By Pablo Izmirlian
Journalist, El Observador
Montevideo, Uruguay
Hosted by The Washington Post

After almost five months at The Washington Post I have realized that a newsroom here and one in Uruguay are not that different. We share the core values of journalism: independence, critical thought, ethical behavior, accuracy, professionalism, and respect to our readers.

Likewise, journalists are not much different. A diverse crowd, with its usual funny characters, weirdos, workaholics, wise men, teachers and young newcomers.

However, I could point out a long list of differences, some related to culture and cultural values, language, personal interaction or resources. I mention resources because there are a lot of things that I have seen here that require resources unheard of in a small country like Uruguay.

However, there are a whole lot of other different practices that can be done in my newsroom as well, that do not require great investment but just taking advantage of our existing resources in a more efficient way, being more transparent with our readers, underscoring our commitment to them. I have reflected over those differences, and inspired by them I came up with ideas that could help introduce changes in my newsroom back at home; changes that will ultimately make our commitment to them stronger and push our newspaper to become a place where excellence is the standard, no matter the economical ups and downs. I will choose three very different items that require little or no money.

The intern program
Since the 1960s, The Post has run an intern program. Len Downie Jr., the current Executive Editor, was an intern himself. The newspaper is committed to it and regularly hires interns that become part of the staff. As an Alfred Friendly Fellow I actively participated in almost every activity with the summer interns. It gave me a deeper understanding of the program and made me reflect on the way interns have been regarded lately at my home newsroom.

What I have seen is that the program is aimed to integrate the young journalists as much as possible into the whole newsroom. There are formal instances, like the Welcome Lunch. There are casual ones, like the famous bus tour or the party at Phil Bennett’s house. There are a series of talks by the most experienced staff or the people at the top of the newsroom and the company. In this way, the intern program is coherent, rewarding and educational.

As an intern myself at El Observador, I learned a lot. I knew almost nothing about journalism before. However, in the last few years, I have seen how the new interns are tossed into the newsroom with almost zero guidance, to do what they can, how they can. Thus the experience turns into a very frustrating one. The results are not very promising nor helpful to the development of these journalists nor the newspaper.

What I want to propose to the upper management of El Observador is that the current intern program should be revised. The newcomers should be exposed to the ideas and core values of the newspaper from the first day, through formal and informal instances, with the most experienced journalists and with the youngest (and former interns) as well. Get to know the newsroom, its tools, its resources, its hierarchies and the company behind it. Only then will the intern program become a true training ground for future journalists. Today, sadly, it has become just a source of cheap labor, badly sewn patches on a ragged blanket.

Because my newspaper has had interns for some time now, the whole concept is not something new. It just has to be revised. I guess that in a few months major improvements could be done. The evaluation will be the feedback we get from the next generation of interns. And celebrate we will by welcoming the new members to the family when they eventually are hired.

The corrections box
Mistakes happen. For all the effort that reporters, editors and copy editors put in the making. At the same time, popularity, consideration and circulation are in decline. This happens in the USA and also in Uruguay.

To acknowledge mistakes is a common practice in Uruguay. El Observador runs corrections every once in a while. But not always. Corrections appear on the same page the mistakes happened. They become something random that the reader can’t necessarily relate to.

Compiling all the corrections in the correction box on page 3 makes it easier for the reader to find it. And it encourages the readers to speak up if they see mistakes that should be amended. In a way it opens a window to see what goes on in the newsroom, that the newspaper is done by people that sometimes may incur mistakes, and to state that those mistakes will be promptly exposed and fixed. Ultimately, it builds trust. And trust, we know, is the ultimate asset newspapers rely on. Again, I think that implementing this change should not be a big problem. It is an idea to be discussed with the top editors. The success will be measured with readers reactions to this new standing feature, and the eventual collaborations to it we get from them.

Features on A1
Sadly, we sometimes hear that the features section is a “necessary evil” for our newspaper. El Observador was originally a hard news political and economical Monday to Friday newspaper. When it came of age and became a full newspaper, it had to append more sections, like Arts and Features. Those sections evolved to become what now is O2, a distant relative of what The Post’s Style section is.

However, it is rare that feature stories make it to our front page. Yes, we have a small box that refers to them, but nothing you can read if you pass by a newsstand. On top of that, we hear more and more how people barely read the headlines in the “main” sections like National, Economy and Foreign, but enjoy our features beginning to end in O2.

My proposition here is to start experimenting and give space to features on the front page. I am sure the benefits will be tremendous. It is showing one of the best crafted “products” in the newspaper of that day. Again, success will be measured by readers feelings and our own satisfaction of better displaying the contents of our newspaper in a more attractive front page.

Other ideas