What am I?

I had to categorize myself on a form today. The closest applicable title was 'journalist'. Is that appropriate? Am I a journalist? What are the criteria in these days of multi-media internet fabulousness?

While thinking about my impending move to be closer to work I found myself wishing that I could gaze into a crystal ball and see what my (career) future might be. Care to offer up a opinion Steve? I am grateful that you had the confidence to hire me and sometimes wonder if you glimpse something in me that I do not yet see in myself. ..raw talent that needs honing...stuff like that....

SAFRAN: The first (and often only) answer I give to the "What's your job?" question is "I am a journalist." To me, it's the only title that matters. The rest of our titles are ones that few civilians would understand anyway. If I am known as a journalist for the rest of my life, I will be very proud of that.



Of course you have the raw talent. You can improve your writing. That's not a personal critique, per se - we can all improve our writing. I'm convinced I am a B/B+ writer right now, and I want to get the A.



Chill a bit. I think you're looking for too much, too fast. Work the ugly hours, come in as much as you can (even when you don't want to) and make yourself indispensible. I know you'll hate to hear it - but you're young, you're just starting, and there is an awful lot to learn. You can't expect to do it all at once. 15 years in, and I only now feel like I have a grip on the thing - but certainly not perfection. Your news judgement will forever be honed. Your style, your confidence - it never stops. My only advice is one word: LEARN. If there is ever a day where you think you're not learning, do something about it. Bother me, or another manager, or even take it upon yourself. You can't stop learning.



I'm reading books on management style, something I never thought I'd do. To me, management style consists of saying "Do this until it's finished, then go home." Obviously, that's not all that useful. Friendly, perhaps, but not useful to anyone hoping to learn from me or surpass my knowledge. If you ain't learnin', you ain't at the right place. The first question I ask myself in job interviews is "What can these people teach me?" If the answer is "Not much," I don't bother with the rest.

Content wells and ergonomic wish list

1. When the partner site gives us instructions it would be helpful if they could provide screen shots of the Bonzai version of the page, not the final public URL.
Safran:: GOD yes. It's been a bugaboo since the beginning of the relationship. They simply know more about code and Bonzai than we ever will - or ever care to. I've asked them to dumb it down for me.

2. Can we get a new keyboard? The buttons on this one stick, resulting in my pounding on the keyboard, which kills my wrists and fingers. Good ergonomics make for happier and healthier workers.
SAFRAN: I will ask the IT Gods. When they say "No," I'll take you to Staples and buy the damn thing myself.

Thank you.

3. And a trackball? That would help as well.
SAFRAN: Now that's a personal preference thing. I don't like trackballs.

4. An employee lounge with a couch for people to nap on. Like a hospital has for on-call doctors. I can't tell you how many people asked me if we had this upon hearing about my Sunday/Monday schedule.

SAFRAN: And a shower. We really need a shower. Sadly, there is the fear in most newsrooms that a shower would be, ahem, abused. Shame, really, because it would encourage more people to bike to work, exercise at lunch, and it would be a boon to us when news breaks and we work overnight into the next day. If you are ever tired, a short nap goes a long way. I don't know why napping gets a bad rap in our culture - it works wonders. If I ever needed to lie down during an overnight, I got a tech to let me into one of the offices with a desk. Or I just slept on the floor.

The old station had a shower in one of the bathrooms. Leftover from when ti was a jewelry facotry and in case someone needed to get the hazerdous material off of them. Was never abused. Mainly used for people to change into gym clothes.

Audience

Steve, I wonder if anyone reads this besides us (and my friends on occasion)?

SAFRAN: Oh, I doubt it. On the other hand, it's still an experiment and I wonder if the goal is to have an audience at all - or simply to improve the boss-employee relationship by communicating this way.

