The water’s fine

The DTH opens its doors tomorrow to about 150 journalism babies. Recruitment is over, we oriented them Saturday and tomorrow many of them will be working on their very first stories/photographs/graphics/pages/etc. I expect lots of questions along the lines of “How do I dial out on the phone?” “Where do I type my article?” and “What’s my deadline?”

All of the editors, who have been putting out the paper these last four weeks with a bare-bones staff left over from last year, are incredibly excited about this batch of new staff. As inexperienced as they are, they are manpower. 

But all of the editors are a little scared too – everyone feels a great sense of responsibility to these new staff. Last year we hired 185 new staff (we hire everyone…), but by the end of the semester, less than half remained. The DTH isn’t for everyone, and there’s a weeding out process. But we also lose a lot of talented folks that we end up wishing hadn’t weeded themselves out.

We hired a news adviser for the first time this year. We’re behind a lot of our peer-newspapers in hiring an adviser, and part of what we feel Erica can help us with is with retention. She’ll be meeting with every single new staff member at least once this semester formally, and is going to serve as a writing coach/internship-search-resource/calm voice. 

Erica is going to really help where new staffers fall in the cracks. It’s not that desk editors don’t want to be a resource, but sometimes they don’t have the time or the experience themselves to really serve as a help. And hopefully Erica can help our editors be better editors. She’s there for us, too.

Here are my goals for helping new staff transition to the DTH:

• I’m going to learn their names. All 100 and however many of them there are. As a freshman, there was nothing more exciting for me than when management called me by my name. Or said hi to me when they saw me outside the newsroom.
• I’m going to be patient when answering even the most seemingly obvious of questions.
• I’m going to explain every change I make when editing. I think editing should be a conversation. My best editors have always edited that way, and as a reporter, I think you learn better by talking it out. And I think I edit better this way, too.
• I’m going to make a big deal to them of getting their stories in the paper, especially on front or page three. I cut out every single article I wrote freshman year and taped them to my dorm wall. Seeing your name in print is a really big deal.
• I’m going to find something positive to say about something in everything they do.