Low-cost training ideas from editors

The following low-cost training ideas have been compiled by the Small Newspapers Committee. Editors with additional ideas can submit them through Craig Branson at ASNE.

A professor gets a new class
Last summer we took up a university journalism professor on an offer to spend a week in our newsroom. He conducted brown-bag seminars on different topics each day at the lunch hour. He also worked one-on-one with writers, editors and copy editors, giving them some customized insight into problems/concerns that they had. He even went on a couple interviews and assignments with reporters, then played the part of writer's coach. We could pull this off in part because we are located on the Gulf Coast of Northwest Florida, which is prime summer vacation destination. The deal we struck was as follows: We paid the professor's travel and lodging. He covered his own meals. He got a week's vacation in a nice area in return for working four or five hours a day in our newsroom. We were able to make specialized training available to any newsroom associate who wanted it; he got to return to the "real world" for a week and get reacquainted with the newsroom issues of the day.We spent less than a thousand dollars on this training. For the cost of sending one associate to an out-of-town professional seminar, we brought the trainer to all of us.

ASNE's Journalism Values Institute material
Our entire newsroom staff attended Journalism Values Institute workshops that I conducted last year. We used the JVI handbook as the framework for it. The workshops were well received and in feedback from staff, they said it was good to see that we were so committed to the ideals of journalism that we devoted five half-day sessions to the discussion of ethics and values and how they affect coverage. Many have expressed interest in developing a second phase of discussion and specific ways to monitor whether we're accomplishing our goals in this area. This was inexpensive since I was the facilitator and used materials prepared by ASNE. We used a conference room at the public library which got us off-site with little cost. The biggest expense was box lunches for everyone, minimal by comparison to costs for other professional workshops. You can find out how to order the JVI material at this link.

Newsroom university
The Orange County Register has put together a newsroom university at virtually no cost that has had tremendous impact. Over the past few years we have run hundreds of courses for hundreds of folks.

NICAR training session
We had NICAR in to train us on computer-assisted reporting last summer for 3 days. To help us pay the expense, we invited a representative from several other papers, in and around Ohio predominantly, and within our parent newspaper group, Freedom Communications Inc., to attend.

Their cost: $300 toward tuition and to pay for a couple of meals, plus they paid their person's motel and other meal and travel expenses. We had about 7 or 8 other papers represented. We got to train eight of our people for about $2,500, and the program was held in-house. Fee gave us the NICAR trainer and their laptops to use, with all necessary programs fully loaded.

Editors and reporters as teachers
The Miami Herald has offered a number of in-house half-day or brown-bag seminars on a wide range of subjects. Most have been taught by editors or reporters on our staff. Among the topics: Reporting on municipal budgets; Covering elections; Feature writing; Finding off-beat stories; Ethics; Public records (this multi-part course includes a visit to the courthouse); Computer-assisted reporting; Finding your voice (led by columnists); Illustrating your story with pictures and graphics; and Design seminars.

Bus tours to combat unfamiliarity caused by turnover
Something that helps our newspaper (45,000 circ), one that has significant turnover recently, are bus tours. We pack up the staff for a half-day bus tour, with donuts and drinks. We have local historians as moderators and staffers ask trivia questions. This gives newcomers and oldtimers alike a sense of their community and its history. It has become so popular that one reporter was demanded as a speaker. The guy was our cops reporter and he would give the ``death tour,'' pointing out the sights of the city's most noteable murders.

Job switch
The best low-budget training we've ever done involved having all of the newsroom supervisors switch jobs for six weeks. We did it in several rounds, so there was always somebody around who actually knew their job. Having the sports editor work on the city desk, for example, and having the office manager run the features sections paid dividends for months afterwards in improved teamwork.

Statistical refresher course makes understanding standardized tests easier
With increasing emphasis on standardized tests to measure the performance of public schools, it is essential that reporters understand the different types of tests and how to clearly and accurately report the scores to readers.

The Advocate worked through the Louisiana Press Association to plan a daylong training session on how to interpret test scores and report them. Our speakers prepared excellent materials that provide clear explanations of the various types of tests and the different ways in which scores are reported. We had found that many writers did not understand mathematical or statistical issues related to such reporting. The seminar covered percentiles, percentages of increase, mean, median, etc. We also covered the structure of education governance in our state and prepared a list of key players, their titles and phone numbers. Lastly, we put together a panel of representatives of the groups affected by the programs - teachers, superintendents, governing board, the governor's education advisor, etc. We asked them to highlight those issues they thought reporters were not accurately addressing and those issues the media should monitor as the improvement plan progresses. There is no question but that the seminar improved the quality of the reporting on test scores. We think the prepared materials will also be very helpful in the future in providing a variety of sources. The costs were minimal — sandwiches, a meeting room and travel reimbursement that most speakers will willing to waive. The evaluations, particularly from reporters who do not specialize in education, were outstanding.

