as the writers are blind to the newspaper's greater purpose. Each paper serves as a kind of window onto the community, and the communities themselves are distinct. Thus, what interests readers or is newsworthy in St. Louis may not warrant similar attention in Sheboygan, Wis., or Syracuse, N.Y. Reading the newspaper carefully every day reveals the distinction. Consider how a newspaper is organized and edited, and where certain topics routinely appear. In other words, study the newspaper before trying to write for it.

Sell the story, not yourself — Prospective freelancers often try to tell their life stories when all an editor wants to know is whether the writer's idea is worth attention. Concentrate on explaining the story's importance in one or two short sentences, focusing on the key questions all news stories try to answer: who what, when, where, why and how.

Remember, there is no "I" in news — What you think, feel or believe about the news is not important; don't try passing off a recent blog post or journal entry as a news story. Cite only the facts in a story pitch; leave out your opinion. Because everyone has an opinion, but not everyone has the facts.

Provide verifiable sources — Newspapers aim to steer clear of bias in its news, leaving that instead to the commentary pages, thus some editors may want to check the validity of a freelancer's idea before committing to it. Providing at least three independent sources that editors can contact if they wish will sell a story pitch better than if there are none.

Send your pitch to the proper place — Story ideas relating to sports should not go to the news or features editors. Find out who the editors are that work with freelancers and accept story ideas, and craft pitches and queries to them specifically.

Pay attention to quality, quantity — Besides determining the proper editor for submissions, make sure to spell the editor's name correctly. For that matter, pay careful attention to fixing spelling and grammar errors before sending any correspondence. Most newspapers also adhere to "style" guidelines outlined by The Associated Press. Furthermore, if a story calls for a specific length, say 500 words, avoid writing even one word more than that. Not following such a simple direction may prompt time-challenged editors to hit the "delete" key.

Keep an open mind about being edited — Even the world's best journalists need editors, so don't think your work is much better. But don't take editing personally. Accept that stories may be trimmed or adjusted for length before publication. Tight, precise writing and rigid adherence to a prearranged story length go a long way toward preventing this.

Small potatoes are better than no potatoes — It used to be that newspapers paid well for freelance work. These days, big paychecks are rare, $25 to $50 per published story being typical and non-negotiable.

Don't be discouraged, but don't be a pest, either — Upon making a pitch, if a newspaper editor has not yet responded, wait three or four days before following up politely, professionally. It may be that the editor has been busy, or is keeping an eye open for other ideas.

Will fewer copy editors mean more lawsuits?

A friend of mine lost his job as the economy began careening along a precipice. He was laid off after his employer's accountants, perhaps fearing for their own job security, removed the welcome mat one morning as he approached from the parking lot.

At the front door, guards who knew my friend on a first-name basis greeted him cordially, took his security pass and presented him with a water-stained cardboard box filled with his belongings. Nobody was there to say thank you for his decade of commitment and loyalty; the guards had performed the same curt ceremony two dozen times already over the past six months.

The day after my friend's exit, a brace of attorneys visited his now-former employer. Not because he had hired legal eagles in response. Instead, these attorneys were sniffing for negligence and thought they might smell blood in the building. Because the night my friend was laid off, the employer made a critical error that went public.

My friend, you see, had been a newspaper copy editor. His job, simply stated, was to ensure other people looked good. He caught reporters' errors and corrected them before publication, and by extension made the newspaper look good. But before his last night at work the editing staff already suffered a shortage of bodies. News stories that should have been scrutinized closely were pushed through in a hurry to meet a deadline. So on the first night he was gone, some errors were missed, including a libelous one that wound up in print and online the next morning before an estimated 1 million sets of eyes. The attorneys showed up at the front desk before the security guard had finished his morning coffee.

Today, the newspaper still publishes and it has laid off more employees, perhaps to defray legal costs. My friend found a new job outside of journalism. He corrects errors now in the private sector. How much money was required to solve the newspaper's libel problem, I do not know; maybe enough to have kept my friend and a couple other copy editors on the payroll a year or more.

Now, sure, there's no telling that the newspaper would have avoided trouble for certain had my friend still been there. But fewer editors tends to mean more errors, and not just at newspapers. A recent New York Times article cited book publishers' propensity for cutting corners as the reason for the rise of spelling and other errors in books and manuscripts. These publishers used to have copy editing staffs, too. Another report, this one by the BBC, highlighted an entrepreneur's claim that spelling errors on merchants' websites in the United Kingdom have drastically curtailed online sales there.

And this all matters … how? Well, the point of editing, of perfecting one's communication, hews to professionalism. A lack of errors implies attention to detail that extends to other services and products. Sure, we all want to see our names and our kids' names published in the paper properly, if for no other reason than personal pride or bragging rights. At the same time, we want drug manufacturers and home builders and airplane mechanics to work with accurate printed information, because communication errors in those fields require much more than a printed correction.

The people who collect and disseminate information for print, online and broadcast have come under considerable pressure lately. Their numbers have dwindled, they're forced to do more with fewer resources and they must perform faster and longer in this burgeoning, 24-hour-deadline world. Volume matters and speed matters in that world, yet fewer watchdogs are standing by to account for accuracy and credibility. Meanwhile, media conglomerates continue to reap prodigious profits year after year, in large part through savings gained through editor layoffs.

I wonder then about the target-rich environment for litigators this shaving for savings' sake creates. You see, news copy editors not only push for proper spelling and grammar, they also are trained to recognize nuance, particularly where slander and libel are concerned. The case used to be at many news publications that copy editors were paid more than reporters because they were considered to be like the armor on a tank ‒ protection. It has been said that all copy editors make good reporters, but not all reporters make good copy editors.

This philosophy persisted in print journalism until the Internet brought publishing to everyone's desktop and made anyone with a half-formed thought, a keyboard and an Internet connection capable of sending “news” circling the globe in seconds. While all of us were agog over the potential, there rose the misconception that the “delete” key cured all ills.

But electronic words are like hard lead on cheap notebook paper; the erasure never comes off completely. Our Web marks, once made, leave an impression that delete keys cannot expunge, and that impression can last decades. And as the technology improves, so does the ease at plucking out these stray, unwanted marks after the fact, which then opens the question: Were these errors honest, or did they result from carelessness or negligence?

That distinction also is becoming easier to detect. Thus, the next question from an attorney might be: If copy editors were laid off for the sake of saving a few dollars, might that act alone constitute contributory negligence?

I imagine that one day soon there will be a brace of attorneys knocking on the door to test that possibility. Look at the empty copy editing desks around you and pray your publication can pass the test.