EDITORS:

FRIENDS & FOES

HOW TO STAY
ONE STEP AHEAD
OF YOUR EDITORS
It is important to feel that you have some professional control over what
youre doing; that you are not utterly under the sway of events and politicians and editors; that you are not simply a stenographer; that you have a
brain and ideas and eyes that are uniquely your own.

By David Maraniss
Washington Post

hen asked whether I had a working title

for this piece, I just sort of blurted out the
first thing that came to mind: How to Stay One
Step Ahead of Your Editors. I had never really
used those precise words before, but they seem
to fit the set of ideas I would like to talk about
involving writing and reporting. I do not mean it
to be an attack on editors. I was one once, and I
know how trying the job can be. It is only when
you become an editor that you truly understand
the reportorial tribe, and how some journalists
who look so polished in print turn in virtually
unintelligible garbage and expect the editor to
translate it for them; and how some journalists
who seem so cool and collected to their colleagues are in fact a bundle of nerves and
anxieties, who use their editors as psychiatrists.

Reprinted, lightly
edited, with permission of
DavidMaraniss and The
Freedom Forum.
Maraniss is on leave from
the Post completing a
book about Bill Clintons
life before becoming
president.

....

Respecting editors
I respect editors. But nonetheless I want to
stay at least one step ahead of them whenever
possible. That is when I do my best work.
Sometimes in the short run it is harder to operate
that way, but the long-term rewards are worth
the effort.
I am going to talk about this in several
different wayssome generic concepts, some
practical bits of advice and some examples of
how I followed this idea over the years to write
the stories of which I am most proud. I know

that many of you operate in a very finite world of

obligations and expectations where you must
write out a daily story on a specific set of topics.
I think even in those circumstances, it is not only
possible but important to feel that you have some
professional control over what youre doing; that
you are not utterly under the sway of events and
politicians and editors; that you are not simply a
stenographer; that you have a brain and ideas
and eyes that are uniquely your own.
Spending time alone
The first and most important way to stay
ahead of your editors is to spend some time alone
thinking about what you cover, in the largest
possible sense. I am shocked by how few
journalists actually take the time to do this. By
largest possible sense, I mean taking many of the
things that you know instinctively and turning
them up several notches. Sit down with a yellow
pad or something and say, Okay, this is what I
cover. These are some of the most interesting
people I am responsible for covering. These are
the places and issues where the concerns of my
audience and the national realm of Washington
converge. These are the real players that the
politicians who represent my audience have to
deal with.
Im certain that every reporter knows all of
those things instinctively. And you probably
think that youre dealing with that every day, but
then you go back into your clips at the end of the
year, and you might say, My God, I know so

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much that I havent conveyed, and that is

because you have not spent the time thinking
about how to convey it. You cannot do it by
relying on your editors. You cannot do it by
riding the flow of events; you have to develop a
plan, a flexible plan with several variations that
will get you where you want to go, so that when
the year is over you can say, I wanted my
audience to get to understand the work I cover,
and here are the stories that got them there.
If you map out an intelligent plan and present
it to your editors, the whole process will become
transformed. You are then not seen as shirking
your daily responsibilities, but as following a
rational and more rewarding agenda.
Whenever a breaking story is important, you
cover it, no questions asked. Thats the given.
Thats where you start. You do that time and
again consistently and reliably, for when you go
back over your clips over the course of the year
you might see that one in every three stories was
really, in retrospect, vital news. Even when
youre writing every day you know that is the
truth. So you take that other two-thirds, or to be
conservative, even that other half or two-fifths,
and thats what you work with. That is your clay,
your time, your story.
You might ask, Well, wont I end up fighting
with my editors every day over what stories
qualify as important breaking news? That will
happen once in a while, I guarantee. But it
diminishes greatly as your editors buy into your
larger plan and see the rewards of it in good
stories, stories that have an impact and that
people remember. I am not talking here necessarily about three-month projects or 80-inch
stories. The stories can be long or short, and take
a lot of time, or one day, or less. That is not the
essential point. The point is that you have a plan
and that you figure out a way so that the stories
add up to something coherent and revealing.
There are dozens of ways to do this. You
might say, for example, This year the story that
interests me the most, and is of most importance
and relevance to my audience, is health care . . .
and the very best work I could do this year
would be to somehow show, in revealing detail,
all of the competing economic and social forces
that are shaping the decisions of the politicians
who represent my audience, and how the
decisions are made. Or you could take the single
most powerful lobby from your district and
follow its course through Washington.
Every single reporter could do either one of
those two things. You could do it over the course
of the year so that it added up to something at
the end. Or you might come up with some other
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idea that I cannot dream of here, but you have to

