Lessons from Extreme News-Ed

What makes a great leader? Are they just born or can you actually become one?  How are leaders different from managers? And why were journalism students pondering these questions at 8:15 on a Saturday morning?

The leadership workshop was one of five workshop sessions offered in "Extreme News-Ed," a one-credit short course coordinated by SOJC Assistant Professor Kathy Campbell and offered May 13 and 14. SOJC alums Steve Smith '73, Ken Sands '81,  Jim Allen '79, and Doug Floyd '66 from the Spokesman-Review were joined by Richard Aguire of The (Salem) Statesman Journal to teach the seminars. 

The workshop kicked off Friday night with a getting-to-know-each-other dinner in the Allen Hall Atrium. Students got to learn firsthand about what went into the Spokesman-Review's decision-making process in reporting Spokane Mayor Jim West's alleged sexual misconduct, a process that itself has been making national headlines.

The fact that Smith, editor of the Spokesman-Review spent so much time talking to the students about the newspaper's decision impressed senior Katey Gries. "It was interesting to hear about ethics in action," she said.

On Saturday, students chose three from a list of five workshops:  leadership, online journalism, editing and design, editorial writing, and local news.The workshops covered a wide variety of topics, with ideas ranging from theory to practice and from the current state of journalism to the future.

"Forget everything that you've learned in journalism school," said Ken Sands, online editor of the Spokesman-Review,  in the online workshop. "The Web is so totally revolutionary that I don't even know where to begin."

Sands spoke about the growing popularity of blogs and how to use them journalistically. He doesn't see blogs as uncredible sources, but as tools that good reporters can learn to use. 

“You can't really get at a truth if all you have is provable facts," said Sands, explaining that a story could be a series of provable facts, but the end result could end up not being the truth. Sands said that, on the other side, a blog could be fifty percent lies and fifty percent exageration and in the end, could convey the real truth of the situation.

Blogs can be used as a way to interact with readers. Sands said it's actually the ideal tool for beat reporters. Sources, ideas, and information can all be exchanged instantaneously.

"The need for information will never change—only how we acquire it," said Sands.

The local news workshop, led by Richard Aguire, senior editor of the Statesman Journal, gave advice on covering local news and events.  The workshop even addressed the growing topic of incorporating diversity into the paper.

"The local news was really good because it sounds like they've [the Statesman Journal] really taken pains to increase its coverage of diversity in the paper, " said Gries. "They really do make an effort to cover a lot of things."

And as for those earlier questions about leadership?

"I think leadership begins with self-knowledge," Smith told students in the leadership workshop.

Anyone can be taught managerial skills, Smith said, but leadership begins with your own personal values. And values aren't a subject talked about in most newsrooms today.

“Can you live your values within that organization?  How far are you willing to compromise?  These are questions journalists need to have the answer to before they go into any position,” Smith said.

"Every journalist needs a go-to-hell fund," Smith said.  “No matter what position you have.”

"If management is what we do and how we do it, leadership is the why—at least it begins with the why,” he said.

—Laura Taylor, undergraduate student