Kudos!

How would you describe your mission at the Chronicle?

Our mission is to earn new readers, and save the world. It's very easy. I'm going to have T-shirts made up.

Small job, no big deal.

When you tell a room full of journalists that their job is to go out and save the world, to make the community a better place... That's what they want to do. That's what they want to do for you. And when you do it, and you celebrate it...you know, we shut down juvenile hall this year. I mean, there were kids who were being put into juvenile hall and abused and criminalized. And now it's not even going to exist. That would not have happened without the Chronicle, and I am really proud of that.

So then how are you able to keep your team inspired and focused on the mission.

Well just like you have to give the jazz hands to the people on top of you, you got to sometimes give jazz hands to the people below you too. And we have regular meetings, and they know what our business goals are. Like, we need to get to this number of subscriptions to sustain the newsroom. They are behind that. They understand. They want people to read us. They want it to be successful, and they understand their role in it. And you also have to make them want to work for you. You know, I sent three messages this morning about things that I just thought were awesome. Whether it's a podcast, or something that made me think, or a print design. I mean, when do print page designers get celebrated?

Get kudos.

We have a Slack channel of kudos. And it's also other team members pitching in. Kudos are really interesting because I used to do a weekly awesome list. And I would say all the things I thought were awesome. And it was the worst idea I had in the first year. It was terrible.

Why?

Because sometimes you forget something that was awesome, and then that person wasn't on the list. And then they'd complain. Or they would they would think something else wasn't awesome, and then they'd complain about that. And it got to the point where one of the reporters said, "You have to stop this, it's terrible." And it doesn't make any sense, right? You think, oh I'm doing something good, but...So now we have a Slack channel, and everybody else can pitch in. So it's a little more free form, and it's not as formal. And it's not always me. And it's a lot better.