Christian Cornelius spoke with Barry Wain, South East Asia correspondent of the Asian Wall Street Journal. Wain started his career in the early 60s in Brisbane having worked with Channel Nine, Australian Broadcasting Corporation and later The Australian a national broadsheet; and in the 70s the Far Eastern Economic Review and ASWJ in Hong Kong. He was AWSJ’s correspondent in Kuala Lumpur (1977) and diplomatic correspondent for Dow Jones in Bangkok (1979) before being appointed editor of AWSJ (1988-92) in Hong Kong, and writing a weekly editorial column as editor-at-large (1992-2001). Wain currently works from home in Singapore, filing his stories to both AWSJ and FER by phone and email and "only going to the office once a week".
How do you perceive the standards of accuracy in newspapers?
I think it does vary enormously and I am still surprised at the standards of newspapers in Asia, the national newspapers in particular. There really tends to be a sloppiness with facts. I was at an ASEAN meeting in Brunei in July (2002) for instance and found that government officials could just say anything and journalists from the region would just write it down without questioning it. I must say I can’t blame some of the reporters because some simply do not have a background in some of the subjects, but it certainly is not good if you want to provide an accurate picture of what is happening. If you are talking of simply getting the facts right then I have to say that in Asia too there is a lot of that, some of it I think can almost be seen as careless disregard. The thing that always strikes me when I go back to Australia is the way the papers there mix up opinion and facts. My paper is very adamant that the opinion page belongs inside, but I’ve noticed that Australian papers allow news to be interpreted in a very personal way. I find when I go back that my old paper, ‘The Australian’ is probably one of the biggest offenders in this respect.
Many journalism graduates can’t even write or spell. How do you respond to this general observation made by media practitioners?
Well, I know the American system only and we don’t differentiate between journalism and other graduates with us. Everyone we hire is a graduate. I think we generally go for the qualities in the person and not their particular degree. The AWSJ does not hire entry-level people and so it is quite a while since I last had a look at applications so perhaps I am not in such a good position to answer that. I think it simply varies. Some people are naturally good writers, others need to learn and pick it up. Some people I know are notoriously bad at spelling but good at everything else. I suppose the suggestion is that journalism schools don’t teach properly, but I really can’t tell.
What type of training does a sub-editor need?
Dow Jones tends to have people who are career editors. A lot of these people become sub-editors and stay that way, although they may move from an ordinary copy-editing desk for general news to more specialized stories or features. Dow Jones has a news wire, which involves a lot of instant reporting and editing. Quite often entry-level people will be given their initial training on the editing side or reporting and editing, and then according to where their strengths are they are assigned. At the AWSJ sub-editors are former journalists who after a few years of experience show an interest in sub-editing and are allowed to have a go. If it works out they often adopt that as a career. Some people of course will go back and forth between reporting and editing but others are just simply better at one or the other. Editing does not involve going out and making contacts and socializing and there are people who feel they can make a far greater contribution to journalism through editing. I’ve run into some very fine editors in my career who could always suggest a way in which a story could be made better, no matter how good you thought your writing was.
What common problems do sub-editors or editors face daily?
When I first started working for the AWSJ we had a very small staff and I actually worked as a copy-editor for six months. I have to say that I found it very difficult. Previously I had done some copy-editing for the Far Eastern Economic Review, but the more relaxed editing of a magazine in those days was very different from copy-editing for a daily newspaper. There was more pressure in terms of time and I had to deal with things like different typeface and size, a lot of technical stuff. You were sometimes given a word count and had to re-write stories to fit and in addition you had to make sure that technically it would fit as well. I must say I never found it very easy.
How do you judge a good story?
Again it depends on the publication. I follow the BBC World Service on the radio on a daily basis and I have to say that they are very predictable in what they judge as important. The same goes for Voice of America. It is harder to answer that for general newspaper though. For the South China Morning Post I imagine it’s a matter of the personal feeling or attitude of the editor. With us at the ASWJ it is not nearly as difficult because we are essentially a business paper. As the Asian edition of the Wall Street Journal we would try to balance the worldwide coverage of important story with our locally collected Asian news. I think the job of judging stories becomes quite easy after a while. In fact as editor I did not really have to make many selections myself because the various levels or editors would start making selections early in the day. After a while it becomes self evident which stories are important so that you hardly think about it anymore. With other papers I don’t know how it is handled. Some papers for instance have a policy of having at least one off beat story on the front page. Then again if you’re a tabloid you need stories and headlines that jump out at people and you need to appeal to the lowest common denominator in cases. It’s difficult to put into words but here at the journal if a reporter gets a hold of something and we put it across to each other we instinctively know whether it’s good or not. I suppose that’s an unsatisfactory answer, but when you have been working in the field for a long time and some one asks that question you think why would they ask that, its obvious isn’t it!
