Jim Bacon, one of the few professional webloggers in Central Virginia, pointed his readers to an in-depth exploration in the American Journalism Review of the continuing saga of the Richmond Times-Dispatch newsroom. The piece by Lori Robertson lies on the balanced side of scathing -- no accusations of editors locking children in small cabinets here -- and paints a pretty compelling picture of a newspaper assailed on all sides: by tradition and history, by its union, by the traditional news/business divide, and by an executive editor with the empathy of a Sith Lord. A Sith Lord with a gold stud earring...
The AJR story comes on the heels of last summer's moderately more lurid piece in Style Weekly that caused all sorts of churn in the TD newsroom, and the recent departure of cause celeb Mark Holmberg.
And while the AJR piece is balanced, it does little to dispel the sense that the newsroom on Grace Street is not the most comfortable place to work. More importantly, it illustrates some of the very real challenges confronted by Richmond's daily newspaper -- and suggests that not everyone is in agreement with the solutions being enacted. (Not that Executive Editor Glenn Proctor would give a rip; all indications are that Proctor is very much "The Decider," and quite happy with his role.)
Proctor is a self-professed hard-ass, a man who makes no apologies for his tough-guy style and compares himself to the famed and infamous basketball coach Bobby Knight--he's about winning, not making anyone happy. And he was not about to conform to the genteel ways of Richmond when he marched into the Times-Dispatch newsroom and staked his claim. "This is my newsroom," he told staffers...
... Some have bristled at the brusqueness of those moves and a harsh management style. But the angst at the Times-Dispatch--which is not shared by everyone in the newsroom--is less about the new sheriff in town than it is about concerns that have shaken newsrooms nationwide: the evolution of family-run newspapers into corporate entities, the delicate balance between public service journalism and financial pressures in a rapidly evolving and brutally competitive media environment ... Among the staff, there is praise for a livelier paper, greater diversity in hiring and in the news pages, a higher energy level in the newsroom. But for some, that energy is more like anxiety. The Times-Dispatch is divided among those who support stabs at creating a 21st-century business model and those who question whether the changes will alter the very foundation of journalism.
Proctor says there are staffers in his newsroom who are simply change averse. "There are a lot of people here--not a lot--but there are some people here that just don't like change. Don't like change. And they hate it, and they hate it, and they hate it, and they hate it, and they hate it, and they hate it. It's going to change anyway, because the industry is changing."
Hate it, hate it, hate it. Many times over, apparently. But as the AJR piece notes, there are some rational voices that understand the strategy behind the changes and simply disagree with some of the tactics. Part of the problem might sit with a leadership team focused on managing their way into the future, and a reporting staff looking for inspiration and purpose, but receiving mixed messages.
One telling example of "right direction, wrong moves" is demonstrated by the paper's long-overdue attempt to bring the public into the newsroom through a series of community discussions. The Public Square, some suggest, is good intention gone overboard.
In September 2005, Silvestri launched the most visible of these efforts, a series of town-hall discussions called "Public Square." The conversations, held at the Times-Dispatch, have touched on crime, affordable housing, immigration and the phenomenon of social Web sites such as MySpace.
Columnist Michael Paul Williams, who joined the paper in 1982, supports the "Public Squares." "For so many years," he says, "the Times-Dispatch was not an institution that seemed to be interested in outreach to the public at large."
What he questions is the news coverage ballyhooing the events beforehand, and the frequent A1 play given to stories about the forums the following day. "I just wish we didn't cover it," he says. "Then it would be truly community outreach and less self-serving."
Proctor says playing the pieces out front makes sense. "Why not?" he says. "It's our event."
The last forum of 2006, on customer service, was preceded by a three-day, front-page series that chronicled the good and bad experiences of readers, 185 of whom responded to the paper's request for such information. There was the story of Ray Fields, who got good service at Sandston Cleaners, and Jennifer Whitt, an off-the-clock grocery store employee who fixed a poorly made wrist corsage for free.
"It was overdone," says Betty Booker, a reporter who joined the paper in 1968 and announced she would retire shortly after being interviewed for this story. "Stretched out, overdone, and in the end everybody was out at the mall, shopping away, not discussing their complaints downtown." (About 50 people attended the event.)
A week later, though, the TD got it right -- with a week-long exploration of Richmond's City Jail. David Ress and Paige Mudd's series, accompanied by Eva Russo's powerful photos, ranks among some of the best in-depth reporting done by the current news staff. The ups-and-downs of customer service, the half-baked success of Elliot Yamin, the tragedy of Richmond's jail system -- which of these does not belong?
It's a good example of how we can jerk into this posture of doing something that's sort of bizarre," reporter Bill McKelway says of the customer service series. "And then David's thing will start [the following] Sunday."
McKelway calls the jail series "without question one of the better pieces that has run in many, many years here... It's heartening that they're giving David space to do these things, and presumably that will attach itself to projects that are worthwhile."
The last angle in the AJR piece looks at some of the people moves that the understaffed newspaper has undertaken since 2006.
The Times-Dispatch had been without a managing editor since July 31, when it was announced that Louise Seals was retiring. The news was a surprise: Seals was president-elect of the Virginia Press Association at the time, a job she couldn't fill since she's no longer employed by a news organization. Seals would not say whether the decision to leave was primarily hers or the paper's. Proctor says simply, "Louise retired."
McKelway says Seals' departure and the firing in October of two deputy managing editors--Howard Owen and John Dillon--frightened and dismayed the staff. "It was heavy-handed and swaggering and perhaps not necessary," McKelway says. "This sort of beheading has not happened here before, and it scared people and made them very sad for the impact on the personal lives of those affected."
Proctor's management style has some questioning whether there shouldn't be a little more carrot to go along with the stick. "Instead of a Marine gunnery sergeant, I would've preferred [former] Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki," Betty Booker says. "In other words, somebody who led, listened and led. That's not to denigrate a gunnery sergeant. They whip the troops into shape for battle." But creative people, she says, "respond best, I think, to inspiration, clarity of goals and consistency of direction."
Columnist Williams says the T-D needed a kick in the butt, but it also needed a pat on the back. "I think there are certain people in the newsroom who are intimidated, yeah. The question is, do you want people to be intimidated in your newsroom?"
There's no doubt the paper has undergone a dramatic culture change, transformed from a writers' paper into an editors' paper. Reporter-editor Paige Mudd says she has enjoyed working for both former Executive Editor Bill Millsaps and Proctor, noting that the two men have very different leadership styles. "I think Saps was more of a 'let the reporters go find what they may and come let us know what it is,' and Glenn is more pro-active and he expects his editors to be," she says. "It used to be they would walk around and say, 'What are you working on,' and now, it's more, 'Hey, go work on this.'"
Mark Holmberg, who wrote for the paper for 20 years, mostly on cops and crime, was a high-profile staffer who had "some real knock-down drag-outs" with Proctor, as he puts it. The editor has taken a keen interest in columns, at least four of which have been killed or dropped, and in October Holmberg decided to stop writing his, which often looked at the lives of the homeless, drug dealers, prostitutes and other members of Richmond's down-and-out. Holmberg says that Proctor called the subjects of his column "your people" and once told him: "Those people don't buy the newspaper."
Proctor says he won't comment on Holmberg's recollection of their conversations. Holmberg resigned from the paper in January.
Despite a strained relationship with the editor, Holmberg gives him some credit: "I will say this. Proctor's the kind of guy, if you care about something, and you're aggressive about it, he respects that."
Posted by: Nancy | January 29, 2007 at 22:55