Cross-training newsroom

Cross training is essential to keeping a small newsroom running efficiently and effectively for times when staff members are sick, take vacation or leave for another position.

Taking calls from little league coaches on game results, handling the engagement announcements for the Sunday edition, writing obituaries and doing the cops report. The list is endless in the tasks members of a small newsroom handle on a daily basis.

As the editor of any weekly or small daily can tell you, every person in the newsroom wears many hats. For example, staff writer Karen Freeman covers court, a local school board, the hospital board, the health beat and is the family editor and the entertainment editor. However, on any given day she may also write the obituaries, take a photo, cover another town board, write the daily cops report or layout pages.

The need to have reporters able to handle these multiple tasks has never been more apparent than in the past two months in my own newsroom. With an opening for a cops reporter – an entry-level position – we considered a stack of applicants before deciding to hire Lexey Collins, an intern from the previous summer. Bright, hardworking, enthusiastic, a self-starter and a good writer, she fit the bill. The one catch – she wouldn’t graduate from college for six more weeks.

After considering that it would take six to eight weeks to interview and hire another applicant, and wait for them to relocate, we decided to hold the position for Lexey. That, of course, meant our other reporters would have to handle extra duties while taking care of their own beats. If you have ever worked in small newsroom, you known this is commonplace.

Then our sports editor of more than 16 years decided to resign and move to Florida. Less than a week after his departure, news editor Matt Williamson was trying to figure out which way was up as he worked on the front page, budgeted the sports pages, took calls for game results and calendar announcements, and tried to decipher the results of a baseball game with the help of photographer Aaron Rhoads and obituary writer Emily Rembert. I now know that DP is a double play and LOB stands for left on base.

We’ll be pretty frazzled for the next few weeks while we wait for Lexey to graduate and interview candidates for our sports editor position. A few things I’ve learned over the years that have helped me in these situations:
Train at least two other people in the newsroom to build pages. They don’t have to be award-winning designers, sometimes all you need is someone to get the copy on the page and to the press.

Look for opportunities to train staff members to handle tasks outside their own jobs. For instance, page designer Aimee Romano is being trained to do our community calendar. That will free up some time for the reporters and help on the production side as well.

Have at least one extra camera, preferably a digital, in the office and train everyone on how to use it. This is essential for times when your photography is sick or running late on another assignment, and someone needs to take a photo. In our newsroom, every staff member has a digital camera they keep with them. For around $200 per camera, the benefits are worth the expense. The reporters have used them for spot news items, for taking award presentations at board meetings and snapping photos when the photographer is not available.

Make sure at least two other staff members now how to handle the essential things from writing obituaries to taking a wedding announcement or a coach’s call with game results. Reporters should be able to handle just about anything that comes out them.

Most importantly, relax. The paper always gets done somehow.