Manic Monday

Whose idea was this crazy late Sunday night to early Monday a.m. shift? It's insane to ask of anyone's body clock. I am now useless on Mondays. I drive home from work (not the safest driver after doing the 80 mile round trip twice in under 24 hours) and crash.
I have a list of things To Do on my desk but I have not done any of them. All I can manage is sit slothfully on the couch most of the day. Sure I'm blogging now but it's because I needed to get this off my chest. I am also apparently rather amusing when overtired, or so I've been told.
I'm all for paying dues, but some things are insane. I had no idea of the reality of how this would wreak havoc on my body clock and in turn my life (ex: undone To Do list). It doesn't help that I do live so far away. I like my house here, it is my home, but I need to be way closer to work.

SAFRAN: Time for Mean Old Boss Man to show his ugly head. And you're dealing with the hardest part of getting started in news - shift work. Overnights and early calls are hideous, awful and take a toll. I had to leave an overnight gig several years ago because it actually put me in a depression. You're amusing when you're overtired - and amusing when you're awake. And you're right - being closer to work will help things and will also mean a safer drive. I once glanced a phone poll while leaving the station's parking lot after an overnight.

Lyss:
This was sort of prompted by my near miss with a fire hydrant off Highland Ave.

FAQ

All your silly TV News questions answered here.

Six Sigma

A while ago you asked me what Six Sigma was. Here's the Wikipedia answer:

Six Sigma is a quality management program to achieve "six sigma" levels of quality. It was pioneered by Motorola in the mid-1980s by Bob Galvin, who succeeded his father and the founder of Motorola as head of the company, Paul Galvin, and by Motorola engineer Bill Smith. It has since spread to many other manufacturing companies, including GE, Honeywell, Raytheon, Seagate Technology, and Microsoft. However, it can be applied wherever the control of variation is desired. In recent years, it has begun to branch out into the service industry, and in 2000, Fort Wayne, Indiana became the first city to implement the program in a city government. Some, claiming that Six Sigma's impact has not yet been fully realized, advocate an open source approach so that the principles of Six Sigma might be more widely adopted.

SAFRAN: In other words, "Do it right." Sheesh. Business people make everything so frickin' complicated.

"Bitch" as a power word

It was a big compliment yesterday when you told me that you hired me because I am 'pushy'. The validation of my attitude, behavior, personality, or whatever you attribute it, to means a lot. I've been criticized for that same quality many times, especially in situations where I've refused to back down. It's good to know that there are men in the work world who can deal with a woman with her own opinions. I'm especially glad that my boss is one of them.

SAFRAN: Thanks, but let's be clear for the home audience... I didn't use the "B" word. I believe I said "You're pushy. I like that." And I do. Too many people in newsrooms would rather seethe than try and bring problems to the forefront. News is about agressively pursuing information. I don't see what being a woman has to do with it, or why aggresive women are called "bitches." To me, a bitch is anyone who... well... bitches a lot without offering constructive advice or solutions. That ain't you.

True, Steve did not use the word 'bitch'. I did not mean to imply that he did. But that is what pushy women tend to be called...think Hilary Clinton or the mom in Terminator 2.

Busy season

This busy hurricane season makes me think about disaster planning and emergency management at work. I have recently found myself wondering whether or not the station has a plan in place. We've heard about the TV stations on the Gulf Coast who broadcast through Hurricane Katrina, despite losing parts of their buildings (also newspapers and radio stations).

When I say I worked at the safest TV station in the country I wasn't kidding. They were the first TV station in the country to be certified under OSHA's Voluntary Protection Program (VPP).

VPP would come to be a thorn in my side (and everybody else's) but I have to admit it made me feel a it safer knowing that if something happened there was a plan. (Not that a plan ensures that everything will go as planned, but at lest there's some sort of protocol).

Partners

I love getting emails that say things like "some of you may already know this" when they are talking about a major site redesign or relaunch. Would've been nice of the partner website to have let all of us on the web team here know, not just some.

