Tag: Jobs

GOING PUBLIC

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Writers and artists who work alone may know the feeling. It might even fit composers, playwrights, and screenwriters. A piece looks quite different in manuscript or the studio than it does in a small-press journal or small gallery. It looks different, again, in galley proofs for correction or an exhibition. And it’s altogether different in full-length book publication or a major museum.

We could even consider all of the varied emotions that accompany these stages.

When the published novel’s in my hand, I’m not even sure I’d recognize its having any commonality with the manuscript or drafts all those steps earlier.

I suspect the experience for performers – especially those in groups – goes another direction. The rehearsals build a teamwork that’s carried forward to an audience. Could there even be occasions when the finished result is less satisfactory than some points beforehand?

We talk about a creative process, but I’m left acknowledging there are many.

END OF THE LINE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

Maybe the last of the high-visibility newspaper chiefs was Dave Burgin, an abrasive, volatile, but brilliant editor who began his legendary career at the New York Herald Tribune in 1963 and then went on to head a dozen-and-a-half major metropolitan daily newspapers, most of them already in their death throes, ranging from the Washington Star to the Orlando Sentinel (his one big success story) to the Dallas Times Herald to the San Francisco Examiner (where he was fired – twice) to the Oakland Tribune. Of course, it’s hard to leave a lasting impact if you don’t stay long in any community.

Still, one boss I had always returned in amazement after a visit with Burgin. Said he was the only person in the entire business with a real vision for a future or the changing needs of younger readers, along with the reasons they were avoiding newspapers en masse. He, too, saw the value of the weird comic strip “Zippy” for his Bay Area readership and was willing to run it page-wide on Page A2. Not that it would fly quite the same in Dallas.

One of his lasting bits of wisdom was the question, “What do I have in the paper today that will bring a reader back tomorrow?” I’ve looked at a lot of newspaper copy with that question over the years and felt we were missing the answer.

Actually, it’s a good question for a lot of businesses. I think it’s even a matter of getting down to the basics.

FREE OF THE ENTOURAGE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

Most newspaper writing and editing is done is large, open newsrooms rather than small, private offices. It’s amazing to think anyone can actually concentrate and work amid the surrounding mayhem, especially when the scanner is blaring police and fire dispatches and the television’s on overhead. (Well, I took to streaming opera and music by living composers to blot out that hysteria.)

Still, a few management-level editors had offices, and we’d get visitors who’d head there or to the conference room for private meetings. Usually, the men would be in navy blue suits, along with a woman or two in high heels. That is, they’d arrive and depart as a team. Since New England Cable News also had a presence in our newsroom, I’d sometimes get a phone call from my younger daughter, the political activist. “Do you know who’s standing behind you?” No, I hadn’t looked. I was too busy working. And she’d call out the candidate’s name.

Not that they were all politicians. Sometimes they were business executives or lobbyists of one stripe or another. Even the writers and artists seemed to travel in packs. And often a face would look familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it. Let me add that many of them look quite different in person than they do on video.

Late one afternoon, though, I looked up from my terminal and noticed a dignified solitary personage striding into the room. He was taller than I’d suspected but the face was one I soon identified. David Broder, a Washington Post columnist my college professor had called the best political reporter in the country decades earlier, an evaluation that remained dead right.

I didn’t interrupt with a greeting as he walked past. Respected his space and thinking. But I was far more impressed than I’d been by any of the celebrities who had posed behind me.

GETTING FREE OF GUILT EDGES

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

A renewed compulsion had me rethinking, reworking, pruning, and punching up much of my earlier writing – the dozen unpublished novels; the genealogy research and narrative; several hundred poems, many of which had been published in literary quarterlies; and varied essays and journal entries. It hit with a vengeance, and was given extra clout at New England Yearly Meeting one August when, in a prayer circle, it was made clear to me that these labors are an exercise of talent, a gift, rather than a self-indulgence that had too often before stirred feelings of guilt.

For the first time in my life, I felt free to undertake this labor, the writing that does not pay the bills but somehow keeps me intellectually and artistically alive. What a blessing! (Never underestimate the power of prayer!)

Again, cleaning up these works and seeing them published may be one more way of bringing some closure to what too often seems a honeycombed life! Writing pulls so many of these threads together.

I began trying to set aside one free day each week as a no-automobile day, a kind of sabbath for writing, reading, or reflection; even with my usual three days off at the time (Sunday News worked a double shift every Saturday), achieving this goal became surprisingly difficult – but wonderfully rewarding when it did.

