Last Updated: May 26, 1999
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Overall
Convention emphasizes newsroom issues, ideas reception
from editors
By Colleen Conant
From the get-go editors sought re-enchantment with their careers. In
the end, what they got was a hilarious take on office politics from "Dilbert"
creator Scott Adams. Through it all editors celebrated the past, grappled
with the present and contemplated the future as ASNE marks its 75th anniversary
year.
A new convention schedule drew a large and lively audience for the opening
session on Tuesday afternoon. Editors engaged in a search for re-enchantment
during a discussion that spilled over to the opening reception at the Newseum.
In the midst of this stunning display of journalism through the ages, the
idea of re-enchantment took on greater significance, or none at all, depending
on one’s point of view.
Point of view figured prominently in assessing the mood of the convention.
James H. Denley, editor of the Birmingham (Ala.) Post-Herald, found
the focus on the newsroom timely and worthwhile. For him, the planners
were successful in achieving a good balance.
It’s critical to focus on concerns of the future, Denley said. In his
view the most valuable program was the session called "It’s Still the Content,
Stupid: 1997-2010.’’
Still, the national figures who spoke at lunch were an important component
of the program. Said Denley, "It’s important to have somebody you can talk
about when you go home.’’ Appearances by President Clinton, Secretary of
State Madeleine Albright, Astronaut Shannon Lucid and cartoonist Adams
certainly filled that bill.
The flip side of that assessment came from editors who found the convention
too focused on our craft. For them, the convention should provide an opportunity
to engage the intellect and re-energize editors.
The Miami Herald’s Doug Clifton says editors don’t have the time to
do the reading and thinking we need to do to be able to adequately flourish
in a rapidly changing world. For him provocative, intriguing sessions with
great thinkers serve to charge the thought battery.
"Whether we like it or not,’’ said Clifton, "we are interpreters of
history for our readers on a daily basis.’’ The convention has come too
far toward a program of executing journalism rather than one that feeds
the intellect and ideas, in Clifton’s assessment.
He recalled a convention of several years ago when film producer Oliver
Stone appeared on a panel that discussed fact vs. fiction in popular culture.
Stone’s movie "JFK’’ had just been released. Clifton found the discussion
provocative and enlightening. Yet, he believes an overly negative reaction
to that sort of panel led ASNE to take the opposite approach toward more
industry focused sessions.
Clifton’s assessment begs the question: "Was the convention too hands-on?"
Tim McGuire, editor at the Star Tribune in Minneapolis, who was this
year’s program planner, pleads guilty to that charge. His charge was to
focus on content.
ASNE President Bob Giles believes McGuire and his planning team were
successful in that regard. He had high praise for McGuire and his team.
The planners really succeeded in providing a "rich and varied program that
dealt with content," said Giles, now of the Media Studies Center, New York.
The secret of a good convention, he said, is for the program planners
to really script the sessions and select moderators and facilitators who
stick to the script. Giles said planners made a deliberate attempt to "work
the audience’’ in two of the program segments. He was pleased with the
heavy audience participation during the sessions on ethics and ideas. "We
heard voices we have not heard from before,’’ he said.
McGuire agreed. The town meeting format was successful in getting lots
of editors involved in the discussion, he said.
Wanda Lloyd, a managing editor at The Greenville (S.C.) News, was impressed
with the high degree of editor participation. She also liked the fact that
there were more general sessions and fewer breakout sessions. "In this
way, we all shared the same exposure to the presenters and there was good
discussion between sessions about the same topics." When editors have to
choose between several breakout sessions, this general discussion occurs
less, she said.
One breakout session deserved a higher profile. The 7 a.m. conversation
with winners of the Distinguished Writing Awards attracted about 100 editors.
It should be moved to prime time, said Clifton, of The Miami Herald.
"If we say we care about writers and we want to nurture writers,
we need to put our writing award winners on during a time when a big crowd
will come to hear them talk.’’ Scheduling this session so early in the
day sends a negative signal about their stature and the stature of writing
in the industry, he said.
Attendance was not a problem at the general sessions. McGuire said as
an editor his first inclination is to test reader reaction. "There were
not too many walkouts during the sessions,’’ he said. "The audience voted
yes by staying in their seats.’’
There is a reason editors are tuned in so intently. In McGuire’s view
editors are far more proactive than in the past. "We have gone from confused
panic to thoughtful problem-solving concern — an attitude of ‘this is hard,’
but we can fix it.’’
Or as Dilbert might put it: "Why does good news feel like a mugging?’’
Conant is editor of the Naples (Fla.) Daily News.
