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“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
George Santayana.
Most of us have heard the quote. Many of us use it as a mantra. After all, as journalists, we believe it is our mission to inform others so they will not repeat the mistakes of the past. And many of us believe that we, ourselves, could not possibly ignore the past.
Wrong.
In the newsroom, we become so focused on where we are that we rarely take a look at how we got there. It is today’s news, today’s story, today’s photo, today’s design that holds us in their grasp. We are so caught up in today’s paper that yesterday’s issue seems light years in the past. Our focus on the present is so intense, so myopic that we ignore what we did yesterday, we have trouble recalling what we did last week and we are completely out of touch with last month. Last year didn’t exist.
We are, therefore, doomed to relive the mistakes we made yesterday, last week, last month, last year.
And those of us who design pages are no less victims of ourselves than any of the editors or reporters with whom we toil.
There is a solution—and it’s a simple one. So simple that most of us ignore it. The solution? Look back. Evaluate. Check the footprints in the sand before the tide comes in to wash them away.
On every important project, take the time to evaluate your work openly and honestly. Gather with those editors, reporters and designers who were part of the team and go over your work together. The evaluation is not about pointing fingers or fixing blame—it’s about doing it better the next time.
Here are some tips:
Wait a couple of weeks: Let the project go for a while and get on with other work. This helps you do a dispassionate review.
Include all staffers in your review who were involved in the project—not just the editors who oversaw the project or those who designed the pages. Often, reporters or others have important insights that will help you do a better job the next time. If it helps, include managers and staff from other departments such as production—they can often tell you why something may have gone wrong at the last moment
Examine all steps of the project—from inception to production—to pinpoint those elements or issues that might foster improvement.
Focus on planning: what could have been better?
Focus on the project: not the people involved.
Look inside yourself—and encourage others to do the same: what mistakes did you make? What could you have done better?
Keep tearsheets: When you’re working on next year’s Super Bowl section, you’ll be glad you kept the pages from this year—and last year. Those pages help you to remember what you did right and wrong—and what you’ll want to do differently next year.
Keep notes: These will help remind you of what you learned in the evaluation session—and what you can use from that session to apply to special efforts in the future.
The evaluation session helps you to do an unemotional, thorough review of your work on a project—so you can do a better job on it (and similar projects) the next time.
If you don’t want to do it better the next time, why bother doing it at all?
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