When I was a young girl my father taught me some telephone etiquette: “Smile when you speak. People need to hear you smiling.”
In my late teens, as I was writing up the newsletter for a performing arts company, the director told me, “Don’t sound so depressed when you write.”
When I became editor of The Newsroom, Macleay’s Head of Journalism gave me some advice: “It’s mostly about human nature. Some need stick and some need carrot.”
People are the reason journalism is so interesting, challenging and rewarding. As much as we have a job to do, we have people to work with. Journalism is people writing to people about other people.
As editor I am rapidly acquiring a formidable people-skills toolkit to carry with me at all times. One of the greatest lessons I have learnt in The Newsroom is to leave personal feelings (within reason… no one wants a robot) at the door.
So this week, my tutor and I sat down with members of the team to find out what their ambitions and desires were in regard to their career as journalists. By simply encouraging the passions that they already had we managed to increase our productivity dramatically.
In the spirit of communication, our editors got to chat with some very keen journalism students of the Renmin University in China. I have added Skype to my list of annoying yet essential programs. When the connection was clear, I was very interested to see how they handle study and how passionately they compare China’s media to Western media. They were also very proud of their country’s recent steps towards complete democracy – the ” National People’s Congress (NPC)“
These are some of the stories that resulted from those discussions: Health problems? It’s sweet mate, Have a very Nyepi new year!, Australian students pay more and get less and Stosur’s calf concern.
Make sure you check ’em out!
– Danielle Jarvis
Photo from HikingArtist.com’s Flickr photostream.
About the author
