Challenges overcome

Every job brings with it certain challenges that need to be overcome. I've found as a supervisor myself, the best employees are usually the ones who do not need a lot of hand holding and can muster a hearty degree of their own ingenuity. 

Here are a few problems I've encountered and solved on the job. Some seemed so obvious to me, I couldn't believe nobody at some of these companies had ever thought of them before. Others required a fair amount of thought. 

Implementing a database of Living Section articles at The Journal

I started a database at the Journal for past stories from my department, which we called "The Living Section." My boss, Crystal, and I both started full time about the same time. Although she'd been a part time employee for a few months and I'd been a freelancer, neither of us had much sense of the kinds of stories that had been done in our section in the years or even months prior to our time there. The paper's archiving strategy was random and haphazard. The last six-to-nine months' worth of editions were haphazardly shoved in a closet and that was about all that was kept except for some topical clippings that were kept in folders, although this practice almost wholly involved stories from the news section. 

I spent a night at the local library pulling up Living Section fronts from the year before and logging them by day. That at least gave us a sense of what had come immediately before us. Some duplication of subjects was likely in the coming year (about 2000) but at least now we had a sense of what and whom had been written about in the prior year.

I also started logging every story that ran in our section and the date it ran. This came in enormously handy in the years ahead as we had a failsafe document at which to refer to quickly locate a publication date for any story we might need. And "What did we do last year?" was also a common question as the perennial events worked with best with some modicum of a fresh approach. Keep in mind, too, this although this wasn't exactly pre-web, The Journal's website at the time was little more than a glorified Yellow Pages ad with contact information. Some news stories were loaded, but our section's content was not. So Googling to find out what we'd done or searching within our own site was not an option. 

Within a month or two of working in The Journal's Living Section, I quickly realized the kinds of assignments I was receiving would benefit from having some solid "go to" expert sources to weigh in. With everything from "ensuring safety in packing school lunches" to "how to explain 9-11 to your kids," locals speaking of their personal experiences would only get you so far. I developed a stable of local professionals from a bounty of fields (everything from nurses and psychologists to people who remove carpets stains for a living) as these topical stories lived and died on the quality of their expert advice. I had to learn not to lean too heavily on any one source. A family psychologist in the region proved extraordinarily useful and I leaned on her for many pieces, but I was also mindful of source diversity as well.


Implementing a comprehensive database of past "Citizen of the Year" winners at Gateway Newspapers

Another issue that sent me plumbing into the dusty Microfilm files for information not available online. This company gave "Citizen of the Year" awards (chosen by the editorial staff) to community leaders each year. The only problem was that the two municipalities I was responsible for (Monroeville and Pitcarin, Pa.) had no records of who'd won in each of the last 30 or so years since the awards began. I excavated all previous winners and compiled a master list so we knew there would be no duplication. 

Managing problem staff at Washington Blade

My first ventures into management at Washington Blade brought challenges, as is inevitable. The first group of reporters I supervised were obviously not people I'd hired, so I had to take what I had. One reporter, in particular, was not a self starter and, in time, came to be quite problematic. She was the type who would bring me to my wit's end with her mediocre-at-best performance, then come through with something fairly decent just when you were about to write her up or have a serious talk. This cycle repeats and drags things out for months. Although she eventually left of her own volition for another job, and thus I cannot fully claim this was a problem I "solved," by gradually learning to raise the expectations and learning not to fall for her endless "this-is-the-best-I-could-come-up-with" sob stories, I inspired her to seek another job on her own without having to fire her myself (which would have eventually happened, had she stayed).

When I came back in 2010, I found two more problem people on my plate. One was an intern, the other a freelance contributor. Both had rallied for the Blade during its darkest days and both had some redeeming qualities to their work, so my boss (who'd brought them in the stable) was reluctant to let them go. Both needed to go as they shared a common workplace liability — a chronic inability to meet deadlines. The intern was especially troublesome to get rid of as my boss would say, "Well, at least she gets us calendar and briefs every week — that counts for something." True to a point, but a pretty lazy reason to keep a woefully underperforming person on staff.

I eventually convinced my boss to let me fire her by having two back-up interns trained and ready to sail; the likelihood of them both flaking out (which neither ended up doing) was slim. They were presented to staff as "extra summer help" (our busiest season at the Blade with Pride every June). By this time, the problem intern was told she was being phased out because the position was designed for someone still in school (she'd graduated by then). It wasn't entirely that simple — I let her know there'd been problems with her performance. In a lengthy e-mail exchange she tried to turn this back on us by saying "no one on staff had ever befriended her" (which was absurd). I wished her well. 