put your mind to it first. You have to develop
that long-range plan and stay one step ahead of
the editors.
Mapping out stories ahead of time
The next way to stay one step ahead of the
editors involves individual stories. So many
reporters go into a daily story without even
thinking about it ahead of time. I try never to do
that. I try to always have a plan, a scheme, a
structure or two that I can work with as I
develop the reporting. You might say, Well,
thats not very smart. That means you might miss
the best story because you are so busy trying to
mold the material into your preconceived notions
of what you want to write. But I dont accept
that argument, because I have confidence that
any good reporter, all good reporters, know that
when the material can take them in a better
direction than they
have planned, they will
go with it. You can
I am always thinking
have a plan and still be
ahead of time and I find it
flexible. It is a no-lose
situation. Either you
makes the senses sharper.
go with your plan, or
you have something
I feel as though I am
better.
seeing things that the
In Texas, whenever
I was flying or driving
reporter next to me
to a breaking story,
is not seeing, because he
and usually it was
some sort of tragedy or
or she doesnt have the
natural disaster, I
concept. I will pick up-tospent the whole time
mapping out in my
the-minute details, and I
head the possible ways
I could present the
know that it will convey
story that would really
more about the fragility of
grab the readers.
One day a plane
life than will
crashed at Dallas-Ft.
12 conventional quotes.
Worth airport, and on
my way up from
Austin I thought about
what I wanted to do with that story. There had
been some survivors. What I wanted to do was
bring as much reality as possible into the
sensation of being in the plane as it was crashing.
I wanted to convey the ordinariness of the
passengers lives as the plane was rolling down
the runway and contrast that with the moment of
terror. I wanted to put the readers in a seat, 27A
or 12F, and have them reading the USA Today
sports section, or folding their jacket neatly in
the overhead rack, or thinking about the fight
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they had with their spouse that morning. Thats

the story I wanted to write.
When I got to the airport I had a focus, and I
knew exactly what I was doing. If it had turned
out that there was a better story, if there had
been a bomb aboard or a single overpowering act
of bravery, I would have gone with that. But
short of that I was ready. I was one step ahead of
my editors. I called them and said, This is what
Im going to give you. This is how Im going to
write it. Youll feel like youre in the plane. Its
when you do that that you write your best
stories, and the material flows the easiest.
What if I had just gone up there and rounded
up quotes here and there, and then while I was
writing an editor had
called me up and said,
Look, we want you to
Concede most of the little
do it this way or that
things. Figure out your
way? Maybe you
dont have the material
editors, and you will end
because you werent
looking for what the
up getting what you want
editor was interested
on the bigger things. If you
in. So you hack
around and struggle.
take the pains to be quick
But if you have got
and clear and responsive,
your own idea you will
be ahead of the
the odds go up that you
editors. They will be
most likely to go with
can break free and do
your plan because they
things your way, and do
have learned from
experience that you
your very best work.
will do something
special that way.
Again, you have to
be flexible. If the story doesnt fit, if there is a
better story, go with it. But I am always thinking
ahead of time and I find it makes the senses
sharper. I feel as though I am seeing things that
the reporter next to me is not seeing, because he
or she doesnt have the concept. So I will pick up
the minute detailsthe popcorn a passenger
brought that his wife had made for him that
morning because he would have to be alone in a
Super 8 Motel in Butte, Mont., that night
watching a movie on television. I would have an
idea and I know how that detail fits into my
story, and I hear it when the other reporters
dont, and I know that it will convey more about
the fragility of life than will 12 conventional
quotes about hearing something go pop.
Study your editors
A third way to stay ahead of your editors is to
study your editors. If you know what they want,
then it becomes easier for you to figure out ways
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to do things the way you want, and satisfy them

at the same time. Editors tend to be predictable.
They respond to stimuli the same way, time and
time again. They want stories to be clear and
understandable, accurate, in on time, with little
hassle from the reporter, and as much credit for
them as possible.
I know many fine reporters best work is often
frustrated because they dont get along with their
editors. Their fights are almost always over
stupid little things. My advice to them is concede
most of those little things. Figure out your
editors, and you will end up getting what you
want on the bigger things. I might be imposing a
bit of passive-aggressive philosophy on you here,
but there is a lesson besides that. If you take the
pains to be quick and clear and responsive, the
odds go up that you can break free and do things
your way, and do your very best work.
Late in 1991 at the dawn of the last presidential season, I sat down with a yellow pad and
began the process that I have been talking about.
I plotted out my goals for the next year as a
political reporter, and how I might go about
achieving them. What I wanted to do was focus
on one candidate for president, and keep looking
at that candidate in as many ways as possible,
peeling away the skins of the onion in story after
story. If that person happened to be elected
president, the readers of The Washington Post
would have a thorough understanding of the
personal, sociological, historical, intellectual,
economic, religious, geographic, and political
forces that shaped him.
I happened to choose Gov. Bill Clinton of
Arkansas as the candidate I wanted to write
about. I wrote a long memo to my editors at The
Post detailing what I wanted to do and how I
wanted to do it. I also suggested that The Post,
with no shortage of reporters or political reporters, devote the same level of interest and intense
concentration to other candidates. In the end I
was the only reporter who kept at it, and Clinton
kept going all the way to the presidency, and
those are the stories for which I won the Pulitzer
Prize. Doing it was a constant struggle. I had to
struggle with myself, with my editors, and with
the tenor of the times, in a sense.
When the Gennifer Flowers story broke,
some editors, naturally, wanted to divert all of
my attention to that story, as though it meant
something out of context. When Ross Perot
entered the race, since I was based in Austin, the
temptation was there for me to write Ross Perot
stories. There were times when my own desire to
get a story in the paper led me to short cut my
own long-range goal for a week or two. I
constantly reminded myself that things were
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transitory and elusive, and that if I could keep