Use in-house talent to teach their specialties

Use the best in-house talent you have — someone well regarded by the staff who might be able to do a session on such basics as interviewing, profiles, covering a beat, etc.?

Hook up with a local bookstore to find out when authors are coming for autograph sessions. See if the author will stop by the paper for a brown bag lunch. How can non-fiction writers use fiction writing techniques to bring their stories alive (dialogue, scene setting, description, foreshadowing, etc.)

Check in with your local community college or university. Who on the faculty might be able to shed light on subjects, topics or issues that the newspaper covers regularly.

Have a firearms expert from the local police department do a session on how to accurately identify weaponry in stories.

Have a local district attorney do a session on the court process for criminal cases.

Have government department heads do sessions to explain how their various departments work; their challenges; what do they want the public to know about how they work.

If the newspaper is part of a chain, see if they can collaborate with the nearest sister papers to put on a regional session that would give all the papers more bang for their buck. Share the expenses and each paper send as many staffers as they can afford.

Massive initiatives in Colorado Springs

Gazette Training University (GTU) was established in 1994 by a team of associates, who surveyed fellow associates, looking at other programs within Freedom Communications Inc., and developed a mission and policy statement. In 1997, the Training Advisory Board was created to oversee GTU as well as act as a tool in keeping the company's training department abreast of company issues. Class ranged from customer service to phone skills to safety training to writing a headline. Every aspect of the company is included when training is devised.

The company has three positions dedication to training: Training Manager, who oversees the company training programs; Training and Development Editor, who is tasked with leading training in the News Division; and Advertising Training and Development, a newly created position that will focus on upgrading knowledge within the sales department. The duties of the News Division position is currently completed by several people.

Coaching Group - The section editors and their mid-level editors meet periodically to learn techniques about line editing. Sessions have included time management, coaching techniques, identifying learning modalities and editing the project. This group is self lead and uses internal and external resources for the project.

News Division Bulletin Board — The News Division maintains a bulletin board with information broken down into various topics, such as writing, copy editing, design and photographer. Information gleaned from the Internet, industry publications and the news wires are posted for employees to read. Also included on the board is information about a variety of professional associations. The information is maintained in a training file for easy access.

External training opportunities — When possible, a News Division employee is sent to an outside source for specific training. This year, The Gazette experimented with the API on-line course and anticipates using the program again in the future.

The Gazette Journalism Handbook — Created with the assistance of The Harwood Group, the book is a working tool used to help reporters excel in civic journalism.

News Division Teams — The teams derive from the natural team structure from each department. Added to those teams are copy editors, photographers, researcher, etc. The teams meet bi-monthly at a minimum to discuss story ideas, projects and story framing.

News Division Intranet — An in-house creation that is a link to a variety of On-line resources. The Intranet also includes information provided by beat reporters, such as home numbers, pagers, and other information to help a reporter get information on a story. The Intranet site, accessible only by Gazette News Division staff, also includes a list of contacts to make in natural disasters, which eliminates lengthy brainstorming sessions.

Brown Bag Sessions — The editor, managing editor or anyone else in the News Division is free to set up a brown bag session to discuss a variety of issues, from ethics in journalism to changes in staffing or pay.

Easy Access Meetings — The News Division has a conference room it uses for some meetings. However, the most used table is the conference-room size "huddle" table located in the middle of the newsroom. The daily paper is critiqued each morning at this table. Because of its location, staff members are free to "float" in and out of meetings without disturbing the group. Four smaller huddle tables are located throughout the room.

Writing Group — A columnist created a GTU class on writing the personal memoir, which has transformed itself into a strong group of about 20 people who write essays then discuss writing technique.

Toys — Crayons on the meeting table. Legos within easy reach. Frisbees to take to the park. These are all items regularly seen within the News Division. But they are not meant as toys. Rather, they are used surreptitiously to encourage creativity and thinking out of the box. It is not unusual to see the editor blowing bubbles or the photo director drawing characters using the crayons.

