Journalists, particularly very good ones, tend to plateau at some point in their careers. They report, write, produce or design at perfectly competent levels, even star levels, but they don’t get any better. Some remain satisfied with the quality they’ve reached, while others view the plateau as a plight, as a problem they want to solve. As their editor or manager, you may remain satisfied, or want to lift them above that plateau. Here’s how to help them and perhaps raise the performance of your whole newsroom.
Why Journalists Plateau
Getting stuck can have many causes, including lack of skill, fear of failure, peer pressure, low expectations and the commonest: boredom and burnout. Editors tend to leave star reporters on the same beat forever, because they perform well and win prizes. But the repetitiveness begins to bore the reporters, they start taking shortcuts like using the same sources over and over, and eventually they burn out. The key symptom of burnout is seeing oneself doing the same thing over and over forever, with no way to break out, and dreading it. The same affliction can affect photojournalists, producers, designers and others in the newsroom.
Some reporters get stuck because they lack a skill necessary for the next level. We assume that everyone in a newsroom has all the requisite techniques. But they don’t necessarily, or they lack sufficient skill. For example, many reporters don’t know how to ask hard questions in interviews. Their training taught them how to get sound bites or quotes and clips and facts, but not how to dig into a hostile or reluctant subject.
Reporters, especially star reporters, live in constant fear of failure, a subject they never discuss. They have their current level of performance under control, but they worry about failing at the next level. So they don’t try, or they try timidly.
Even peer pressure can stifle improvement. An old Russian proverb says, “The nail that sticks up gets hammered down.” I once coached a plateaued newspaper reporter, universally regarded as the best writer in his paper. He wanted to get better, and his editors wanted him to move to the national star level. His editors kept urging him to write fewer but better stories. He refused because he feared the other reporters would become jealous of his privilege.
Finally, managers’ low expectations keep not just individuals but also the whole newsroom at a low level. Every paper you publish, every newscast you broadcast, every page you post online shows the staff what you expect, and they give you what they think you want. Editors and managers who demand high performance of their players and help them, get it.
How to Move Up
The solution depends on the source of the problem, of course, so you interview your plateau dwellers to find out what’s holding them back. Don’t jump too quickly on easy answers; dig to the bottom, to the root causes.
If boredom or burnout is the problem, change is the solution. Change the beat, change the section of the paper or the newscast, change the immediate editor, change the time scheme, change the workload. Move columnists to news, and vice versa. Turn reporters into editors, and vice versa. (Editors burn out too.) One paper cured its burnt-out photographers by assigning each one to a group of four reporters and an editor. Guess what. The reporters all performed better too.
Reporters who lack the skill necessary for the next level need a little teaching. I once coached a police reporter regarded as the fastest writer in his paper. He’d blast away at his terminal for just ten minutes, and then file a terrific 10-inch story, to the astonishment and admiration of his colleagues. But he refused to accept any other beat because he would have to write more than 10 inches. I asked him, “What’s so magic about 10 inches?” and eventually discovered the secret of his speed. He would write 10 inches in his head while reporting, memorize it, and then dictate it to the screen. But his remarkable memory could hold only 10 inches’ worth. So I taught him several other ways to compose stories, such as combining two 10-inch sections. Eventually he moved happily to features. If you don’t have the skills to teach your writer, someone in your newsroom does. Invest in a learning lunch for the two of them.
Fear of failure keeps reporters focused on past failures; newsrooms never forget and seldom forgive. I ask plateaued reporters to tell me about some of their best stories ever, and then we discuss what was good about them in terms of technique. Eventually I ask if they could still use those same methods, in more intense ways. One writer I coached said that her previous top-notch profiles always involved multiple speakers, whereas her present flat portraits were single-sourced. “So what should you do?” I asked, and she replied, “Interview more people.” Bingo. And when your reporter starts writing better, remember to praise in public in front of colleagues.
Peer pressure depends on models and the assumption that everyone should perform at roughly the same level. If the peer models play at the star level, as in the glory days of the Philadelphia Inquirer or “60 Minutes,” many staffers will attempt to imitate those high performers. If the newsroom peer models are slackers and cynics, you get uniform low results. So work with your best players to raise the general level of the whole newsroom. And follow up with discussions of what makes the new pieces better. In other words, control the peer pressure, and manipulate it to get the results you want.
Raising Your Expectations
I find the expectations low to medium in most newsrooms I visit. Continuous cuts in editorial staffs have lowered expectations, and reporters doing more and more daily stories inevitably lose quality. What to do in such difficult times?
As numbers decrease and stress rises, editors should raise quality expectations in their newsrooms.
Rising expectations raise morale, even in bad times. Rising morale raises confidence, and rising confidence raises performance. Here’s how to raise everybody at once in a plateaued newsroom: Select your two best reporters and work with them yourself to turn out strikingly better stories for a few weeks. Play them big, praise them in public and get everybody talking about craft. Then watch them levitate.
Don Fry, an independent writing coach affiliated with Poynter, works out of Charlottesville, Virginia. You can reach him at 434-296-6830 or at donaldfry@cs.com.
