After attending last year's youth editors conference, Becky Fleenor, the teenessean coordinator in the NIE department of The Tennessean in Nashville, had an idea: a one-day journalism workshop for 24 local high school students.
But there was a catch: To be successful, it would have to involve other departments. For many NIE and youth editorial people, this could cause an immediate chorus of "next idea." But Fleenor decided to try something different. She asked.
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Staff from the Daily Hampshire Gazette in Northampton, Mass., hold up pages from their "A Day in the Life of the Gazette" section. It serves as a shining example of cross-departmental cooperation.
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"Everyone said yes," Fleenor says, still a bit amazed. "They are thrilled to be helping out. You never know until you ask, I guess."
So for the teenessean's July workshop, all 24 students had mentors from the paper. The newsroom provided reporters, photographers and designers to give training. And after being informed of the event and asked to attend in an e-mail, the publisher, Leslie Giallombardo, stopped by at lunch to offer a pep talk.
The workshop worked out.
Cooperation and collaboration between departments at newspapers does not come easy. With the barrier that has always existed between the newsroom and business side, NIE departments have not been natural partners with newsrooms, even though their mission of readership is the same.
But to paraphrase an old rock star, times are changing, even at newspapers. More and more examples of collaboration between departments are taking place, as that similar mission - and, of course, the bottom line - overtakes old barriers.
"It always helps when different departments work together," says Judy Broussard, NIE literacy coordinator for The Daily Advertiser in Lafayette, La. "We are all in this together, and if we help each other, it makes everyone's job easier, not to mention a much friendlier work place."
Deborah Doulette, NIE manager at the Daily Hampshire Gazette in Northampton, Mass., has provided the ultimate in newspaper department cooperation. She put together a tabloid titled, "A Day in the Life of the Gazette," featuring a vivid, descriptive and colorful tour of the newspaper, from the news room to the press room, from advertising to circulation.
"I sit on the Promotions Committee, a group composed of our publisher, circulation director, editor and advertising director," Doulette says. "That's where this tab came out of. We wanted to do something to help educate the public about the newspaper, a kind of tour for people without coming to the paper. Another woman on the committee is a graphic artist, and she and her sister did all the artwork.
"I added a page on the Gazette's history for the cover - to make it standards-friendly - and we inserted the tab in our weekend edition, and distributed it to NIE teachers," Doulette says. "Best of all, I now have the tab to use for tours throughout the next couple school years. So here is a successful collaboration that was well received by both NIE users and our general readership."
The Daily Hampshire Gazette has a circulation of 19,000. Interestingly, many of the positive examples of collaboration come from smaller papers, where departments may sit close together, community projects can make fast friends, and the red tape or corporate hurdles may just not exist.
"We are all located on one level, so I run into everyone," says Miriam Swanson, NIE coordinator at The Telegraph in Manchester, N.H. "I asked for a chance to speak at the weekly retail sales meeting here, and you should have seen the open mouths when I told them what I do. They had no idea! A couple gave me sponsors to pursue. Our ad reps have good relationships with their sponsors, so a reference from them was very beneficial for me.
As a result, for the first time, Swanson became very involved in the Fairy Tale Festival, a free summer event in the park that the paper sponsors, emphasizing literacy.
"In NIE, we are often not regarded as part of the team. So we have to be the aggressor and say, ‘I'm here!'" Swanson says.
Cora Niver, NIE coordinator at The Times Herald in Olean, N.Y., points to the currently hot issue of readership to make her case for cooperation.
"It really helps when the point is driven home that NIE coordinators need all the cooperation and support possible, with the common objective of boosting newspaper readership today as much as 10 years down the road," she says. "It shouldn't have to be a constant struggle for us to accomplish this end."
Two suggestions are heard most frequently when it comes to building relationships within a newspaper. The first is to be aggressive - ask to sit in on meetings, get a monthly presence in the in-house newsletter, keep an updated bulletin board that everyone can see, join any cross-department committees, keep the publisher informed of your projects. The second is to try to come up with ways to be of use to other departments. Give the newsroom tips of potential stories in the schools, share some good sponsors, volunteer to help out at community events, think of innovative ways to partner with other departments.
"My thinking is we have this good relationship with the newsroom because others see how dependable and creative the TX. [teen section] staff is in producing their own section," says Becky Cairns, TX. editor of the Standard-Examiner in Ogden, Utah. "It's really considered and treated as a valuable section of our newspaper. So other editors keep our teen staff in mind for story possibilities in these other sections of the paper as well."
Diane Goold, NIE coordinator at the St. Joseph (Mo.) News-Press, says that she has built a "working relationship with everyone in our organization from the home office to the cleaning crew. Everyone here knows me and our NIE department and are very supportive of my efforts."
Leslie Moore, NIE coordinator at the Clarksburg (W.Va.) Exponent-Telegram, used to have problems getting on the radar screens of other departments. But now she's a constant blip.
"I made friends with the ad people and work with the marketing director. I help him with his projects (like parade floats, special events) and he's good to me. I also manage two big projects that result in goodwill and bring in ad revenue."
Above all, NIE managers and youth editors say ask people to help, ask if you can contribute and ask just for the sake of getting to know someone.
"When I started, I didn't know who [at my paper] I couldn't talk to," says Kim Clevenger, NIE coordinator for the Green Bay (Wis.) Press-Gazette. "I didn't know not to ask. So I asked the senior editor about a serial story, the circulation director about other ideas. And I kept on asking. Develop relationships with patience and sincerity."
Summing it all up, NIE consultant Kay O'Malley says, "When we're all on the same page, results multiply for everyone."
SUMMER/FALL 2003