my eye on the bigger picturethe full story of
Clintons life and career or as much of it as I
could get, given the constraints of a campaign
it would be worth it in the end.
What I tried to do, with varying degrees of
success, was look at his life from as many angles
as possible. I wrote a long story exploring his
moral and religious roots, revealing his eclectic
religious tastes, and his propensity to seek
religious justification for his positions on such
issues as abortion and the death penalty.
Another article delved into his history on race
relations. It showed that he was a white, Southern politician with a remarkable capacity to
relate to African-Americans on a personal level,
and that hed appointed more blacks to positions
in Arkansas than all the states previous governors combined. Yet when black leaders in
Arkansas pushed voter redistricting in a fashion
that upset the white majority, Clinton backed
awayand left them disappointed. That history
offered the context that made the Lani Guinier
situation predictable and understandable to me.
In late August there was a period of 18 days
when Clinton essentially avoided the traveling
press corps. He held no press conferences during
that period, and even refrained from his occasional practice of ambling back to the press
section of the plane to shoot the breeze during
late-night flights. The reason was that he was
sick of being asked questions about how he
avoided being drafted back in 1969. He wanted
to talk about the economy, not his past.
This peculiar press dodge coincided with the
story I was writing, placing his dealings with the
press into a historical context. In looking at his
12 years as governor of Arkansas, I found that
he would go through periods of ignoring the
statehouse press corps, especially when he
wanted to talk about one thing and they wanted
to ask him about another.
His old press secretary said he became
accustomed to seeing the verb bristled in
statehouse accounts, as in, the governor bristled
when asked why he was driving 80 miles an hour
down Route 630 between the YMCA opening
and his downtown luncheon address. Anyone
who watched President Clinton react to ABCTV correspondent Brit Humes question at the
White House gathering where Clinton announced the appointment of Ruth Ginsburg to
the Supreme Court saw a vivid demonstration of
that bristler.
Some people argue that Clinton soured on the
press during the presidential campaign when he
was engulfed by questions about Gennifer
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Flowers. But in fact there was a pattern that

went back more than a decade. Every time
Clinton appeared on the brink of creating a
permanently hostile situation with the press, he
would open up and answer every question,
outlasting even the most dogged questioner,
leaving reporters dazed and sated, if not utterly
charmed . . .
In partnership with my friend and colleague,
Michael Weiskopf, I examined how Clinton dealt
with two major industries in his statepoultry
and timberand explained in historical context
how he at times made environmental sacrifices in
his effort to lift up a poor Southern state, and to
get the money he
thought he needed to
lift up his own political
ambitions.
All along the way there
Shortly after those
were editors at the paper
articles appeared,
Clinton gave a speech
who wanted me to do other
in Philadelphia, where
he said he changed,
things. But because I had a
and learned that there
plan and a goal and a course
was not an either/or
proposition between
to follow, I could keep going.
jobs and the environGradually the editors came
ment. Not long after
that he appointed Mr.
to realize that I was building
Ozone, Al Gore, to be
a body of work that
his running mate.
I examined
amounted to more than the
Clintons economic
plans in Arkansas. A
individual stories.
blend of bold initial
efforts, experimentation, and ultimate
compromise in moderationnot at all unlike
what seems to be happening in Washington now.
Some wise people argued that running the
country is not at all like running Arkansas. In a
sense they are right. But while the situations
change, people seldom do in their most basic
selves. They are their histories, and that is what I
spent the campaign writing about.
All along the way there were editors at the
paper who wanted me to do other things, who
thought I was concentrating too much on
Clinton. But because I had a plan and a goal and
a course to follow, I could keep going. I was
diverted for a week or two, but I could always
get back to it, and gradually the editors came to
realize that I was building a body of work that
amounted to more than the individual stories;
that there was something to show for it at the
end of the day, which is what, finally, our work
and our lives are all about.
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