What principles or guidelines do you follow in sub-editing?
Well I only spent six months on the copy desk at the AWSJ but in general you need to be very precise. You need to have a firm grasp of language, spelling, grammar and so on. You also need to be very aware of the style that you’re writing in. I can’t really answer that well enough though. I have always been a reporter at heart and sub-editing I found to be very challenging work.
How common is it for sub-editors and reporters to be at odds in the newsroom?
I think that very much depends on the organization you work for and the sort of culture that develops. I think in my company, Dow Jones, things have always been quite different from what I remember working in Australian papers. In fact I remember quite a few unhappy experiences. Admittedly I was a very young reporter then, but I do remember unhappy experiences including things like having stories changed and then seeing them in print and getting a shock. But the way journalism is practised in our company editors will often suggest, if they think it is appropriate, re-writing a story. But in every case that is done in consultation with the reporter. So there is always a backwards and forwards, a give and take. Somehow you will have to reach an agreement because in the end no one is going to force a story into the paper against a reporter’s wishes.
But I don’t know how the situation is on British and Australian papers today, whether it is better than it was when I was young and working. I would think that there is always a little bit of tension, but generally it is not unpleasant. For instance in the last few days, after Saturday lots of attention has shifted to Bali. We have guys in Indonesia reporting and I am contributing to it as well. I have been investigating South East Asian terror stories for the past year so I probably know more about Jemaah Islamiah than any of them. We all filed our stories to the editor in Hong Kong, who then re-writes it into piece about 800 words, called a wrap. My contribution alone was about 800 words, but this type of thing happens. If you have good reporters and good editors and a reasonable working culture on the paper I don’t think ‘tension’ is a big deal.
Occasionally you’ve got a clash where a reporter has a different idea of what a story should be like and that makes for an awkward time and you might swear under you breath, but overall I would not describe it as love hate generally, not on our paper anyway. Of course you also have to remember that it is also a matter of culture, our organization for instance would not hire a brilliant editor who is a difficult person to get along with and who alienates staff members.
What is your technique in headline writing?
The point of a headline should be reflected very early in the story. There are some very tight rules for headline writing, you can’t finish a line with a preposition for instance. But I still see headlines all the time, even on good newspapers that break the rules. Even on our newspaper. I suppose headline writing it is a bit of an art form. It is a big part of the sub-editors job and some people are employed because they are particularly good at it.
Cornelius reflects on his experience in interviewing Barry Wain:
In answering the first question, Wain highlights how standards of accuracy vary between papers and his surprise at the sloppy standards underlines the importance of accuracy in newspaper reporting.
On the spelling and writing abilities of journalism graduates he remains polite saying that they do not vary from those of other graduates. However, he acknowledges that being a journalist does not require an excellent command of grammar and spelling or a natural ability to write.
Regarding the training required for sub-editing he says that experience in reporting is one factor. He makes a distinction between the reporter’s abilities to investigate stories and make contacts, and the sub-editor’s skill for clear and concise writing.
Commenting on the problems faced by sub-editors Wain cites the difficulty of writing articles within the technical and space constraints of the newspaper. He says that this is indeed a specialized job.
The question on how he judges a good story elicits the same response as that of others in the media. He does not have a set of criteria but rather uses what might be called "intuition", something that apparently develops with experience. Wain highlights the difficulty in finding objective criteria to judge the relative importance of stories.
Wain points out that organizational culture is a key factor in understanding the relationship between reporters and sub-editors. Putting a newspaper together is essentially a team effort and as such professionalism, good communication and a team spirit are necessary.
He concludes that there are strict rules and specialized skills involved in creating a strong headline, although these rules are frequently broken.
|
