The Business of Newspapers

Newsletter n° 12

THE BUSINESS OF NEWSPAPERS

PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT

Personnel management: More on how to manage a newsroom

In last week’s newsletter, editor-in-chief Ulrik Haagerup shared his experiences and opinions about how to manage a newsroom. This week Donald Fry, a freelance writing coach, gives his views on newsroom management.

RAP 21: How can even a small newspaper benefit from newsroom management? (A paper with for example 5 employees, which is often the case at African newspapers.)

Donald Fry: Any organisation can benefit from newsroom management, indeed cannot function without it. Otherwise, newsroom employees will quit for higher pay and better hours and less risk. Newsrooms need leadership and inspiration, not just managing.

RAP 21: What aspect of newsroom management do you find particularly important?

Donald Fry: Feedback. The best feedback helps writers become their own editors. One way a good teaching editor helps writers internalise principles is by asking them to repeat the feedback they’ve just received. "What’s your understanding of how this would work on that meeting story?". Good feedback flows in both directions. The best writing happens when editors constantly solicit their writers’ opinions and are so non-threatening that they get absolutely honest responses. A climate of fear kills feedback. Effective feedback is a non-judgmental dialogue between writers and editors. It threatens nobody’s ego. So, contrary to conventional wisdom, it doesn’t matter whether it takes place in public or private.

RAP 21: Why is newsroom management an important part of the general management of a newspaper?

Donald Fry: The newsroom must be managed as well as, or even better than, the general management of the newspaper; otherwise, business values will displace journalistic values, and the newspaper will turn into a mere PR tool.

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