SAFRAN: Ooooh.... someone's a little bitter. I wouldn't blame them too much. I probably forgot to let the partners know your email address, so blame Mean Boss Man instead.

It's not just this. there are a lot of things that could be done more uniformly. Like what you were saying today on the phone about how directions should be more specific. And the TV food show newsletter- those directions that I was sent were so wordy and made like no sense. I also noticed that I have no written directions for what Im supposed to do with the Sunday evening house show. (Ex: can I paste the copy for it days in advance, save that somewhere, and then just add video later?)

SAFRAN: Well, that's different than "partners." You're mad about not getting proper direction from me. Rightly so. I sometimes lose track of who knows what. So here is what I suggest: make a list of the questions you have/things you don't know, but should. We'll go over it and I will follow up with each person who is responsible for giving you the information you need.

Remotes

Here's a problem- why don't we have any f-ing remote controls?! There are like seven TVs in proximity to me, why can't I change the channel or volume on any of them without getting up or climbing on the desk?

SAFRAN: You're not supposed to change the channels on those. Those TVs are tuned to our competitors - local and national. Plus, ever aim a remote at a bank of TVs hoping to change just one? All of them go to that channel, no matter how well you aim.

Now the TV on our desk... that's another matter. We need a remote for that one. You might say we have a Lost Remote problem on our hands...

Lyss: I mean the TV directly next to your two computers.

Work environment

Sometimes the lack of interaction with my fellow co-workers bothers me. Especially on weekends. Is it because my back is to them (since whoever designed the webcenter was obviously into some bad feng shui)? It it that I'm new and they need to get used to me?
Honestly, I don't usually need to actually interact with them, but that doesn't mean that I don't want to. I'm not sure how to remedy this. I try to be friendly but don;t want to come across as rude and butting into their conversations.

Public eye

The coverage of the storm has raised questions about the ultimate function of the press corps, as well as the nature of journalistic objectivity.

What do you think of this post on Public Eye about the reactions of the press during Hurricane Katrina?.....Especially since the press isn't really supposed to react in any discernible way but merely observe.

...Heyward says Van Sant would have crossed the line had he called for officials to be fired..

How does that compare to the Times-Picayune calling for the head of FEMA to be fired? One might argue* that a journalist or media outlet suggesting such a thing is alright since they are behaving as a surrogate or proxy for the public (who, in this case, were repeatedly asking for help and for the head(s) of government officials). How about during the Vietnam War? Should it have been OK then? Or is it just because this tragedy happened here and not in some country 'over there'?

*I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this topic. I'm sort of playing devil's advocate here....

SAFRAN: Ya know, I'm on the wrong side of the popular blogger opinion on this one and I'm going to get flamed mercilessly for this. Everyone is applauding reporters for showing emotion, tearing up, calling for heads to roll... that's simply not our job. The Times-Picayune has an editorial page for this sort of thing. They have a longstanding policy of issuing opinions - as editorials. Reporters on TV should not editorialize. For one - it is not a reporter's place to speak for the network. But mostly, it's not about the reporter. Reporters are not cold, robotic, unfeeling people. But they HAVE to let their subjects convey the emotion. The moment you get caught up in the crisis, you lose objectivity. Also, I think the reporters need to give the audience a little credit - we can tell when a sitution is horrifying, and we don't need someone there to do it for us. Spontaneous bits of emotion are one thing. We're human. Walter Cronkite choked up when he announced the death of President Kennedy. But the continuous, stagey nature of some of the coverage of Hurricane Katrina troubles me. We should not be attacking the government, regardless of how strongly we feel or how just it seems.

What's in a name?

This is a funny name for our blog, considering that we have no doors in the 'office'......

SAFRAN: I just figured it would be too long if it were called "The Figuratively Open Non-Door Theoretical-Office Policy."

Agreed.

Suggestions

Here are some ideas about how to improve the workplace, as requested earlier. (This is not a comprehensive list and may be added on to as we see fit to).