Committees — A variety of committees were developed not only to handle problems and distribute the workload but to provide associates with the chance to grow professionally. Among the committees are the Gazette Liberation Front, the Communications Committee and the Stress Committee (which was used during recent reconstruction of the newsroom).

List (incomplete) of available resources in the News Division: Doing Ethics in Journalism; The Art of Managing People; The Straight Scoop; Coaching Writers; Difficult People; The Time Warp; The Manager's Tool Kit; Managing Effectively; Writers in the Newsroom; The Fourth Estate and the Constitution; Insurance Handbook for Reporters; The Writing Book; The Craft of Research; Free Press and Fair Trial; The Wisdom of Teams; Make No Law; Time Management for the Creative Person; Writing with Power; Style; Working With Words; AP Guide to News Writing; Quick Study Math Review; The Best Newspaper Writing; Computer Assisted Reporting; Best American Sports Writing; The Newspaper Design Handbook; Description; Lifting the Lid, A Guide to Investigative Reporting; The Writers Friend; Success Stories of CAR; Reporting; Researching Public Records; News Guide for Polls & Surveys; The Handbook of Good English; Good Writing and Grammar; The Press and the Public; Reporter's Ethics; Handbook of Reporting Methods; The Word; Copy Editor's Handbook for Newspapers; Zen in the Art of Writing; Real Change Leaders; News Reporting and Writing; The Careful Writer; Meetings that Work; Hiring the Best; The Master Motivator; Tips for Teams; Why Teams Don't Work; Team Building.

The News Division Library also has extensive collection of reference materials including almanacs, encyclopedias and guides that focus on everything from a wide range of subjects to more narrow subjects, such as songs. They also maintain a collection of all Colorado telephone books.

Seminar participants must teach their own class; writers group meets regularly
When we send staffers to IRE or other training seminars, we ask them to come back and talk about what they learned (with handouts, especially from IRE) at a brown bag lunch open to staff.

Two staffers who went to a writing workshop last year started an in-house writers group. There are lunch hour talks every couple of weeks - speakers have included our great rewrite guy, metro columnist, police reporter and police department press spokesman. The discussions are constructive and lively. The writers group also meets outside the building (I think every other week) after work to talk about their stories. One of the leaders of the group is putting together a reference library - articles, books on writing.

We bring in visiting journalists, writers, experts whenever we can get them and invite the staff. We did one with Orville Schell, author of several books about China, dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at Berkeley. Orville went on Clinton's trip, and filed four stories for us. He talked about the trip and China. We had about 20 staffers there. Others we've had in include Ellis Cose (former colleague of mine), after his next to last book (the one on race) was published (he was on a book tour and I snagged him for about 45 minutes), Jerry Capeci of the New York Daily News (another former colleague, he came in when he was in the Bay Area as a Knight Fellow), talked about covering organized crime. Our AME/Enterprise put together a session for younger editors on how to edit investigative pieces.

We have our lawyer in from time to time to talk about libel. One of the more entertaining sessions we had was a private eye who talked about his work.

On a somewhat smaller scale, we've had a series of lunch conversations in connection with The New City, a project we're doing on the changing face of San Francisco. These were not for the whole staff, but to everyone involved in the project so the internal invitation list is about 10 or 12.

We had several people from San Francisco State, the Chinese American Voter Education Project, the Chamber of Commerce talk about their research and work in this area. I attended most and felt as though they were the graduate tutorials I always wanted in school. Again, we did these for the price of sandwiches and soft drinks.

We also send staffers to training seminars sponsored by the Associated Press (writing, computer assisted reporter - that we've done internally also) and to management training for new/newer editors sponsored by the California Society of Newspaper Editors.

When to train, what to train: 2 checklists
Most of my wins as a staff development editor came in the approach on deciding what to do. When should you train? I submit the Great Eight Training Triggers:
No. 1: Failure to meet newsroom goals.
No. 2: Quality control - the desire to improve
No. 3: Mistakes and inaccuracies show up.
No. 4: Someone asks for help.
No. 5: Sagging morale.
No. 6: Baffled new employees.
No. 7: Your staff routinely ignores readers.
No. 8: Problems producing the paper.

