In the mid ’60s The Miami Herald decided to take a look at its efficiency and brought in a team of consultants, including time management people.
Trust me, if there is anything stranger than some journalists, it’s time management people.
They made their way through the circulation department, the ad sales department, the business office and the production department. Finally, they got to the newsroom. They were not there long.
Sheets of paper were distributed to all reporters, editors, photographers and others in the newsroom.
Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Gene Miller worked quickly filling his paper out with notations on when and how long he went to the men’s room, how much time he spent snoozing with his eyes open and some ribald notes about watching different women walk across the newsroom (it was a different era).
When John S. and James L. Knight saw Miller’s accounting of his time, they ordered the time management people out of the newsroom. They knew Miller’s response would be the most measured. What others would write was more than they wanted to see.
Newsrooms also have a rhythm of their own. Chatting, yelling, laughter and whispers are part of the background noise. They tend to be full of people who would not fit in well in insurance offices, investment firms, manufacturing companies or any of a hundred different corporate cultures.
Despite this, they tend to have their own hierarchy and chains of respect.
A Miami Herald columnist in the Fort Lauderdale Bureau and then a columnist for the Fort Lauderdale News, Mike Morgan, helped me craft the first lead for the first professional feature story I ever wrote. I was 16. He nudged me through the lead and then helped me form the rest of the story. I was so grateful that when he went to work for the News, I used to change his typewriter ribbons.
I suspect he knew how to do it, but liked the fact I was willing to take a few minutes and freshen the black ink on his Royal. I am sure he performed a similar task for the person who broke him in.
Desks at the Herald were aligned in rows that quickly separated the beginners from the journeymen. During a summer internship, I sat at the last desk in the general assignment row. I was in a better spot than the obituary writer, but just barely.
One afternoon, Managing Editor George Beebe walked out of his office (overlooking Biscayne Bay), leaned over and whispered something to City Editor Peter Laine. Laine whispered to the assistant city editor on his left and the message was passed around the city desk and then back along the row of general assignment writers.
When it got to me, it was: “What is going on with that ship that looked like it was going to land at Dodge Island, but has pulled back into the bay?”
I stood up, looked out the window and could see a freighter swinging away from the pier.
I went into the office of Gary Blonston, editor of the Actionline feature that answered questions the public wrote or phoned in. Blonston flipped through his enormous Rolodex to the listing for the Dodge Island pilots and dialed the number. After a few moments, he hung up the phone and told me the captain had come in at a bad angle and was swinging around to find a better angle to dock.
I went out to my desk, leaned forward and told the reporter in front of me. He passed the message along until it went up the city desk and from Laine to Beebe. Beebe nodded his head.
Newsrooms have their own food chain.
The newspaper industry has spent considerable time studying the best way to manage reporters, editors, photographers and others who form a newsroom, but there is no good answer.
The most effective newsrooms seem to be those where leadership is demonstrated on a daily basis from the top positions and encouraged in middle management and staff.
Such a structure allows the pros to help newbies without the neophytes feeling pushed or shoved or embarrassed. It allows reporters to pool information for a story without worrying about whose name goes first on the byline.
And, it allows managers to actually manage a group of people who can exhibit behavior that varies from frenetic to barely breathing.
