Why editors should stick to editing (Updated)

(See UPDATE at the bottom of this entry).

I may need to get back into Gannett someday, so I'll be careful here. But not much.

I tend to stay away from instant analysis, because many of our first impressions of great historic events often are wrong. But it has been great entertainment: listening and reading as folks on the right side of the political spectrum have gone after Carolyn Washburn, editor of the Des Moines Register, for her "moderation" of the political debates in Iowa. The part about asking the Republicans to raise their hands on global warming and Fred Thompson's response was a classic.
Washburn's performance has been panned. I'm almost sorry I didn't see it, for the same reason I'm sorry no satellite TV channel carries reruns of "Samurai Pizza Cats." Some things are so bad, they're good.

There is a reason newspaper editors should avoid this sort of self-important stunt. Editors edit. At the executive level, they worry about having enough pages to print the news. They continually count how many writers, photographers, artists and editors they have at their disposal. They manage budgets. They control gung-ho reporters who want to get everything in print, no matter who it may offend. They set policy on naming crime victims in print. The tell photographers they need to shoot more horizontal photos and fewer vertical ones. And in Gannett, which owns the Des Moines Register, they write reports on all of the stuff that corporate finds important but about which customers care not one bit.

When we at The Herald-Dispatch feel the need to have a public forum to discuss a topic of public interest, such as the safety of Interstate 64 or the problems with vagrants taking over a park, we cooperate with a television station. The TV folks are much better at putting a face to the events. Channel 3 anchor Tim Irr is much more skilled at speaking before a crowd and moving things along than one of us print jackals. A lot of us are in newspapers because we have the perfect face and voice for print.

The Des Moines Register and its editor got the publicity they wanted. The amount of publicity, at least.

As I said in the title line, editors should stick to editing. Just because you have been anointed a manager by a corporate executive does not necessarily qualify you to move into the show-biz side of this business.

UPDATE: Every Friday, Gannett sends out something called Newswatch, an in-house newsletter for newsroom managers and serfs. Last week's issue had an article from the Des Moines Register's editor and opinion page editor telling of how planning for this debate started a year ago. Yes, they had a whole year to plan it and perfect it.

Here is the first sentence of that article:

The staff of The Des Moines Register is honored and humbled to be at this place at this time.

Here is the last paragraph of that article:

Through this all, we have applied a combination of traditional approaches and new digital techniques to help readers track all of this and learn about the candidates. It’s great to use new tools to meet the needs of readers in new ways. It’s also critical to deliver on readers’ need for us to be a credible expert in such an important and complex time.

For what it's worth, this week's edition of Newswatch did not have anything on the debate.

You can find an index of Newswatch articles here.

I would love to be a fly on the Register's newsroom wall this week to hear what everyone is whispering. I would put a news person's ability to gossip up with anyone else's.