Without going into all the particulars, I handled the problem freelancer much the same way. One has the luxury with a freelancer of not having to officially sever ties — one can simply stop sending him assignments, which is what I did. But the key in convincing my boss that it was time to let these folks go happened by having solid people ready to step seamlessly into their places before the ties were cut. Tricky when payroll only allows for one person in a position at a time, a problem that took a little creative personnel juggling to solve.

My management philosophy has become hire slow, fire fast. I believe in giving the benefit of the doubt a few times, but in my experience it becomes apparent pretty quickly which folks are the types to take advantage of that and which are not (it's uncanny how often the same people are the repeat offenders). 

Ensuring coverage diversity at Washington Blade

Although one may not think of there being much need for diversity at a paper whose raison d'être is a minority group, it became pretty obvious early on after I took over the features department at the Blade, that I was going to have to be more proactive about getting more diversity in our Queery column (20 questions in which a different person is profiled each week).

We fell into ruts where we had white gay man after white gay man after white gay man, etc. — sometimes for a month or more in a row. Even if they were all pegged to events coming up in that particular week's news cycle, this quickly becomes boring, unimaginative, lazy and stultifying. There was no simple "quick fix" to the problem, but by proactively seeking more lesbians, bisexuals, transgender people and people of color, the column has slowly become more reflective of the D.C. LGBT community over time. This is a practice I would like to continue no matter what I may end up doing in the future. 

Ensuring diversity on staff has been more of a challenge. I think I've hired two black interns and by sheer coincidence, sadly, had to fire them both. I love hiring diverse people but at the end of the day, I need employees who can deliver on time. 

Bone tossing at Washington Blade

Another challenge I've delighted in overcoming is learning how to "toss bones." Many event organizers, of course, would like a huge feature on every event they host. This is unrealistic and quite often mere event promotion does not make for compelling journalism.

But by having enough "filler"-type real estate available in each weekly edition, I am able to give lots of folks a little coverage and also do readers a great service by giving them a little information about a lot of different events. Except for support groups or clubs that meet on a monthly basis, I've been able to grant paper space to every LGBT-specific event in Washington whose organizers have requested coverage in the last five years or so, provided they got the information to me promptly.

I've even managed to do this hundreds of times for those who did NOT get their listings to me promptly and for support groups and other recurring gatherings. It's often amazing how little it takes to please rational people. Sometimes just getting an event listed for them or showing up at their cocktail party or awards dinner is enough to show you care. 

Bringing the Blade back to life

The story of the Blade's death and rebirth has been told many times, especially back in late 2009 and early 2010 when it happened. What happened in a nutshell was that Window Media, an umbrella company that had owned the paper less than 10 years, was in receivership and suffering from the combined effects of the worst U.S. recession since the Great Depression and years of what I can only surmise — having seen things from an inside track — were poor financial decisions. The decade-plus-long pain of the newspaper industry trying to continue to make money while readers migrated to the internet further exacerbated the situation.

We came to work one day in November, 2009 and were told the paper was being closed and we had until about 3 p.m. to gather our things and vacate the offices in the National Press Club building. Even though we knew Window Media was in bad shape, we had thought for months the paper would simply be sold to a new entity and there were two known parties attempting to buy it. I don't know why the Window Media owners opted to pull the plug instead of sell to the highest bidder, but for some reason they did. 

Having just celebrated the paper's 40th anniversary, none of us who worked there wanted to see the Blade die so we met in a coffee shop in the Press Club building the next day and quickly started making plans to soldier on. About 75 percent of Blade employees were involved in this endeavor, though several dropped out in the early weeks. Lynne Brown (who had been Blade publisher), Kevin Naff (Blade editor) and Brian Pitts (a sales rep) formed Brown-Naff-Pitts and spearheaded the effort. 

It was very modest at first. The first two weeks we ran off editions at Kinkos but were back on a traditional newspaper press for the third week. Not one issue was missed. We didn't immediately have the rights to use the Blade name, so we were known as D.C. Agenda for four months, but by April, 2010, we were officially Washington Blade again after Brown-Naff-Pitts secured the rights to the company's assets in bankruptcy court. So despite briefly having a different name, the Washington Blade has published continuously since 1969. We celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2019. To the best of my knowledge, it's the oldest continually operating LGBT newspaper in the world. 

I volunteered the first couple months, as we all did. By early 2010, I was being paid by the piece and was doing basic article and calendar work for the features section. I came back on as a full-time employee in August, 2010, initially as features and multimedia editor, but then, some time thereafter, simply as features editor. I enjoyed the website work but simply didn't have time to do both jobs sufficiently. The Blade owners recognized this and eventually made multimedia editor its own position. 

My position was eliminated in July, 2020 due to revenue curtailments that resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic. It was not performance related. I continue to freelance for the Blade.