By Ákos Beöthy
Deputy Head of the Foreign Desk, Világgazdaság (World Economy)
Budapest, Hungary
Hosted by The Philadelphia Inquirer

My great mentor at the Inquirer, Maria Panaritis always says she cannot think of a profession that is more fun than journalism. Even if newspapers have been plagued by massive lay-offs, shrinking employee benefits and increasing workload for reporters and editors for the past couple of years.

During my fellowship, I have learned that what makes journalism fun is in fact what makes it good in professional terms. So when I try to change some ways journalism is done in my home newsroom, I will just help my colleagues to have more fun on their jobs.

The first and most important ingredient to have more fun and to write better stories is breaking away from routine. Starting right with the way we develop story ideas. Why do we have to rely on our government and company sources, acting more like a PR-agency than journalists? Why don’t we open our eyes and let our natural curiosity guide us off the beaten track?

To reinforce this attitude in my newsroom, I will suggest that our management should encourage reporters writing stories outside of their regular beat. This is how reporters can rediscover their creativity and find ideas they are really passionate about. Hopefully, the result will be better written and more colorful stories for the paper, and journalists having more fun in the newsroom.

I said in the newsroom? Well, maybe they should – and they will – spend more time outside the newsroom, where real people and their real stories are…

Once you have a story idea that you really care about, you won’t take it as an unpleasant burden to find as many sources as possible to dig out the facts. But of course it helps if you know where to look, and with the resources I have gathered during my fellowship and at the Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) conference in the first place, I will be able to give useful tips to my colleagues.

It is not enough to have contact details of your potential sources; you also have to establish a fruitful relationship with them. Observing how great reporters at the Inquirer conduct their interviews, I learned a lot in this field. And what I can suggest to my colleagues at home is not a burdensome practice again: enjoy themselves when talking to people, let their open mind and curiosity guide them when asking questions. If you are really interested in the person you are talking to, you will communicate much more effectively. It is that simple.

Then comes writing. I have learned lots of useful things about good writing at Poynter, at a narrative writing workshop I attended and also at the Inquirer. But the most important element has much to do, again, with breaking away from routine.

We usually don’t think much of writing at home; once we have a bunch of information, we just type it in the computer. That is not fun at all -- for the writer or for the reader.

But how much more fun it would be to write a story if we always asked ourselves the question: what is our story really about? Why is it important? What does it tell about life? If we approach our work with the intention of telling meaningful stories that really matter, we can make so much more out of even routine daily assignments. We will have a clearer picture of how to structure our stories, keeping the reader engaged instead of just shooting facts at them.

Having fun and taking ourselves more seriously go hand in hand. We enjoy our work better because we believe it is important. Important, because we have stories to tell that matter. And because they matter, we set high standards for ourselves throughout the creative process, from reporting to writing.

And this approach answers several ethical questions too. Questions I haven’t even thought about before. At home, it is absolutely normal that journalists send their drafts to their sources before publication. In the United States, this is unimaginable. Now I understand why. Journalists here are proud of their work, which they regard as their own, not that of their sources. Isn’t it much more fun to work this way, giving respect to ourselves?

Then there is the question of accepting gifts/trips from companies we write about. In Hungary this is normal practice but in the United States it is impossible. No doubt, we also should quit this practice if we want to take ourselves seriously.

This is a more problematic question, however, as journalists in my country rely on invitations from companies to events they could not otherwise go to, given the lack of their newspapers’ financial resources. But to begin with, we should at least realize that these are sticky situations where we must be extremely cautious to keep our independent voice.

Thinking back to my experience and all the things that I have learned in the United States, it feels good to realize that the secret of becoming better journalists is nothing more than valuing and enjoying our work more. And this will be the key to the success of sharing my knowledge with my colleagues at home. Who does not want to realize that their job is more fun and important than they thought?

In my newsroom, I will therefore concentrate on informal talks with my colleagues, trying to build relationships with those who are not satisfied with the current standards of routine production. I will talk to them regularly about their current assignments, sharing my thoughts with them about possible new approaches. As an editor, I can also reinforce this attitude within my section by giving assignments that require more creativity from reporters, and helping them find the beauty in them.

Outside the newsroom, I hope to be able to organize a seminar on investigative journalism under the umbrella of one of my country’s journalists’ associations. The main goal of this would be to draw attention to the opportunities that we have in this far too abandoned field.

Hopefully, we will be able to conclude that we cannot just sit around complaining and blaming our passivity on the lack of resources: if we believe in our own importance, and if we want to enjoy a meaningful job, we can give investigative stories a shot.