In some rich ways, it became a kind of retirement, even while being employed elsewhere full-time.

PAINFUL NEUTRALITY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 5 Comments

At the least, the pursuit of objectivity has meant that news reporters and editors cannot engage in political activities. Even community-wide charity drives become suspect. I learned early on I couldn’t wear political buttons or put a bumper sticker on the car, much less participate in a protest line. The ethics policy at the Kansas City Star was famed for telling its personnel that the only organization where they could vote was their church. (And, presumably, public elections, although some journalists have argued even that would taint their professionalism.) To be honest, even though we Quakers never take a vote in our business sessions, I felt some relief to know that my church was taking public stands in my stead.

It’s not that we don’t have values or don’t believe that reforms are needed. Rather, it’s an awareness that to report all sides fairly, we need to have some distance from participating in the battle itself. We have to be able to report shortcomings even in the places where we feel most sympathetic.

Still, I’d like those who accuse journalists of bias to try living under such strictures themselves. Maybe they’d even see a bigger picture.

PUBLISHING DECISION

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

He admitted it was an academic book that deserved to be published, but their research indicated they’d be lucky to sell 400 copies. Without a hefty subsidy, there was no way his university press could afford to move forward on the project.

Welcome to the club.

THE DYING ART OF CARTOONING

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Flipping through the latest New Yorker and admiring the cartoons brought a sense of loss, too. While the New Yorker and Playboy had long been the epitome of the art, paying the premium rates for work that matched the highest standards, almost every magazine ran cartoons, at least as fillers in the back sections. These days, though, hardly any of them do.

When I was in high school, the wit of fellow Buckeye James Thurber became a model, along with the Addams Family even before the TV series. And then there was Gahan Wilson’s mordant pen. But who’s come along, say, in the past decade to fill the ranks? Not in magazines, as far as I see.

Or in newspapers, where having an editorial page cartoonist was seen as a badge of distinction. (Except at the New York Times, of course, which abstained.) In the collapse of the second newspaper in most markets – and the elimination of afternoon editions – the ranks of those cartoonists have also been evaporating. Even before we get to the recent rounds of attrition.

It’s not a laughing matter.

OBJECTIVITY, FOR STARTERS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

Journalism students used to be told of a reporter writing a weather story in a newsroom. Even though he can look out the window to see that it’s raining, he turns to the guy at the next desk, asks him to look out the window, and then quotes him in the report. It’s probably apocryphal, but it does reflect the kind of training no-nonsense reporters had in turning to sources, rather than their personal observations.

That’s why you see so many direct quotations in a news dispatch.

What you learn along the way is that what you see may not be the full story, much less the real account.

For all I know, it could have been glass falling from an explosion or sawdust, as they do in theater productions.

At least this way, there’s someone to blame if it’s wrong.

THE HUMAN IMPRINT

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

In the old days, a newspaper or magazine often had a personal imprint. The publication took on the publisher’s or top editor’s vision, and a certain tone and range of interests followed. We can look at the legendary names – McCormack, Hearst, Pulitzer, Scotty Reston’s New York Times, Ben Bradlee’s Washington Post, the Bingham family’s Louisville Courier-Journal, Tom Winship’s Boston Globe, even Bill Loeb’s Union Leader – and then realize it’s not something you see in the corporate journalism of today, especially where top editors are out the door in a year. Can you name anyone at the helm today?

As for the big-name stars of network and cable news/entertainment, well, let’s just say they’re pale imposters. There’s something to be said for knowing the ropes of a community and its people. Of having roots and depth – and the responsibility of recognition when they’re out in public.

MANAGEMENT STYLES

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

Within an organization, you may see a manager who chooses to surround himself or herself with talented individuals and then allows them the freedom to perform at their best. This is the leader who’s not afraid of being placed in their shadow but rather supports their efforts and builds a team of responsible players. This leader hands out kudos, rather than blame, and corrects errors as a matter of avoiding them in the future. Credit is shared rather than hoarded.

There’s another kind of manager who wants to stand taller than his or her subordinates. Talent is viewed with suspicion, and workers are held on a short leash and often micromanaged. Scant praise is handed out – and when it is, there’s little reason to trust it. Fear and blame, especially, are the root of motivation, and maintaining a low profile and even doing as little as possible (to reduce one’s exposure) are inevitable consequences. These managers don’t want to hear your ideas, though they expect you to follow their orders.

One type leads to excellence; the other, to mediocrity.

I’ve worked for both – sometimes briefly in the same enterprise. But I know which one gets the most for the money. Not that money’s the top item when you’re working for them.