Never say no for someone else

I have a lot of advice for journalists but not many rules. You can usually find an exception to most rules. Here's one rule I believe firmly in: Never say no for someone else.

This rule applies in lots of situations:

Interviews. I was sure the grieving mother of a young girl wouldn't want to talk to me. Stories in other papers that morning said she wouldn't comment when other reporters called her. I felt like a vulture even bothering her, especially driving all the way to her small town and asking her to talk to me. But she wanted to talk, needed to talk. I barely made deadline because she wouldn't stop talking. That was her decision to make, not mine. And because I didn't say no for her or settle for a half-hearted try by long-distance that virtually invited a no, I got one of the best interviews of my career.

Story assignments. I had proposed lots of foreign trips to my editors through the years. They had turned down (or sat indefinitely on) proposals I had made to send me to dozens of countries on nearly every continent, all for stories that would have been great. But the papers I worked at didn't send many reporters abroad and my turn hadn't come. That didn't stop me from proposing a trip to Venezuela in 2000, when I was covering religion for the Des Moines Register. A local church was sending 60 people on a mission trip to run a health clinic and work in disaster relief for a week following the horrific mud slide that killed an estimated 30,000 people. I presumed my editors would say no again, but I wasn't going to say no for them. I did not know that half an hour after I gave the proposal to my editor, he was going into a meeting to discuss what projects we had to show off the color capabilities of the new press we would start operating in a few weeks. Two hours later, I was planning my trip. Photographer Gary Fandel and I got to go and it was one of the best assignments of my life.

Jobs. Maybe you presume your editors will think you're not ready for that promotion. Maybe you think the editor you've never met at another paper wouldn't hire you for your dream job. Don't say no for them, even if they've said no before. I got this gig on about my fourth try to join API and probably my 10th try for a full-time job in journalism training.

Fellowships. When I was at the Omaha World-Herald, I would forward messages to colleagues I thought should attend fellowship programs at places such as the Western Knight Center for Specialized Journalism and the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism. Occasionally a reporter would express doubt that she would have a chance. My response was to let them say no. Some did. But several of my colleagues attended these programs at little or no cost because sometimes the programs said yes.

I heard recently about an executive from a small paper who wanted to attend an API seminar but the paper didn't have money in the budget. The paper was part of a larger group and our president later told the story to an executive of that company and suggested that the company should invest in the training of executives at the smaller papers, because those executives eventually will be filling important roles at larger papers with bigger training budgets. The corporate executive said the company had funds available for exactly that purpose. But the executive at the smaller paper had not asked.

If you see a training opportunity that will advance your career or help you serve your newspaper, your company and your readers better, presume that your bosses, or their bosses, want to pay for you to go. Ask your immediate boss and keep asking up the line. Learn whether your company has a fund for special training needs. Even if the bosses say no now, they will know that you want to grow and may offer you the next opportunity. And be sure to remind them at budget time, so they put your program into next year's budget. Even if you think they won't put your request in next year's budget, make them say no again.

Look into fellowships provided by the organization presenting the program. API and other training organizations have fellowships for specific seminars or for minorities or women or for candidates from small newspapers or foreign newspapers. API's deadline for most fellowships is in November of the preceding year. So look over our schedule when it comes out in the fall and be sure to apply by the deadline. Don't say no for us.

I was explaining this rule to an editor recently and he told me about a senior reporter at his newspaper who was asked by an envious colleague why he got all the great story assignments. His response was that he was always proposing great story ideas. The editors turned most of them down, the reporter explained, but the kind of career you have isn't shaped by how many times your editors say no, but by the few times they say yes.

And they won't say yes if you don't ask.