With that in mind, I would urge any newsroom to hold a staff meeting to determine training. You'd be surprised how many suggestions involve changing how the paper is put out or identifying actions that need to be stressed. Organize the discussion using these objectives:

Objective A: List five ways to improve writing
Objective B: List five ways to improve editing
Objective C: List five ways to improve management (or administration)
Objective D: List five ways to improve design
Objective E: List five ways to improve visuals
Objective F: List five ways to improve newsroom life
Objective G: List five methods to gather information on what's needed
Objective H: List five steps to take before putting a plan into action
Objective I: List five ways to monitor and evaluate the program

Every time I done this exercise, no money was spent. It really sharpens the focus of training so that it shows up in the paper. You could add other objectives as you see fit.

Other resources: The Charles Osgood tape of him reading The Elements of Style. Copy Desk loves it; Jack Hart's column in E&P. Save them over a year or two and you've got a wonderful handbook for new reporters and editors. (Sprinkle in Paula LaRocque's from Quill.); Have the Small Newspaper Committee assign itself the task of collecting handouts from various workshops (Poynter, API, IRE, SPJ, state press associations, AP, etc.). You could put out booklets each quarter from this material alone.

Journalists' workshop led by staff survey
Our goal in the newsroom at The Record (Hackensack, N.J.) was not necessarily to design low-budget training but to design training that was really relevant for reporters and editors. Some informal lunch sessions to discuss good writing gave birth to our Journalists' Workshop program this year. We surveyed the staff about its needs, and completely designed our own training, supported by some Human Resources training funding. The training has three aspects so far.

The first is free of charge: in-house expertise. Did someone just successfully complete an ambitious project? Learn new investigative techniques at a conference? Does someone have special skills that others want to share? We have a brown-bag lunch, led by a member or members of the staff. The staffer with the expertise makes a presentation, and everyone asks questions. Usually lasts about an hour.

Our total cost: we supply coffee.

The second aspect: invited guest speakers. The staff made up a wish list of people outside our newspaper who they'd like to hear from. We have a guest in once a month. Our guest list this year has included David Boardman, who runs the Seattle Times' prizewinning investigative team; Pulitzer winners Michael Vitez and April Saul of the Philadelphia Inquirer; Pete Hamill and Anna Quindlen, among others. Rick Bragg of the New York Times and Gene Roberts are scheduled. Each speaker has brought special knowledge and a unique perspective to our newsroom. These sessions are very well attended, and always include a lively question and answer session. Our costs: A $500 honorarium, and transportation and occasionally a night's lodging for people who are not local.

The third aspect: Writing and editing coaching. We retained the services of a writing and editing coach to come into our newsroom as a consultant and give a one day seminar on editing for our assignment editors and a one day seminar on good writing for our writers. We actually had him in the newsroom to do the session for editors twice (half our staff went each time) and for reporters three times (one third of the staff went each time.) Not cheap, but not as expensive as having an on-staff writing coach, and it gives us the advantage of variety and flexibility. If we want to have different perspectives, or if we want, for example, to have a coach for writers one time, and one for copyeditors the next time, we can bring in consultants in the future as needed. This generally costs about $1,000 per day, plus expenses.

Shadowing other staffers
One low budget idea was asking staffers if they wanted to shadow other people with other jobs in the newsroom. I can't say it's helped quality, but it has given the limited number of people who have gone through it a better understanding of operations, which is good. Basically, we let people shadow others for two full days - no interruptions. The program, we have two or three graduates, has had good reviews.

Shadowing other staffers
We are working on something I call a Playbook ... to borrow the football term. It's more than a stylebook and is designed to set standards for our newspaper in everything from writing to ethics to design ... all in one place.

Shadowing other staffers
For the past several years, the Editorial Department of The Orlando Sentinel has complemented the company's training and development divisions courses with an ongoing schedule of courses specific to the needs of journalists. It's called Newsroom University, and it has managed to provide reporters, editors, artists, photographers and support staffers with instruction germane to their jobs at very little cost. That has been possible because, for the most part, the courses are taught by knowledgeable staffers rather than instructors hired outside the company. Basically, the Editorial staff is surveyed once a year to determine training needs and wants. Managers, too, are polled to determine what instruction they think would benefit their staffs.

Once those needs are determined, we look in-house for people knowledgeable enough to teach those classes and whose schedules can be adjusted to accommodate that instruction. For some technical subjects - such as the use of specific computer programs - we do hire outside instructors. But, for the most part, we handle the instruction ourselves. And the response has been quite good, with greater than 90 percent of the 350-person Editorial staff participating last year and several staffers taking more than one class. The effort requires regular monitoring and benefits greatly from having notices sent to those who have signed up for classes and to their supervisors in advance of the class sessions so that no one is surprised by someone's absence from the work place.