Poynter's Senior Scholar Roy Peter Clark recently spent five days in Madrid, conducting writing seminars for 150 Spanish journalists. Here he reflects on what he learned.
The journalists of Spain are hungry to improve. Champions of a young democracy, they mark the time as 25 years from the death of Franco and the re-institution of free elections and democratic reforms. These energized reporters and editors crave greater opportunity to do their jobs well.
Their aspirations grow out of frustrations. After a week of good talk with lively groups of Spanish journalists, I have gained this tentative sense of their malaise.
[Experts on Spanish journalism: Please supplement or correct these impressions.]
Newspapers in Spain are seriously understaffed. The implications for the quality of journalism are clear. Stories are reported over the telephone or by watching television coverage. The writing tends to be hidebound, without a sense of a reporter's presence. A single editorial worker may be responsible for three or four stories per day, as well as page production. The practice of journalism –- reporting, writing, and editing -- gives way to feeding the production beast through "autopagination."
The veteran journalists I met in Spain expressed embarrassment over two inevitable consequences of understaffing. The most important was the inability to cover both breaking stories and evolving ones. Juan Varela, a journalist and journalism trainer, bemoaned how few Spanish reporters were assigned to cover the recent disastrous oil spill that continues to threaten the Iberian coast.
These journalists shook their heads and laughed when we began to discuss the war in Afghanistan. They recognize full well the importance of this story to all Europeans, but they blamed stingy publishers and media business leaders for failure to provide the resources necessary to cover the news. In lieu of original enterprise reporting, Spanish journalists become dependent upon whatever CNN or the BBC provides.
The veterans expressed another concern about young reporters, overworked, underpaid, and desperate to avoid failure. Nimble with computers, these tyros cobble stories out of bits and pieces from websites around the world. "Cut and paste journalism," was the description offered by the vets. When I inquired as to whether the reporters gave credit to their online sources, my new friends laughed. "It's piracy!" said one. Not sure I understood, I gave him a puzzled look. "Piracy!" he said again, placing one hand over his eye, like a buccaneer's eye-patch.
In the face of such burdensome restrictions, many journalists might just give up. Not these bright and dedicated scribes. Their knowledge of politics and foreign affairs, their comfort with ideas, their keen sense of their own rich history and literature would put most American journalists to shame.
The Spaniards listen with great attention and argue with passion. During two days of writing workshops, they begged for practical alternatives to the inverted pyramid, ways to do more with less. Together we formed a community of writers, bonded by a democratic mission, a love of language, and a devotion to the craft.
Of two things I am sure. One is that the quality of journalism in Spain will improve under the leadership of such journalists as Juan Varela. Democratic impulses have taken root and will grow. As rank and file journalists develop in their craft, they will demand more and more resources to do their jobs well.
But there is a dark side here, a cautionary tale for American journalism. News staffs can be cut too deeply. Significant attrition would be necessary for journalism in the United States to retreat to the levels of Spanish staffing, but we already hear complaints across the land about reporters who are too busy to leave the newsroom.
In Spain they might say: "La pluma es mas poderosa que la espada." The pen is mightier than the sword. But only if you own a pen, a good supply of ink, and enough paper and reporters to get the job done.
