I’m finishing writing this newsletter on the first Saturday I’ve been home in over a month and one of two I’ve been home since starting the new job, and let me say: a weekend at home doing nothing is an underrated joy.
Let me also say that this installment is the confluence of many things: namely my love of mini golf, my love of metaphors and the reality I planned to publish this a few weeks ago. Be forewarned!
On a recent reporting trip to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, I spent my last morning doing what one would expect to do in Myrtle Beach: play mini golf! Since I was a child, I’ve long looked forward to times I could go do 18 holes at some fantastically-themed, mildly-challenging mini golf course, scheming up ways to get an elusive hole in one and reveling in the elaborate geometry required to get the colored ball around the obstacles and into the hole.
(Atlanta is a wonderful city with many offerings, but unfortunately lacks in mini golf courses, so I have been largely deprived of this joy!)
On this trip, instead of going with family or friends, I walked the mile from my hotel down to Captain Hook’s mini golf, replete with knockoff Peter Pan characters, popped in my headphones and proceeded to have a wonderful time doing the two courses solo.
Now, for the metaphor.
In the course of my first few weeks on a new job at a national level where I’m fully remote from everyone else, I’ve spent a ton of time wondering if what I’m doing is… correct. Not necessarily from a technical perspective, like using the new content management system or script software or audio editor, but from a vibes perspective, and from wanting to make sure I’m rowing the same direction as everyone/everything else.
At my old newsroom, there were much fewer people focusing on relatively fewer things that required a lot more direct communication and delegation of what was being covered and how, so it was easy to know that [insert story here] or [focus on topic here] was the best approach to tackling the infinite universe of news.
Now, there’s a lot more people and a lot more happening and a lot more responsibility on me for pitching and executing stories, a lot more emphasis on me doing what I know how to do and communicating that amidst the chaos of a ton of political news. Which I like/enjoy/think I’m handling well. Traveling to South Carolina once a week for six weeks was not for the faint of heart, and involved a mix of editor-initiated and me-initiated reporting.
It was exhausting in the best way, and having spent some recovery time I’ve been reflecting on how it went and what came of all the work and effort.
As I was toodling through this mini golf course in Myrtle Beach a few weeks ago, I was struck by some parallels to how I’ve felt about all of the work. (Forgive me if this is tortured)
Mini golfing is fun, but mini golfing alone unlocked a different type of fun. Nobody that I know was there to witness me getting three holes in one in a row (except for a very enthusiastic stranger and one family that let me go ahead of them), nobody was there to mercilessly mock me when I shanked one into the questionably-dyed water fall and nobody was there to share the spectrum of emotions that came from working through the courses.
Much in the same way, so far I’ve largely felt like the work that I’ve done so far in the new job has almost gone into the void of news — I haven’t received any negative feedback or usual sent from iPad messages telling me why my coverage is obviously biased and wrong, but also haven’t received a whole lot of messages that my coverage was good/interesting, either. Some of that is intentionally as I’ve (largely) dialed back on social media, some of that is probably because a largely Georgia-focused audience I have so far isn’t as keyed into, say, South Carolina, and some of that is ????? who knows.
That said, I’ve been really proud of the reporting I’ve done so far and think you should check it out if you haven’t, starting with a feature story I did on GOP infighting in Myrtle Beach (there’s two county Republican Party groups each claiming to be the real one) and what it might tell us about the November election.
I’ve also done a lot of reported conversation segments with hosts (called two-ways) on my reporting in South Carolina ahead of the presidential primary, like why Nikki Haley doesn’t have support from her home state Republicans to comments Donald Trump made about NATO allies to analyzing the results of the election. It’s definitely a lot busier and more intense than I was expecting in my first two months (and was complicated by having a terrible stomach bug leading up to the Feb. 24 primary while I was in Columbia, but that’s a different story for a different newsletter), but I’m definitely proud of the both the hustle and the outcome. It’s finally settling in that this is my job, that I’m doing cool and interesting things and it’s what I was hired to do/what they want me to do!
Thinking about it in my mini golf terms, sometimes when you play without an expected audience you can really focus on the fundamentals and the things that you know how to do — and do well. In journalism terms, for example, I know what’s a good story, the angles to pursue that go past superficial coverage and get to the heart of the matter in a way that actually matters to an audience.
There may not be constant feedback guiding you, but there are signs if you’re not on the right track (like hitting the ball into the water) and if you are (like a nice note saying your story was thoughtfully reported and explained). If things don’t go smoothly one time, that doesn’t ruin your whole round/define your whole body of reporting.
Personally, I prefer to mini golf with a large group of people, even if I don’t hit as many impressive hole in one shots. Professionally, I’d also probably prefer more engagement with my reporting, even if it ups the level of troll tweets and emails from bad faith posters, but I also know that the stories I’m telling a) are what I’m supposed to be doing and b) are good!
Moving ahead into Super Tuesday and beyond, I’ll try to be more intentional about regularly doing more newsletters and spotlights of my reporting, as well as soliciting more thoughts and questions about how political journalism does/does not work.
Do you have any questions/thoughts/concerns you want me to tackle?
Send me a note or leave a comment:
I’m also on the lookout for Georgia voters to talk with for an ongoing series I plan to do this year checking in with people across the ideological spectrum about what issues motivate them to vote, how they’re feeling about the candidate they’re interested in (or if they haven’t decided yet!) and go beyond poll numbers and predictions and hear from real people. More to come there.
If you made it this far, wow! Sorry about the tortured mini golf metaphor, it made more sense a few weeks ago!
Great read, Stephen. Keep it up!