Challenges of editorializing at a national newspaper

I mentioned yesterday that my favorite aspect of my job with USA Today is attending editorial board meetings. While I definitely look forward to those Thursday meetings, I am also blessed to be able to attend the daily writer meetings that occur every morning. We use these meetings to discuss what current news we think would make good editorial topics. All three of the writers take turns pitching story ideas and justifying why they think their idea would make a good editorial. I have been expected to contribute ideas since day one, which I admit was way scary in the beginning. I still feel nervous some mornings when I pitch an idea that I am unsure about, but I am learning a lot about what kinds of issues we tend to focus on. For example, we will almost always write about any major Capital Hill event. The majority of our editorials come from political news that occurs in the House, Senate or White House. As a national newspaper, we have a responsibility to our readers to be editorializing about issues that affect the nation, thus we try to stay away from local events even if they are considered major news by the larger papers in the area. For example, I read a great Post story the other idea about how the DC metro is having one of the most violent summers it has had in 20 years. There have been several large-scale fights that have scared away many non-rush hour riders. It is an issue that has received a lot of attention in the area papers, particularly the Washington Post and the Washington Times. Without really thinking about it I pitched the idea of writing an editorial about what has changed to increase metro violence and what measures need to be taken to curb it. However, I was quickly reminded that while our DC/VA/MD readers might find that editorial useful, readers outside of this area might not. It was a really good lesson about the challenges that editorial writers for a national newspaper face every day. Papers such as The Washington Post and The New York Times have the luxury of having a nation-wide readership, but still being based in a local area. Thus, they can editorialize about issues that happen in the DC/NY area as well as the events that are affecting the nation. We, on the other hand, can really only write about local events if they can be tied into a larger issue that the majority of our readers can relate to. Definitely something interesting to think about as I consider where I want to go after this fellowship.

On a side note, my editor told me yesterday that he will be taking me out to lunch next week to discuss getting me writing for the paper! It was excellent news! He even said he mentioned my name and sent my portfolio to the Life section (my favorite) editor and said we can discuss how I can start writing for that department as well. I can't wait to have this lunch! I certainly love my job as it is now, but I am thrilled about the idea of getting back to writing. I remember how exciting it was the first time I had a byline in The Pendulum, so I can only imagine how it will feel to see my name in a major newspaper!