• Our computers should face the rest of the newsroom. Not only do I feel like I'm being rude by having my back to everyone, but I hate the (paranoid) idea that people are watching me over my shoulder. I also feel that one reason I've not really bonded with other people who work in the newsroom is because of this.

SAFRAN: Good Lord, I couldn't agree more. I believe this was a design flaw from Day One. It has a number of problems, not the least of which is that our backs face the newsroom. It also results in me ripping a ton of wires when I spin around. (Which engineering then gets mad at me for, again.) I have wanted this change since 2000. We are in budget talks right now, so maybe I can see if we can squeeze this in. We're not talking about a ton of money here. Right on.


• Why is the web center higher up than the rest of the desks? It feels special but it also feels weird for some reason.

SAFRAN: Better explanation for this one: in addition to being a workspace, it's also a set. It needs to be elevated slightly because the robo cameras can't tilt down all the way to the floor. You see the problem when we have the pet segment. Plus, I like putting you on a pedestal... {Aww.....so sweet of you}.


• I'm learning to be OK with sharing the space with three other people, especially since the four of us are not generally there at the same time, but drawers would be nice. We could each get one drawer to leave personal stuff in.
  SAFRAN: Agreed. I am moving to my own desk (after five years) shortly and that will free up the cabinet. One drawer per producer it is! Woo hoo! {But I'll miss your witty banter}.
  
  



• Post pictures of all the employees (minus freelancers?) like you do with the interns. It will be easier for new people, such as myself, to identify who's who. Since starting I've met many people and only remember about a dozen names, if that many. I tend to have no idea who my producer is for each time period of GML. And not a clue who the lady at the assignment desk is (I know she's the assignment editor, but I have no idea what her name is). I feel weird not knowing who my co-workers are. I don't want to 'assign' someone a name because I think that they look like a 'Fred' or 'Bob' and have their real name turn out to be 'Peter'.

SAFRAN:Front Desk Guy was working on a "face book" for us. Seems quite sensible we should have a copy. I will follow up with him. When it comes to remembering names, I'm the worst. Why do you think I give so many nicknames?


• On a similar note, does everyone there have AIM? I don't know anyone's name, much less their AIM screen name. This might make work a more productive and friendlier place.

SAFRAN: AIM use is haphazard. It's not mandatory at work, yet most people use it. AIM gives our IT guy fits because of its many security flaws. He has even threatened to turn it off. Everyone in the web has AIM - I'll give you those names.




• Smaller headphones. I hate the behemoth pair I have to use everyday. That is the kind of thing that should go on the company's budget, not mine. Wireless headphone would be even better (see above about ripping out wires).
  SAFRAN: Oooh, I like the big headphones. Good sound and they make me feel like I'm in a professional recording studio. Still, I have a few smaller pairs knocking around and I'll be happy to give you a set. PS: You have a budget? {No, I do not have a budget anymore. It has been eaten up by the cost of gas}.
  




• Have written directions as to where everything goes on the website. Sometimes I'm confused in the morning about whether everything I have to do should be posted on the GML page or New England page or where? There should be a definitive list of what goes where.
  
  SAFRAN: Absolutely right. Editor Woman has done some of that - let me see if I can't pull it all together. Not fair to throw someone in the middle of this without some guidelines.
  

• The TV food show newsletter. I don't understand why the producer doesn't just email the copy straight to ____.com and let a web person there cut and paste. I think that too many cooks in the kitchen....
  SAFRAN: Another one of those "bane of my existence" issues. {How many of these are there?} Has been for two years. You're right - we should streamline the process. I will talk with our partners. Ironic that a food show newsletter should have "too many cooks." And in answer to your question below, there wasn't anything that sparked the rant in particular. I think I may have overheard someone kvetching about something and thought "I wonder why he simply doesn't bring that up?" Good suggestions, Lyss. Thank you.
  

L.A.

