Newsroom Management and Nuclear Research: Scarily Similar

One of Canada's most important civilian nuclear installations is located not far from Ottawa, at a place called Chalk River. Run by a federally funded organization, Atomic Energy of Canada, is a world-renowned research institution. For the past forty years, AECL has also been one of the world's foremost producers of radioactive isotopes, used in chemo and radiation therapy throughout North America and elsewhere.

This summer, Chalk River was suddenly forced to shut down for "maintenance," and may not be back producing isotopes anytime soon. Spokespersons for AECL can't say when Chalk River will be back in full production - if ever.

According to an important article the Toronto Globe and Mail("How Canada Let The World Down"), AECL middle management have been warning that this would happen for many months. But the federal government is, it seems, interested in divesting itself of Chalk River. No potential buyers have been identified.

This reminds me of how, too often, media organizations operate. Middle management has a perspective of what is required, and is ignored. Upper management has financial priorities at variance with the shorter term requirements of the organization. At AECL, the pressures from the government were, according to the Globe and Mail, eminently clear: no more money. The intent was to sell AECL to private interests. In short, "starve the beast" and sell it for ten cents on the dollar.

News organizations have in recent years, experienced similar financial pressures. News organizations that have been sold to hedge funds, or who now must answer to shareholders, have been told to cut spending - even if it means a poorer product. Any dissension from middle management ranks in media organizations is regarded as disloyalty. Groupthink rules. Not surprisingly, staffers in news organizations fear to speak up especially in difficult economic times.

Anyone looking to understand what is happening in media organizations would do well to study what is happening at AECL.

"A Failure to Communicate:" Shared Newsroom and Military Weaknesses

The Hurt Locker is the first American film that directly deals with the war in Iraq. It's wonderfully done, shot in a documentary/cinéma verité style: jerky camera movements, and overexposed outdoor sequences give a powerful sense of the metaphoric harshness in that part of the world. The viewer feels forced to squint as if he or she were there beside the characters. The story line concerns three American soldiers whose job is to defuse unexploded bombs before they wreak their mayhem on soldiers and civilians alike. The plot line is compelling and very similar to a British television drama from the 1970s - "Danger UXB" which tracked the lives of a bomb disposal unit in London during the blitz. In Iraq the danger to the unit was from Iraqi snipers; in London, it was from German bombers.

The tension in The Hurt Locker is constant. As a viewer, it felt as though I were there, hoping that the characters would survive another day to end their tour of duty intact. At the same time, each character is shown to be utterly human and flawed in some way which you fear may have consequences. Of course, there are terrible consequences.

There's an old expression: "when you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail." So I couldn't help thinking that the film says a lot about news organizations and news management.

The three protagonists are a lot like reporters and editors in a news organization. They know their job, they follow orders, no matter how absurd they may seem. The soldier/journalists are alienated from the organization overall even as they acknowledge the importance of the mission. And they resent anything that may get in their way of doing the job. In short, they are professionals.

Their superior officers are portrayed as martinets and fools, who when they deign to speak to the troops, do so in a language that is disconnected, nonsensical and self-aggrandizing. This allows the audience immediately to sympathize with the plight of the soldiers. We groan inwardly as officers opine in a completely facile way about the job at hand.

"How is it," you wonder, "did those men get promoted to be officers?"

My guess is that they demonstrated the appropriate skills when they were enlisted men and women, but somehow forgot lost something - such as an ability to communicate - on the way up.

Newsrooms can also be like that. Reporters who do well are promoted to editors. Editors are promoted into management. But the skills of skepticism and straight talk that are so valuable in the lower ranks of the organization often don't travel well up the line.

Officers and management see a loyalty to the larger organization and somehow forget the values that served them so well in the lower ranks. In the process, the culture of the newsroom floor/platoon becomes increasingly divorced from the culture of management/the officer corps.

The Hurt Locker is an effective film, but it never really goes beyond the emotional stereotypes that lock the characters into their roles that drive the plot forward. It's just not possible that all enlisted men are flawed heroes and all officers are idiots.

But the film deepens the sense of alienation within the ranks, without ever allowing nuance or subtlety to emerge as it often does in news organizations or within the military.

A Public Broadcaster's Farewell

David A. Anderson is a colleague who I worked with at CBC Radio back in the 80s and 90s. His title was Senior Editor - News Specials. In that capacity he planned, produced and did the studio direction of dozens on news specials, often on 10 minutes' notice.

At CBC Radio, a news special could be an election night program which involved months of planning, rehearsals and scheduling, or an immediate reaction to an event of such compelling interest and national importance, that, with the approval of senior management, the Radio News folks would interrupt regular programming, take over the network (usually over the howls of protest of local show producers whose programs we would knock off the air). It was not always done gracefully.

Dave was one of those indefatigable, no BS radio types. He was always there when it was hard slogging and pushing to go on the air, when the lines that had been booked for weeks mysteriously failed to materialize and when phone lines from Islamabad lived up to the last syllable of that place. Somehow, Dave managed to pull it all together. He did it mostly with calm and sometimes with a short-lived Vesuvius of profanity. In short, he was a pleasure to work with.

Dave had been at CBC Radio for more than thirty years. With the budgetary shortfall at the CBC, he was offered a "buyout" and he took it. I hope there is a replacement for what he did. I know there will be no one who can replace him or his powerful commitment to public broadcasting journalism in quite the same way.

Here's the note he sent out to all staff last week:

Campers,

This would be my last night checking email before
bedtime. Tomorrow I hand in my laptop and cell phone and accounts and
what amounts to 30 years of doing this shit. Tomorrow night I won't be
able to check email.

So, here's the what's next. I have had one of the most
wonderful careers possible. I've worked with the absolute best in this
profession. And, that's you lot.

I'm leaving because the new world has no room for
people like me. You are staying because you either can't leave or you
see a role that you can fill. Either way, it will be hard.

The new world order makes much of being new. I hope
that you will remember that journalism requires you to remember.
Journalism requires that you hold the history of shit that has happened.
If you don't there will be no stories to tell, only spin to repeat.
Hold the history.

Ask what cooking gas costs. Ask what it costs to commute
to work. Ask the shit that people can relate to. Most of all, ask why.

Right now you are not allowed to ask that question about
the nature of public broadcasting. One day you might.
When you can, ask why.

It has been a great run.

ttfn
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