Is your staff too busy to grow?

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When I started work at the American Press Institute, I expected to hear editors and publishers say they couldn't afford to send staff members to our seminars. I was keenly aware that the newspaper industry is shamefully miserly when it comes to professional development. I signed on committed and proud to push the industry to invest in its people and their potential to grow.

I didn't expect to hear that some newspaper executives don't even want to invest time in training.

When an API colleague first told me we were hearing the time excuse, I was skeptical. Maybe someone who was just being cheap thought the time excuse sounded better than the money excuse. But when I heard from Vikki Porter that editors won't give staff members the time to attend her seminars, I knew it was true.

Vikki runs the Western Knight Center for Specialized Journalism. Her programs are funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Even travel is subsidized. The cost to a newspaper for sending a staff member is negligible. Except for that investment in time.

I hope those editors are ready to invest some time in hiring new staff members.

You probably have read this before but it bears repeating because too few papers have taken the message to heart: The 2002 Knight Foundation-funded study "Newsroom Training: Where's the Investment" showed that lack of training opportunities was the leading factor in dissatisfaction with newsroom jobs.

Think about how often you hear journalists whine about their pay and their bosses. They may not be as vocal about the lack of training but they are even unhappier about it. I suspect similar views prevail in other departments at many newspapers.

A colleague I know was planning to attend a seminar that wouldn't cost her paper much. Her boss decided it was a particularly busy time in their newsroom (when isn't it?) and said he couldn't spare her for those few days. She had to back out. The boss got to keep her around for that week. But how long will he keep her around? I know she's been looking for another job. And I bet by now that editor can't remember what she did that week when she absolutely had to be in the newsroom.

These two things are true of every newspaper: We never have enough time and we make time for the things that are important.

Fourteen years ago, I became editor of the Minot Daily News, a North Dakota newspaper with a newsroom staff of about 25. I came from the Kansas City Star, a metro paper with more than 300 newsroom staff members.

I told the city editor in Minot that we needed to do more substantive enterprise stories. The first few attempts were a few inches longer than daily stories, with a few more quotes from the same people. I explained that we needed to take some time to dig into important issues and explain them thoroughly to our readers. The city editor explained to me patiently that maybe that was a great thing to do in Kansas City but with our small staff in Minot, we couldn't take the time to do that kind of enterprise.

I asked what we did when the police and courts reporter called in sick. Did we just stop covering cops and courts that day? No, other reporters would juggle their duties and we would cover the important stories. And if the local government reporter went on vacation, did we skip coverage of local government for a week? No. Again, we juggled and covered the important stories.

So I made enterprise stories important by granting "enterprise vacations." I told reporters that I wanted them to write stronger, deeper enterprise stories about important issues on their beats. I set the example by writing some more substantive enterprise stories myself. I encouraged reporters to make progress on enterprise stories while working their daily beats. And when a reporter needed a few days (and in one case a couple weeks) to wrap up an enterprise story that I valued, I granted an "enterprise vacation," making that reporter unavailable to cover daily news, just if she were out of town on vacation.

And we produced strong enterprise stories that gave our readers something to talk about.

You can do the same thing with training. It's important enough to make time for it. If you wait until you have abundant time to develop your staff, you never will. They will move on to a place where they can grow.

Training does far more than improving the skills of staff members. Training tells people that you believe they can grow and that you expect them to grow. When you tell valued employees that their growth isn't worth even a few days' time, they will find somewhere else to grow. When they can grow at your newspaper, they may take root.

sbuttry@americanpressinstitute.org

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