Last Updated: December 29, 2000
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Good writing
Aiming for better instead of ‘not bad’
If you want to improve your newspaper — every editor’s
goal — you have to do more than catch all the errors; you have to improve
what’s already good.
By Don Fry
Every top editor has two ambitions: to improve the paper, and to produce
a paper with no errors in it. Most editors equate those two desires, thinking
they can improve their paper simply by eliminating errors. They wonder
why their morning critiques and sharply worded notes don’t bring about
a better paper.
Here’s why: if you eliminate everything bad in a paper, you have a paper
that’s “not bad,” which is not the same as “better.” You get a better paper
by improving what’s already good.
A finishing culture
Nevertheless, let’s talk about how to eliminate most errors.
First, you need a strong copy desk that reads every word of every story.
Newspaper owners bought pagination to save money by eliminating the back
shop. But they imposed the pagination terminals on the copy desk without
adding any copy editors, and wiped out the copy editors’ reading time.
Many copy editors nowadays spend their time moving boxes, not reading copy.
They barely have time to write a headline.
So staff your copy desk adequately, train them deeply, bring them candy,
and emphasize their role as the last safety net to catch errors.
Second, you create a culture in which everyone in the copyflow chain
finishes everything they transmit. Reporters turn in finished stories at
the length planned for printing. Desk editors do a large edit, looking
for holes and sense and completeness, and also correct any surface errors
they find before sending the copy. Copy editors do a complete surface edit
before they transmit to layout, or do layout themselves.
No one in the chain can say, “Because I don’t have time, I’ll just send
this, and let the people downstream catch stuff.”
Unless you look at raw copy daily, you have no idea how raw that copy
gets. Invest a little time sitting with your desk and copy editors to find
out.
Bettering the good
To improve the paper, you inventory what you already do competently,
and improve those areas. If you report local news to bedrock, you improve
by explaining it better. If some of your editor/reporter teams communicate
and plan superbly, you teach the others how to imitate them.
Editors assume competence in their staff, except for a few “bad people.”
But all staffers, including you, have holes in their skills and knowledge,
which coaching can uncover, and training can repair.
Critiques don’t work because they traditionally turn into bloodbaths,
which frighten the staff into avoiding risk.
Reporters might cut down the number of sources in their stories to reduce
their risk of misspelling names. An effective critique moves immediately
to training; staffers may not know how to avoid errors or do things better.
Someone in your newsroom knows how, and they can train others.
Sometimes fine work in one department can undermine other departments.
You need to examine the fine details in copyflow to discover problem areas
that prevent improvement downstream. One paper I visited had the photo
chief and photographers selecting photos on aesthetic grounds, and sending
as few as possible. The layout desk could not improve the quality of integrating
photos and words because the pictures were merely beautiful, and they had
no choices.
Praising the rising tide
When one person or area improves, you can praise them in public. The
staff notices, and their ambitions and efforts rise. The best boats raise
the tide, and bring the rest of the boats along with them, eventually even
the flotsam and jetsom. v
Fry, an affiliate of the Poynter Institute, works as a traveling
writing coach in Charlottesville, Virginia. You can reach him at 804-296-6830,
or donaldfry@cs.com.