The power has gone out in LA. Qaeda threat or not, MSNBC is showing a live helicopter shot of the city. It's daylight there. Nothing looks too out of the ordinary. Why bother with the live shot?
SAFRAN: When I saw the story about LA, I thought it was "Louisiana." A blackout in a major city is noteworthy, especially at first when they don't know how long it is going to last. In lieu of other big news, I see nothing wrong with a live shot on an all-news channel. Summer blackouts can lead to problems - in NYC they have led to looting. Also, keep in mind that a "blackout" during the day can be even more problematic than one at night. L.A. depends on air conditioning to keep healthy indoor environments, traffic lights, communications infrastructure - all important to keep going. The story was the lead on ABC World News Tonight this evening, and I don't think it merited that. I would have gone with FEMA boss stepping down, followed by New Orleans, then L.A. (Los Angeles, not Louisiana.)

Nothing looked too out of the ordinary. No car chases, etc..... And I would've gone with Brown resigning or the Robert hearings (which was what NBC Nightly news was going to do until someone accidentally hit the kill switch in L.A.)

Relationships

Steve, can you clarify what you meant earlier today about writing more about workplace interaction? I'm afraid I wasn't totally awake yet. Thanks.

SAFRAN: Yeah, I'm pretty good at demanding a big idea without giving any salient details at all. Sorry.

What I mean is that I think this blog will be more useful to readers if we also post articles we find about work life. If we find something useful about work stress, problems, ideas, great stories... items that readers could apply to their work lives. (Maybe I should actually find some examples.)

Feel free to shoot down the idea. I'm just looking at ways to expand the scope of this, while still having a good blog. Ideally the articles would be stuff that you or I would share with each other anyway. ("Webbies Who Hate Bosses And The Men Who Love Them" kinds of things...)

Goose bumps

This morning the traffic guy reported that there was backup on a local highway due to some geese that had been hit. Dead geese are causing a serious traffic snarl? How much of them can really be left so as to be a traffic hazard if they were run over on a highway? Are people afraid to run over their smushed bodies?

(I realize that this is not a workplace observation but is an amusing thing overheard at work).

SAFRAN: At the risk of sounding like the insensitive jerk that I am, I thought the traffic guy's line on this was priceless. You didn't explain your headline.... (He referred to the deceased ducks in the road as "Goosebumps.")

Now THAT's gallows humor.

Anchorman

I just found out that one of the anchors at my former station has cancer. I am sad about this. He was one of the nicest people I'd met there. It might seem like a small thing, but I was always amazed at his ability to remember the names of every employee after being introduced for the first time.

He's been a fixture in that market for a long time. I have friends who have grown up watching him. He was a part of their childhoods. It amazes me how viewers can get so attached to people on TV- anchors, reporters, etc...People that they might not even know in 'real life'.

SAFRAN: It can be upsetting to realize the people you grew up trusting on TV are frail humans like we all are. We get our information from them, think of them as family, and never consider they are just folks. I felt the same way about Peter Jennings. I actually found myself in mourning.

The numbers game

One reason I was hesitant to get more involved and jump right into a job in TV is that I did not want to become one of those people who is consumed by numbers. I had enough friends in college (both TV-Radio and Journalism majors) who obessed over what TV market equaled what number. I don't believe in living and dying by ratings. If I can fix those numbers to say what I want (which I've done for class projects in college...and I once failed 9th grade algebra) how valid can they really be?
I'm all for these newfangled people meters. I don't believe that you can trust people to write down everything they watch in a diary.

SAFRAN:
I would think one of the appeals of being in web news is that you don't have to be all that concerned with numbers. The web renders meaningless a lot of the stats traditional TV news obsesses over. Your market size no longer matters. (Some of the best web news sites are, in fact, in smaller markets.) Ratings are out, and real numbers are in. People Meters are good, but WebTrends is better. You're right - you can "fix" ratings to a certain extent. You can't really fix video views, unless you sit there and watch the damn things over and over by yourself.

