By Ammara Durrani
Daniel Pearl Fellow
Assistant editor, The News International
Karachi, Pakistan
Hosted by the Los Angeles Times

It’s not easy to quantify lessons learned during almost half a year of as intensive and wide-ranging a program as this fellowship. The lessons are many, and perhaps I’m still in the process of identifying and understanding them myself. But the last five and a half months have made me see some major trends and practices in American journalism that are unique and, therefore, can serve as good models for journalists in other countries, especially in the developing world.

Three of these practices, standards and values are particularly noteworthy:
1. Accuracy, objectivity and ethics
2. Human interest
3. Investigative journalism

Of these, adherence to the first is the backbone of American journalism and a major factor behind its success. At home in Pakistan, consciousness for accuracy, objectivity and ethics is present among journalists, but it is not as well informed, finely tuned or strictly adhered to as in the United States. There is tremendous scope for ingraining these practices among our journalists, and no one can argue that calling for their inculcation in our day to day work would face resistance from anyone.

Talking about it with my colleagues as if it’s a revolutionary new concept won’t work. They are too smart to know its significance. Instead, it would be more practical and useful if I began supervising my sub-editors and reporters with a keener eye for detail. For instance, in every story that I assign to reporters, I need to remind them of getting the facts right and talking to all stakeholders at every step of the way. I need to ensure that while the reporters are out there collecting information, I should also keep myself informed of the story’s subject so that I am able to pick out any flaws or problems that may creep into the story.

As I do this at the desk, I should involve the copy-editors with me, delegating tasks while explaining to them the significance behind each action. This way, I hope to create a strong culture of cross-checking of facts and make sub-editors as responsible for the accuracy of a story as the reporters who have filed it. I must ensure that there is greater coordination between reporters and copy-editors rather than trying to run the show by myself as the assignment editor.

I need to train the two to work together on a story before it reaches me for final editing. The important lesson to be learned here is that at no point should one side feel that it is taking care of the story alone. Only when the reporter knows that what he has written is being correctly edited, only when a copy-editor knows that what she is editing is accurate, attributed, questioned and double-checked, and only when I ensure that these requisites are met before I do the final editing, would we be able to create a strong culture of shared accuracy and objectivity.

In our daily/weekly meetings, we need to discuss what worked and did not work in a story after it was published. Such discussions would give my boss, myself, my copy-editors and my reporters an open ground to evaluate our work as well as the work of our colleagues on a regular basis. It would also give us a chance to take up ethical issues and examples. Looking out for errors in a published story and reporting errors by other colleagues and readers must be encouraged. I should propose that running corrections be a regular feature of our newspaper, as all major U.S. papers do. I need to convince them that it would not be a source of embarrassment but an indication of our commitment to our readers and our profession.

While I increase my critical evaluation and supervision, I must ensure that I balance it with an equally motivational and encouraging leadership. I need to commend a good story or a good piece of editing. One way could be to initiate a plan of weekly/monthly naming of the best reporter, best copy-editor, best story, etc. These should be put up on the newspaper notice board with photographs of the winning staffers so that it creates a healthy competition as well as motivation for producing good work. Similarly, best ethical examples by staffers can also be identified and made known through the notice board, so that it encourages others to follow suit.

With increasing access to foreign journalism, many Pakistani journalists now understand the importance of style of newspaper writing. Few, however, have realized the significance of creating a human interest aspect, which is the basis of any well written story. Too often, our journalists single mindedly pursue government officials and experts to fill their stories with official wisdom and high knowledge, ignoring how an issue impacts common lives. American journalism is particularly good at inducing a human interest in stories, written in a manner that has a simple, universal appeal to young and old alike.

I need to make my colleagues understand that good journalism is not just about information and heavy-worded language, but more. We need to learn how to break down complex issues and ideas into simple stories aimed at our readers and not just at the officialdom and ivory towers of knowledge. One of the effective ways to bringing about this change is to insist upon my reporters that in every story they file, they must bring in a story of the man/woman/child on the street. They must introduce real life characters and their views while weaving the official and expert rhetoric around those real stories.

This way I hope to see my reporters do more ‘hustling’ rather than mere phone reporting. I must set down some basic pre-requisites of filing a story, in which the number of common people talked to and the number of officials and experts consulted must be equally balanced. If a story does not meet even one of those standards, I must tell the reporter to work on it again, until it has what it takes. It would be useful if a reference tip-sheet is created for reporters to consult as they write their stories. I plan on introducing the Poynter story outline forms in my newsroom as a start in that direction.

