University of Virginia Library

Robert Gillmore

In Pursuit Of Excellence

Richard Harwood of the
Washington Post has inaugurated in
a spectacular way what hopefully
will be a lasting trend in journalism:
self-criticism. And in keeping with
this spirit, I offer these observations
of an ex-college editor of not so
much what's wrong with The
Cavalier Daily but what's wrong
with most college papers — and
what may be made right with them.

If I had the time I could go
through the CD everyday with a red
pen and make the whole thing
fairly blood-colored with
corrections — so many are there to
be made.

Amateur Journalists

The CD — again, like most
undergraduate newspapers — is
amateurish. The craft of journalism
has simply not been learned. The
paper's news writing the heart of
any journalism and the basic test of
any newspaper's quality — is
especially bad.

A good paper is usually
published only by students who
want to be journalists and who
therefore have spent their summers
learning their craft. Most CD
editors have little or no summer (or
part-time, school-year) experience,
whereas, in fact, three or four
summers are usually needed for
adequate training.

Second, that work must be on
small dailies. For only there is
training anywhere near deep and
diverse: a daily's small staff forces
the managing editor to use his
summer interns for regular,
important and different
assignments; it is the editor's
self-interest to teach the interns
everything the latter doesn't know
— but needs to produce printable
copy.

On my summer/small daily
stints I wrote every kind of story
(many times over) as well as
editorials, features, columns and
reviews. I was editorial editor, city
editor, county editor, wire editor,
copy and make up editor — often
when my regular counterparts were
on vacation.

On big papers, however, the
summer helper is usually assigned
to some minor job for most of the
summer, and if he learns anything it
is usually only one thing. When the
big boys go on vacation, lots of
little boys fill-in, and the intern
isn't one of them.

And how to get college paper
staffers to get such experience?

Most basically, it is a matter of
will.

Enough people in every college
paper must want badly enough to
be good enough to make those
strenuous efforts necessary for
journalistic excellence.

There must first be the will, the
desire, if not to be a professional
journalist, then to learn the craft
well — to spend enough summers in
the right papers learning it.

Aiming For Perfection

But the craft itself is still not
enough (nor is the imagination to
use it creatively).

After the craft is learned there
must still be the will to use it —
always, without fail.

At the root of every excellent
college paper — and I am told the
paper we once published was
among them — is the singularity of
mind which is driven by an
all-consuming passion to publish
what its editors know and what
everyone else knows is the best
undergraduate newspaper in college
history, a paper as nearly perfect as
still imperfect talents would allow,
a paper as unblemished as possible
by the error of amateurism.

Spirit Of Excellence

A good college paper, then, is
founded upon the same spirit as a
good college football team: by the
desire to win, to excel. Everything
else is directed to that end; and
nothing gets in its way.

Too many college papers,
though, are places for fun-seekers
to do their simple thing — to write
their story, their way, to "have fun
with this." The driving concern
with excellence — with doing it
right instead of wrong — is absent.
In journalism, in any craft, is there
of course a right and a wrong; but
too often the rules are not
respected; sometimes they are not
even known — or actually denied.

Too often even the mood, the
attitude is wrong. Instead of a
craftsmanly humility, there is
arrogance; instead of energy, sloth;
instead of a desire to do right work
well, a desire only to do something
in an easy, imperfect and inferior
way.

Never Good Enough

I remember many times when I
was an editor I'd have to make
what is for some a hard decision: to
say "no" to a young staffer who
wants to write it this way or who
says the headline should say that or
this type is "really neat" or "let's
say this — that'll fix so and so"; or
"why do I have to rewrite this? It is
good enough."

That last is most laughable: it is
never good enough. It can always
be better. And the first step toward
making it better is to learn and to
admit that it can be; the second
step is, again, enough will to make
it better.

And so, for me it meant long
nights, plummeting grades and
many anguished and emotional
"no's." The Record was no longer a
"fun" place to work; and Gillmore
was known as an impossible
perfectionist.

But all that hardly mattered.