And the numbers that I get, I actually like sifting through. I can see that our Katrina coverage on the web accounted for fully 1/2 our video views in the past two weeks. That's amazing. Usually our weather forecast is 90% of the views on its own. People want real news, and when we put it up it doesn't matter if they are in New England or Los Angeles or Louisiana. I like that. And the less math I have to do, the happier I am.

Numbers ain't all bad.

Lyss:
You make valid points. It's good to know that the web numbers have been up. I wonder how many of those have been skewed by my friends and family who are curious about my new job?

Gaza pullout, a look back

The Hurricane Katrina frenzy has made me think back to the Gaza pullout a few weeks ago.
Training for my new job, as web producer at a TV station, fell on the days after disengagement. Talk about baptism by fire.....it was chaotic in the newsroom that day and I had things to do and learn but I could not help but be affected by those images of what was going on in Gaza beamed around the world.
Steve made a good point in his comment on my last post.
"Good journalists try to tell the world what's happening. We didn't make the disaster - but hopefully your work will help those affected by it. "
I might whine about my hours or pay or whatnot (don't we all sometimes?) but overall I feel that my job is important in the sense that I can aid in the dissemination of information. Information that could be lifesaving, uplifting, or simply informative.
Some people (even friends of mine) might scoff at those of us who work in the media. They complain about bias and lack of depth and other things. But when it comes down to it, when there's a Hurricane Katrina, a Gaza pullout, or a tsunami, we are all glued to the TV. There is something comforting in being able to know that the images you are watching are probably the same, if not similar, to what people all over are watching. That shared imagery can bring people together. I cannot count the number of times people of my parents' generation speak with reverence and awe about watching that first moon landing in 1969. I'm sure that I will tell my kids about when I saw the Berlin Wall come down. Not because I was there, but because a journalist was. And because of that I could share in the awe of this physical symbol of Communism crumble.

{Original post from here}

SAFRAN: Your help during the Gaza pullout was amazing. The signs were in Hebrew, and you translated. Four years of Hebrew school and I could make out two letters. THAT's the way to make an impression.

Yeah, people will look at you cross-eyed when you tell 'em you're a journalist. Then a week like this will come along and remind us why we do what we do. The media is, in many ways, providing palpable help in this crisis. Journalists at the White House have been putting the tough questions to authorities - something they have often been accused of NOT doing.

TV news, web news, newspapers, radio - when a real news story comes along, we seem to find our way. We get lost amid the stupid shit too often -- but I'm proud to be in the media this month. You should be, too.

Oh - and I'm working the overnight tonight, so no complaints about your schedule...

Lyss:
I am proud. And glad that I could help out. There have been several key moments in my life when I felt that all the $$$ my parents spent on Jewish education has been helpful.

Who?

I wonder how long it will take me to learn everyone's name? And to remember those people to whom I have been introduced.....

Names changed to protect the innocent

Blogging at or about work has gotten some people fired. It's going to hard to blog about work and not mention such sticky topics as office politics (which I'm usually kind of oblivious to), interaction among co-workers, general rants about what someone did that annoyed me.So I'm going to try to preface any blogging I do here with these guidelines (whether Steve follows them is his business, he's higher up on the food chain than me and less disposable to the company).

• I won't use names, unless I've gotten permission from the person in question.
• I'll try to leave out any unnecessary details so as not to identify a co-worker that I might be ranting about.
• Hypothetical means just that.

SAFRAN: Agreed. We don't want to be in the business of slamming others. I don't think we should be doing full-on rants anyway, as this is more about our work relationship and less about others.

Welcome to the experiment

This blog will be an experiment in how technology can enhance and shape workplace relationships (no, not that kind of relationship! Get your mind out of the gutter). You will not only be subject to my opinions and rants but also those of my boss. I guess this means that he can't fire me because of my blogging.