Tom Huang is a champion. He’s a champion for journalists of color, for mentoring young journalists, and for journalism training.
As a longtime Poynter adjunct faculty and the assistant managing editor for journalism initiatives at The Dallas Morning News, Huang has contributed his talents and leadership to a variety of Poynter workshops through the years. Now, he’s set his sights on creating a fresh training for early-career newsroom journalists — those who might find themselves lacking mentors or the skills to navigate remote newsrooms.
Poynter’s Barbara Allen sat down with Huang recently to discuss his interest in leading the new session, Reporter’s Toolkit, and his long-standing role as a leader to young journalists.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Barbara Allen: Tell me about the history of this training.
Tom Huang: Poynter’s Reporters Toolkit comes out of about 20 years of teaching on the skills of reporting. It really focuses on helping reporters in the first six years of their careers, digging deeply into all of the tools and craft skills that early-career reporters need. It’s really based on years of teaching and training in the reporting space.
Allen: What’s your personal interest in leading this training?
Huang: I remember what it was like years ago, being a younger reporter, and how I learned my craft by sitting next to some really incredible veteran reporters in the newsroom, and also getting one-on-one coaching from some really incredible editors. I knew that I was able to build a successful career because of that direct teaching and coaching. Now, coming out of the pandemic, and as a senior editor myself, I’m seeing on a very personal level how challenging it is to be a younger reporter these days. In Dallas, in our newsroom, we work on a hybrid basis. And that’s great — it provides a lot of flexibility. People love it. They’re just as productive as they were in the traditional newsroom before the pandemic. But the one challenge that presents is that younger reporters are not always going to be sitting side by side with people like me and with veteran reporters.
What we’re seeing in Dallas and other newsrooms is that the traditional apprenticeship model — where a young reporter learns from veteran reporters — is really somewhat broken now. Certainly some of it exists, and we’re learning how to do it virtually, as well. We’re ramping up on that, but it’s just a real basic challenge for a younger reporter to have consistent coaching and training in the newsroom.
I’d also say that, in addition to coming out of the pandemic, we’re going through an incredible generational shift. I’m literally one of the oldest veterans in the newsroom — of course, I don’t feel that way at all! — but our reporting ranks are so relatively young now compared to when I was coming up. There aren’t a whole lot of veteran reporters who have stuck around. I don’t think this is just happening in Dallas. We’ve lost a middle layer of veteran reporters and line editors in newsrooms across the country, so that younger reporters are just hungry for guidance and coaching and mentoring.
I feel like that’s where Reporters Toolkit could really come in: to provide six weeks of intensive training and coaching, and really help reporters who are in the first six years of their careers build their confidence.
Allen: Spend a few minutes talking about the specific skills that this seminar will help reporters build.
Huang: I feel as an editor that generating story ideas, and sparking and brainstorming story ideas, really sets reporters apart. We’re always going to get assignments, but it’s those reporters who are really proactive — finding and coming up with their own ideas — those are the ones who are going to stand out to me.
Pitching ideas: Being able to effectively pitch and promote an idea is so critical to your success as you’re as you’re coming up.
Interviewing skills: It’s not simply asking a list of questions, it’s learning how to truly listen to the people who we are reporting on.
Sourcing: Really thinking about how to get a wide range of sources in our stories with different perspectives.
And then once you sit down to start writing the story, thinking through how you’re gonna focus and really come to understand what that story is truly about and then organizing it in that way.
One thing that I think is really important that sets Poynter training apart is one-on-one coaching, so I’ve pulled together a really incredible team of coaches.
Each participant will come up with their own personal development plan. This is really important for me because I want the reporters to really clarify what specific action steps they need to take coming out of the seminar to build a successful career for themselves. This is all really for the future of our journalism, the next generation of reporters and so on a personal level, that’s why this is so important for me.
MORE FROM POYNTER: See Huang and fellow faculty members further discuss this training during our LinkedIn Live event, “What they don’t teach in J-school.”
Allen: What are some examples of mentoring that you experienced early in your career?
Huang: When I was starting out, I had four internships after graduating. Over 15 months, I worked in Cleveland, Roanoke (Virginia), Greensboro (North Carolina), and Norfolk (Virginia). Literally every four months or so, I would get in my old Honda Accord with my two suitcases and move to a new city. What my mentors in these newsrooms showed me was how important it is to proactively seek mentors in each newsroom that you work in. I don’t know that every young reporter knows that.
