Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc. The IRE Journal: MAINTAINING YOUR REPORTERS' SANITY WHILE

Chicago Tribune

An editor who enters the second stage of a project - the portion after initial reporting is done and the idea has a green light - should be doing more than sharpening his or her pencil, getting ready for that final edit.

This, after all, is the stage where (and this is a happy thought) a multitude of things can fall apart. Those things can include your concept, your freedom of information requests and your reporting. Those things also can include your people.

So, in addition to staying on top of the progress of the reporting, asking for new rounds of memos and first drafts, a projects editor needs to keep track of his or her people, chart their psychological well-being and see how they're holding up under the pressure.

And that means playing a role few of us were trained to do: Be a manager.

We all view this role differently. Maybe you see yourself as a coach or teacher, offering insight and encouragement. Maybe you're more of a parental figure, or the wise aunt or the big brother.

Perhaps you see yourself as a military general or a Mafia don, providing strength and motivating with fear. Sometimes these jobs can feel like a three-ring circus, and you're the ringmaster. Or if things are going well, it's the Love Boat and you're just there to order the drinks and arrange the menu.

But whether you dish out wisdom or threats, whether you're laid back or in your face, whether you've gone through the project process a few times or a hundred, you will constantly be surprised by how your reporters hold up and fall apart, how relationships come together and wither and how a huge part of your job is simply keeping people sane.

With that in mind, here are few tips on dealing with your reporters during a project. There may be no way to make them deliriously happy (after all, this is a newsroom) but some preventive measures just might preclude calls to a 24-hour psychiatric hotline or the homicide division.

Editing, odd as this might sound, can be a giving thing. Here's what you can do:

Give them group therapy.

This is another way of saying, try to build a good team and set the tone from the start. If you begin with compatible personalities and a plan for working together, you'll be better off in the long run. In the best of all worlds, your team will be engaging in actual teamwork, not separate, individual endeavors. One of our best partnerships in recent years involved the paper's jazz critic and a venerable and respected investigative reporter known for his love of dusty paper records. Very quickly, the critic was thrilling to discoveries in documents, and the lifelong sleuth was swinging to jazz CDs on his car stereo.

Give them structure.

Working on a project can be a lonely process, with no end in sight. But regular meetings, deadlines for memos and drafts, planning sessions with graphics and photo help everybody stay on track and see the progress that is being made. It helps to know there are markers along the way, and an end in sight.

Give them your time.

Simple, right? But time can be hard to come by in a modern newsroom marked by meetings and multiple management responsibilities. So it's not enough to have hour-long meetings and an open door. Wander the newsroom, making sure you have five- and 10-minute conversations every day, not just hour-long meetings once every two weeks. If you're talking to reporters in less formal settings, you're more likely to learn about what else is going on in their lives. You'll find out about the distractions a home life can bring - whether it's a sick parent, a new baby or a troubled child. If a project is progressing slower than expected, it could be because the reporting is off track, but it also could be because a reporter is preoccupied by other things. You need to know this, and adjust your expectations - from deadlines to lime off - accordingly.

Give them access.

Not just to you and the graphics department, but higher up the chain. Let the reporters occasionally attend your meetings with higher-ranking editors. If possible, let them know they can talk to the company lawyer about FOI requests and other legal concerns. Often, at the Tribune, it's a huge surprise for a reporter working on a project to find out he or she can call our lawyer directly. (Hey, I don't have to ask permission!) Losing a layer of bureaucracy helps everyone. Similarly, hearing reactions directly from a managing editor or editor saves you from the role of newsroom interpreter and gives the reporters a forum to ask questions of their own.

Give them a break.

Don't just reward your people at the end of the project with a nice dinner or lunch. Take them out during the long weeks in between, for updates or just a chance to eat somewhere other than their desks. Make sure they're taking days off, seeing their families. Score some tickets to the ballgame and take your team. It also can be a good idea to give your regular projects people a break in their routine, to keep them fresh and journalistically agile. Do you have someone who generally is a solo artist? Team him or her up for the next story. Do you have people coming off of 10- or 11- or 12-month projects? Give them short-term assignments to get them into the paper again quickly. A groove can too easily become a rut, so mix things up.

Give them hope.

Every project has its valleys. Still it's hard not to show your own disappointment when things go badly. That's a natural reaction, but immediately set out to rebuild confidence and let people know that you still believe in them and what they're doing. If the reporting has uncovered this unpleasant truth, that your project is not really a project, then try to figure out if there's another option - a shorter Sunday story, perhaps. I recall, as a reporter, being told a "series" we were preparing about gambling was not, after all, going to be a series. But the editors did decide we should proceed with several of the ideas and write them as enterprise stories and even a think piece. A bad result turned into a pretty good one. The reporters were happy to have bylines on prominent pieces. The newspaper got to tap into our newfound expertise. And in retrospect, the editors may have made - OK, did make - the right decision.

Give them the truth.

Don't make up deadlines that have no meaning. Don't sugarcoat it if you think the project is in trouble or you've decided to tinker with the idea or change the team. Deliver bad news compassionately but directly. Include the team in planning how to move on.

Personal dynamics and personalities are difficult to predict, maybe even impossible. Good partnerships, like good rock groups, can go sour with time. Trouble can lurk in unexpected corners.

So a final bit of advice: Enjoy the good times. Reward your reporters for good work. And, because you're the one person who isn't allowed to fall apart, reward yourself. Take yourself out to the ballgame.

George Papajohn is the deputy projects editor at the Chicago Tribune. He formerly served as deputy metro editor and has written about urban issues. He is co-author of Murder of Innocence.