Author: Marcia McQuern
Published: February 08, 1999
Last Updated: March 02, 1999
Printer-friendly version

Getting what you want and need

Ten  tips to help editors get  what they want from  their publishers and corporate headquarters:

• Pick an employer that cares about its news franchise and believes quality journalism is the road to sustainable financial health, not a roadblock.
• Pick a publisher who understands the importance of independent, credible news coverage focused on the long term interests of the mass of its readers and that it cannot be obtained by constant financial dieting nor by kowtowing to the local establishment he/she serves with on civic boards.
• Join the newspaper’s management team, in spirit as well as deed. The more you understand the problems and perspectives of other department heads the more you can avoid unnecessary offense and can see ways to make common purpose. The circulation director is your most natural ally because a good one knows that a quality news product is what keeps papers in the home.
• Accommodate the occasional, reasonable request for an earlier deadline to help get an unusually big paper to readers on time as well as for taking a late ad from an important advertiser. That will grease the way when news needs to break deadline and space rules.
• Don’t cry wolf, claiming the integrity of the news franchise is at stake with every request to hold the line on the budget, every turndown of a great but expensive idea for improvement or every advertising department idea for a special section.
• Understand you are not the only newspaper executive with integrity. A holier-than-thou approach with the business side engenders resentment and will glean you nothing but opposition down the road.
• Take the long view. A rejection of your great idea today does not necessarily mean a rejection forever. Accept your defeat graciously and consider it a temporary setback. Wait awhile, then and come back at a different angle.
• Lay the groundwork — both with your publisher and with your fellow department heads. Keep them apprised of problems and possible solutions. Consult with them. A joint proposal to grow circulation, advertising and reader loyalty is almost impossible to turn down.
• Ask for the right stuff in terms people with bottom-line responsibility can relate to. Great content that fellow journalists around the country admire doesn’t impress them. Growing circulation and readership means more can be charged for subscriptions and advertising. That they love.
• Go for it.  A special request, even an audacious, expensive one, cannot be approved if it is not made. Timidity in the service of readers is no virtue.