I think also over the years, editors and veteran reporters taught me how to really think hard about fairness and balance and trying to do the right thing.
My editors really pushed me hard to report the hell out of a story — you would literally use maybe 10% of your reported notes for a story, and that would tell you that you had really reported thoroughly and deeply.
And thinking through whose voices should be in our stories, and how to find those diverse voices and perspectives — not simply diversity through a race and ethnicity lens, but thinking about the wide variety of perspectives that you can bring to the story.
Allen: This course promises to deliver to students a deeper understanding of storytelling structure. What do you mean by that, and why is it important for them to understand that?
Huang: In a fast deadline story, there’s always going to be the classic structure of starting with the most important part of the news first, and then kind of going through an inverted pyramid structure. Then, I think many reporters are already familiar with more narrative styles, where you might lead with an anecdote or a moment or an image, and then you go to the nut graph fairly high up in the story, and then you might backtrack and tell the story chronologically.
There are more nuanced and complicated ways to organize and structure stories. Kat McGrory, who is a Pulitzer Prize-winning editor and reporter who’s now at The New York Times, will take participants through how to think about the flow of your story, but also taking a step back before any of that and asking, “How do we focus the story? What questions can help us really probe more deeply into the underlying meaning of the story?” Because I think people like Kat and I, we feel it’s really important to understand the meaning and the theme, especially of a more complex story, before we even think about outlining and organizing the story.
Allen: The section in which you train on effective interviewing includes working with vulnerable sources. Talk a little bit about why it’s important to handle those interviews with a specific skill set.
Huang: I’m really excited about the session that Fernanda Camarena is going to lead. Fernanda teaches that yes, it’s important to learn how to effectively interview people of all types and just ask really good, in-depth questions and find ways to get them to open up. But she also knows that it’s really important to think about the vulnerability of the people whom we often report on. Because of Fernanda’s experience in broadcast journalism, she’s probably come to see examples of when it was not done well at all, when reporters who were on deadline pushed vulnerable sources too hard and did not necessarily show respect for their dignity. Fernanda is going to lead a session that raises the question, “How do we get a true and deep story, but also be respectful toward people who are vulnerable and sometimes at the hardest moments of their lives?”
Allen: You’ve said that you learned a lot about ethical decision-making from retired Poynter ethicist Bob Steele, and also from Poynter’s senior vice president and expert ethicist Kelly McBride. We need ethical leaders and thinkers, because journalists often face ethical conundrums, especially on deadline. What’s one key element of making hard decisions that are ethical in a short timeframe?
Huang: What Bob and Kelly taught me in the last 20 years is that even when you’re on deadline, it’s your responsibility, whether you’re a reporter or an editor, to stop and ask some good questions. Bob and Kelly always talk about not putting a stop sign on a story but at least a yellow light to say, let’s ask two or three questions about this story. Have we found all the right sources for the story? Are all voices or being heard? Are there any privacy or sensitivity issues that might come up? How are we handling fairness and balance of this story? Whose perspective is missing from this story? In what ways might this story harm someone? And do we think that the importance of sharing this information with the public overrides that concern for those privacy concerns? But the bigger thing is to always be in a position where you’re asking at least a couple of questions, even on deadline, because it’s often on deadline when we skip a few steps. That’s when problems come up with these stories.
Allen: Who are you looking for and who’s going to be successful in this program?
Huang: I’m looking for passionate, curious, energetic reporters who are in the first six years of their career. Of course, there can be some flexibility around that. But really, we’re talking about fairly new-career journalists who want guidance and are eager to learn. Especially in a time when there’s so much disruption, whether it’s the pandemic, or the digital transformation, or the generational shift, or even technological changes, I know a lot of early-career reporters are going to benefit from some of the fundamentals in this seminar. I would also really push for my peers, the editors in newsrooms, to think about investing in your new-career reporters and sending them to this virtual summit because I know from my own personal experience how challenging it is to develop and keep young talent in the newsroom. I know that every editor is probably facing that. And so you definitely want many of your early-career reporters to get the training and guidance and coaching that they are going to get with Reporter’s Toolkit.
Applications for Reporter’s Toolkit, which costs $499, close April 26. Accepted attendees will meet Tuesdays at 1 p.m. Eastern from May 7 to June 11.
