Your name is everything.
That’s what people say and for good reason. This topic came up again because last week writer David Farland wrote a post about protecting your name, which was blogged on The Passive Voice.
It was an interesting piece, and Farland has a lot of experience in the writing field through different mediums. I spent 10 years as a reporter at a newspaper before moving on to online publishing and magazines. For the most part at the newspaper, revisions happened but usually were light because of tight deadlines. However, when feature pieces were written, and the editors had more time, there could be extensive edits.
Usually, an editor and I would talk about the changes. I would argue to keep certain things and concede on others. In the end, I usually felt like there was a better product because there was collaboration rather than someone telling me what to do.
Except one time.
I traveled from New Jersey to Iowa to write about a minor league baseball player. This wasn’t just any player, but a first-rounder who many expected to be great (FYI, it was Mike Trout). I spent three days with him, talking to his host family, teammates, coaches, driving around town getting to know his new life.
I came back and wrote the article from the extensive pile of notes taken. The plan was to make this a front-page package. So it wasn’t just my sports editor reading it, but several news editors who had their say. Not all of it was bad. I have no problem listening to critiques of my work because there is some really great information out there and I could always learn new things.
But they wanted to change my lead (or lede) to something watered down, boring. It was re-written by someone to the point where it didn’t even sound like anything I would have written. I remember that editor was so proud of the changes and I stood there, staring at the paper wondering what was this garbage I was reading.
Was it garbage? No. But that at that point I was so angry with the entire process. I just knew it wasn’t me anymore.
I walked into the News Editor’s office and told him to take my name off the article. I told him if something was going to change that drastically that I didn’t want my name on it because I didn’t write it.
At this point, he talked me off the ledge and explained to me the finer points of having to deal with certain managers at the paper. He didn’t have to, or maybe even shouldn’t have, but he showed me email exchanges he had with the other editors involved where they pretty much acted like children with a temper tantrums.
I felt like it was easy for them to complain about certain things because at the end of the day their name was not going to be on that article.
I was going on vacation the next day, so I just gave up. I let them run the version of the story they wanted. I felt so strongly about my work and no one wanted to listen or cared. I considered quitting because I didn’t want to work in a place like that.
After seven days off, however, I came back refreshed. Had I not gone on vacation, I’m pretty sure would have quit working there.
I met up with a colleague at a sporting event about a week later. He asked me about my story because he knew I had gone to Iowa. I told him it ran and he went online to read it. I didn’t say a word about the article to him. Then, when he finished he said to me, “Your lead doesn’t sound like you.”
I know.
I showed him the original story and he seemed taken aback. He asked why didn’t they use that instead because it was better than what was there.
I had no real answer for him, but I learned a lesson. I would always protect my name after that. If someone else could recognize my voice was missing and an article was of lesser quality because of it, then I need to step up for myself better. I thought I did at the time, but clearly I didn’t push hard enough.
That has never happened again.
