A Winning Team   

Canton Repository reporter Jennifer Mastroianni was talking to an interviewer about editors when her editor walked by. "Hold on," she said, and called to City Editor Rick Senften, "I need a coach."

She asked him a question about a current assignment. Senften replied in a sentence or two. Mastroianni listened and agreed.

It was a typical coaching encounter, and it took about a minute.

Senften and Mastroianni, who covers education and other topics for the Ohio daily, have been paired as editor-writer for about two years. Repository Managing Editor David Kaminski calls their relationship a "textbook case" of collaborative editing in which early "five- to 10-minute conversations save hours of trouble later on."

Typically, they follow the coaching model long prescribed by Donald Murray and others. Using what Mastroianni calls "very short, very casual" conversations, they huddle at various phases of an assignment, discussing story ideas, then writing approaches, then potential revisions. They don't fight much during the editing stage because by then, as Senften puts it, "we both know what we want."

Why does the coaching model work for them? "She really wants that kind of help," Senften says. "I invite coaching," Mastroianni agrees.

What qualities does she appreciate in her editor?

"He's so nonthreatening," she replies. "I think that's probably the key, to have an editor who does come across in a nonthreatening manner, who doesn't use sarcasm and make you feel less than competent."

Senften helps with both his technical competence and his attitude. He's known for always asking "Why do you want to write this story? Who cares?" and forcing writers to focus quickly on a compelling story angle.

He's accessible ("That's crucial," Mastroianni says), and he's positive. "He doesn't forget to stroke people. It's not sugar-coated, but when he feels I've done a good job he'll say, 'Nice work.' "

And he knows when to lighten up.

"I was writing a story about 10,000 minks being released from a local mink farm, and I was ready to attack this as a very serious problem," Mastroianni recalls. "And he said, 'No, no, no. Have fun with this one.' "

Senften, who supervises a staff of 15, agrees that coaching saves time and makes editing more rewarding. But he also recognizes that it isn't done enough.

"If you were to start a newspaper and bring in people who had never done it before and tell them this is how we were going to do things, then it would work," he says. "But everybody knows that's not the way it's done in this business, and they're set in their ways. But if you let yourself do it, there's a real feeling of safety and security."