Don’t forsake training, even in tough times

By John Winn Miller

According to an old saying, luck is defined as opportunity meeting preparation. m m mEven in these hard financial times for newspapers, you can afford to be prepared to be lucky. Training is at the heart of that preparation. It’s also at the heart of retention, which can reduce turnover costs.

According to an ASNE Small Newspapers survey, editors report spending only 3 percent to 4 percent of their budgets on staff training even though they think well-trained staffs make for better newspapers. In addition, a 1993 APME survey indicated that journalists think having the opportunity to grow is one of the key “drivers” of job satisfaction.

At the same time, it’s probably true everywhere that training dollars are among the first to be cut. But don’t give up.

There’s a surprising amount of information already available to editors about how to do inexpensive training in newsrooms.

For instance, Jane Sutter, executive editor of the Star-Gazette, Elmira, N.Y., recommends spending $10 for four videos from the Pew Foundation called “A journalist’s toolbox: Techniques for building better journalism.” Each video is 13 minutes long and features interviews with reporters, editors and Richard Harwood.

You can obtain these videos by writing (including check):

Pew Center for Civic Journalism

1101 Connecticut Avenue, NW

Suite 420

Washington, DC 20036-4303

At the Tallahassee (Fla.) Democrat, Associate Editor Ron Hartung conducts short grammar critiques daily for editors in the morning and for all copy editors in the afternoon. But to get everyone involved, he also sends out a weekly grammar quiz based on mistakes in the paper. We give the winner $10.

Other newspapers organize regular brown-bag lunches with experts from outside the paper (librarians, academics, business leaders) and with employees who teach specialized sessions on such things as computer-assisted reporting.

Several editors said they do cross-training in the newsroom or send staff members to sister papers. But Allison Walzer, editor of the Times Leader, Wilkes-Barre, Pa., takes that idea one step further by switching management responsibilities within the newsroom.

“We switched our Arts & Leisure editor with our Social Issues editor for six weeks. Both learned new things about the paper and about themselves through dealing with a completely different part of the paper,” she said. “Next: A switch of our sports editor with our Public Life editor.”

Another avenue to pursue is what Executive Editor Mike Burbach of the Columbus (Ga.) Ledger-Enquirer calls “the year of getting other people to pay for our training.” Two sources he particularly likes are the National Press Foundation (http://www.natpress.org/) and the Annie E. Casey Foundation (http://www.aecf.org/).

Also don’t forget that the Poynter Institute (http://poynter.org/) has waived fees for all of its professional seminars from June 1 through the end of 2001. The seminars normally cost from $300 to $400.

Finally, you can use the Internet to find training ideas or articles and essays that can be used as the basis for discussion groups. Here are just a few of them:

• The American Society of Newspaper Editors has a very useful list of low-cost training ideas that were compiled several years ago but are still relevant today.

  You can find them on ASNE’s web site, http://www.asne.org/ideas/lowcosttraining.htm.

• No Train, No Gain is maintained by participants in the Training Editor’s Conference and Newscoach-L (a mailing list of some 200 newsroom training coordinators), both hosted by the Freedom Forum at http://www.notrain—nogain.org/.

  This includes exercises, tips and links to other sites.

  The Freedom Forum also has published a series of booklets on training ideas. You can obtain copies by e-mailing Paul Cain at pcain@freedomforum.org.

• The Detroit Free Press Academy page has lots of essays on reporting, writing, copy editing, computer-assisted reporting, how to use (and misuse) numbers and photography that can be printed out and used in discussion groups. The site is: http:// www.freep.com/ jobspage/academy/.
• The Poynter Institute’s list of tip sheets for journalists could be used for teaching sessions. The site includes all of Ed Miller’s excellent essays on management as well as coaching, reporting and writing, leadership, ethics, diversity and visual journalism. The site is http://www.poynter.org /dj/tips/.

So take some time to train. You never know when you’re going to get lucky.

Miller is executive editor of the Tallahassee (Fla.) Democrat.