Another way of enhancing human interest in our stories would be to coordinate more with our photographers. Rather than just assigning the photographer to take pictures on his own, I need to brief them in as much detail as I used to brief the Los Angeles Times photographers about our story’s subject, and then ensure that the reporter and photographer go out in the field together. This way we would be able to give visual impressions of and faces to the names we use in our stories—a practice I learned at the Times and which is highly valued there. I must also ask the photographers to write their own captions for the pictures, rather than leaving it to the reporter/editor. This would encourage them to do responsible reporting for their pictures like the Times photographers do.

Given its dearth, there is tremendous potential for investigative reporting in Pakistan. This is an area that I’m particularly interested in fostering in my newsroom. This would require greater coordination with my boss and reporters, given its specialized nature. The first step should be to encourage our teammates to gather “pieces of string” in their routine reporting, which can later come in handy for investigative stories. In addition, we must build databases, lists of names, contacts and resources that would be available to any reporter who wants to do an investigative story. Such databases currently do not exist in my paper, and building them would go a long way in fostering investigative journalism.

Another way would be to form mini investigative reporting teams that are assigned specific goals such as producing X number of stories per year. We need to be careful to not be too ambitious. We must work around our limitations and yet push against them to produce something different and interesting every season. Copy-editors must not be ignored while creating investigative teams. They should be encouraged to delve into details of every story they edit, in case they stumble upon a startling nugget of information that has the potential of becoming a good investigative piece and which they can point to the editors. A practice of identifying the best investigative reporter or story will also help the growth of this branch of journalism at my paper.

Computer assisted reporting (CAR) is an important tool for investigative journalism, but not practical in Pakistan because we just don’t have the kind of databases that are used to process information on computers. Therefore, our attempt to build our own databases by pursuing information would be very useful. It would also pressurize governmental and non-governmental organizations to provide information in some format. And while we are at that, I would insist that all investigative reporters have a fair knowledge of access to information laws and rights in Pakistan so that we can make use of them accordingly. It would be a good idea to create tip-sheets on our information laws and techniques of collecting information.

Apart from working on the finer lines of these three areas, there are many other ways that I can share the lessons I have learned with my colleagues. I feel that reference documents, handouts, tip-sheets and style manuals are lacking in my newspaper. Creating those in a simple manner would greatly benefit my colleagues. I plan to use the books I bought from my training allowance, the literature I collected during conferences, and the resources I identified to create such handouts that I can distribute periodically.

While I have done that in the past, I need to increase referring my colleagues to training programs and resources related to journalism and also to their fields of interest and beats. Refreshing their knowledge and skills is equally important for our objectives.

In addition, I feel that I can use the Internet and email very effectively to spread these lessons not just among colleagues at my own paper but also to journalists across the country. I’m seriously thinking of launching an Internet-based project along these lines that would serve as a tool box and point of reference for Pakistani journalists. If it takes off, I plan to broaden it to include regional press at a later stage. I want this project to be independent of my employment, so that even when I’m between jobs, I’m producing work that would help journalists in their duties. It would be my personal endeavor to serve my profession and contribute to its growth.

For me, two important measuring tools for our success would be evaluating feedback from our readers and monitoring where, how often, and in what way our newspaper would be quoted for its content by other media.

I think personal spirit, enthusiasm and willingness to share are the main motivating factors that also act as gluing agents between you and your team. I know that I will often have to take the initiative and pursue it relentlessly in order for my colleagues to become interested. Usually, people wait for someone else to take the lead and they are happy to follow. If I’m able to do that and also create a fair division of labor and responsibility, it should take us one step closer to our objectives.

It would not be realistic to assume that these objectives would be achieved overnight or in weeks. Framing a timeline, therefore, is difficult at this stage. Given many odds, success can only be measured in months and, more realistically, years. I know this from past experience that many of the new ideas and plans I introduced in my section did not show positive results until after about six to eight months. But I do know that once we are able to build a standard and momentum, it becomes relatively easy to follow it from that point.

For all the negativity that Wal-Mart gets, I admire that organization for how it motivates its employees and celebrates its successes. I think we can learn a lot from organizations like Wal-Mart to see how they reward their outstanding employees and celebrate their successes. I have always endeavored in the past to celebrate my success with my colleagues through treats and parties as well as making favorable recommendations for their annual evaluations and writing references for their professional growth program initiatives. The challenge is to keep up this positive attitude even when things don’t work your way sometimes. You wait for a better time and opportunity, while continuing to work towards a tiny goal with as many people you can gather around it. After all, the essence of every objective lies in the struggle made towards it.