Ninjas Have Multiple Skills

I am a strong believer in being multitalented and believe that no matter what your job is, the most useful journalist is one that is proficient in reporting, writing and photography. And I mean various areas of writing and various areas of photography; hard news, features, sports, columns, city beat, even ad photography. You can’t be a Ninja in every field, but don’t excel in one and be a dunce in all the others.

My weakest talent was column writing because I don't normally care to express my opinions in the paper and, most importantly, it cut into my time. After I became the editor in a newspaper group, the corporate owners in another state required each newspaper to have one editorial column a week. They believed (I strongly disagree) the thing readers love most is reading opinions. If you don’t know what columns are, they are regular appearing opinions on relevant subjects. Anyway, I was a bad boy and wrote only one column a month for my paper and I squeezed out a couple good ones and won a 2011 First Place Column Writing award from the North and East Texas Press Association, which helped me win the Sweepstakes Award that year. I found that hilariously ironic.

Excel in your best fields but learn a little of everything: reporting, news writing, feature writing, column writing, sports reporting, photography, page layout (“paginate” is the pretty word for it), editing and even graphics. Having proficiencies in different areas improves the things you are best at and increases job security by making you a more valuable employee. It also makes you aware of the big picture of what goes on with your paper and helps you be a better employee. If your strongest field is one kind of writing, learn other types of writing and for gosh sakes photography. On the other hand, if all you want to do is sports photography, you will be out of a job when a good sports photographer that can write and do a little page layout comes along.



Ninja tools.

I became all of it. It took a few years to learn multiple skills, but I did it with the help of key co-workers I was fortunate to be around.

The most worthless person in my office was a reporter who asked me to go take pictures of the person they just spent and hour with. “You were just there!" I said. Why didn’t you take pictures?” He played to my ego, “You do it so much better.“ Other lame excuses I have heard are “I don’t have a camera” and "I don't know how." Well, get a camera and learn how.

If you are a writer and not a photographer, get a simple camera and start taking pictures.The best way to begin is to look at other good photography and try to emulate those results. I will go in depth in future blog entries and also share steps to instantly being a better photographer. I will also share how to begin in other skills, such as graphics, sports, column writing, features and other groovy stuff. I am not going to move your hand on your mouse and show you what to do, but I am going to tell you how to start.

Back to being versatile.

Whatever you excel at, pursue excellence in that area with vigor. However, cross train in other areas. The best place to start is with your peers because people love to share about what they do well (that is why I am writing this blog), so ask people around you how they do their work. They will eagerly tell you. If you have no one to speak with in a field (or the person doing that job in your office is bad at it), find someone else you can learn from. The internet is a good place to learn, but starting with the people around you is best.