I measure and grade our content each edition for coverage charts I’ve done for oh about three decades now. I read and list the stories on a spreadsheet, with a numerical grade, and capture the numbers for news, sports, commentary, and the arts and entertainment section Scene. About every half year, I do more charts — a fever chart for quantity and another for quality through each week; a chart I learned from Edward Deming listing each week a writer hit a certain number of stories or a quality score; Don’s made-up weirdo calculation of two times the quality score plus the quantity score average through the past months. Voila, I learn a lot in different ways through these charts about our writers, along with our sections and their trends. I have decades’ worth of individual and collective patterns to evaluate beyond the popular mythology and load of erroneous assumptions in my high calling. Like city councilors, we editors-in-chief can talk a lot about stuff without doing the hard work of, like, actually checking for the truth of what surely must be. Like we all forgot how to be reporters. With my charts, I can line up general standards for our type of community newspaper, having only worked once at the metro level, as night editor. We had 150 souls on that news staff in an entirely different environment and mission, and my measuring and calculation and all had much more to do with copy desk work and page production, though I did get to have a night metro editor and night reporters too, and most fun of all, tore up and remade page ones almost every night after all that careful planning and wrangling during afternoon planning sessions. That was cool for a time, but I learned soon enough that I didn’t mind being recognized and occasionally upbraided at the post office, grocery store, council chambers, even once in the first row at a rock concert, our conversation shouted. This was one more sign of direct impact from covering a community that I didn’t quite get from covering a couple of million people between Rancho Santa Fe and Murrieta in Southern California. Don’t get me started about real traffic with the whining about Park City’s commuter blips. About every half year, I try to sit down with each writer and go through their individual charts. I also keep track of where their averages rank among the full staff. They do feel some pressure, although I’ll be a boss here and reframe that as accountability. This is a team, which means each member has to produce their share, right? Yes, I can see trend lines for writers I will need to let go at some point, as well as one data point among several for reporters ripe for promotion to editing posts. But that’s not the point of the coverage charting. There are easier methods than that to see who isn’t putting out or has no real feel for the work, along with the fast-budding stars. The beats and what comes from covering them have a lot to with how they chart. Same with the types of writers — some prolific at the cost of quality, let’s say; and some who produce high quality work but sacrifice production. There also are some on the low-low, and the blessed few at high-high. A retired New York Times editor who couldn’t not work and so worked with me at my northern San Diego metro liked to express the theory of the “some writers,” and that of course we were looking for the high-high, for they are out there too: “Are you good, are you fast? You need to be both.” We were a hiring team for a time. And that is what my charts and goofy calculations are geared toward: nudging toward higher-higher among our individuals. I am practical, I think, but in any case actually collecting data unlike most of my peers, I’ve learned. And I am patient, probably as a result, seeing how hard and delicate this process is with, you know, human beings who lead messy real lives full of ups and downs and aspirations. I stalk the aspirations, the higher selves people naturally want to push themselves toward. My aim is to help with the map. There’s accountability, too, but it’s really the hard trek toward greatness — let me just say this aloud — that appeals to me. I want great reporters helped by great editors making our work great. That’s hardly the way it goes all the time. My charts tell me that, too. But like the stock market trends over time, I see our reporting ones climb. So what about awards? Where do they factor? Well, I’ve seen that sausage made, seen great work overlooked and lesser work rewarded; I’ve rewritten crap into quiche on deadline that wins awards; I know the real value of the editors who ask questions and annoy the crap out of reporters for better work, which leads to awards. Awards themselves count for little in my data. Still, they do count for something, and outside the scope of my dry little charts, they are a lot of fun when a fired-up newsroom wins a boatload as they did this year and last. So I look at my charts, I feel my bossy “do more” instincts, and I make note of the awards and the whole lifted vibe among the team, and yeah, I feel great about this group and what I see them doing from here. Now, get back to work already. This is so last week. Whaddya got for Wednesday, for Saturday? Don Rogers is the editor and publisher of The Park Record. He can be reached at [email protected] or (970) 376-0745. The post Journalism Matters: Awards are nice, but here’s the real deal appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less