Maestro concept

The maestro concept is a time-management technique in journalism designed to assist a newsroom in creating a project-based, teamwork-intensive approach to quality reporting of news and stories by "Thinking Like a Reader."

The maestro concept begins with a “great story idea” that is generated through collaborative idea-group meetings to shape stories before they are written and integrates writing, editing, art and design.[1] The Maestro concept is not applied to all stories all the time. The concept applies only to those stories that are integrated with photographs, design and information graphics. It is a method to improve the presentation of important stories through teamwork collaboration that brings the story to life and results in high impact and high readership.

History

The Maestro Concept was developed by Leland “Buck” Ryan, director of the Citizen Kentucky Project of the Scripps Howard First Amendment Center and tenured associate professor of journalism at the University of Kentucky’s School of Journalism and Telecommunications. The inspiration for the Maestro Concept came from a 1991 study by Dr. Mario Garcia and Dr. Pegie Stark called “Eyes on the News.” That study followed the eyes of readers (tracked actual eye movements) in three cities and discovered that readers do not read a newspaper as journalists believed. This study [2] is still used in newsrooms and classrooms today as a teaching model.[3] The study found that good indexing for busy readers is the key to successful publishing.[4]

The Maestro Concept was developed through an “approach to newsroom management, organization and operation that applies W. Edwards Deming's management principles used in manufacturing to the creative process."[5] The strive for quality, in both product and management, is Deming’s focal point. As a statistician, Deming noted that when management focused primarily on costs, over the long run that approach drove up costs and diminished quality. A focus by management to increase quality while reducing costs through reduction of waste and rework lowered costs in the long run. Continual improvement of the system, and not by bits and pieces, is integral to Deming's principle.

The Maestro Concept debuted on April 1, 1993 at the American Society of News Editors. At the debut, a list of 324 newspapers in the United States, in 59 newspaper groups, and more than 50 universities and high schools showed interest in the concept. Due to this fact, the concept's impact covers 48 states and Washington, D.C. and 16 other countries.[6]

A part of the international impact was a maestro workshop conducted in Hanoi for Vietnamese print and online journalists in December 2006 by Buck Ryan. [7]

In June 2010, three Russian journalism organizations invited Ryan to speak on the concept during 12 days of seminars: the first was in Barnaul for the Press Development Institute-Siberia, the second in Kirov for the Russian Union of Journalists, and the third in Rostov-on-Don for the Alliance of Independent Regional Publishers of Russia. The director of the Press Development Institute-Siberia in Barnaul wrote that Ryan's "ideas spurred numerous projects that our regional newspapers are eager to carry out as soon as possible.” [8] Then in July, Ryan visited and served as the first journalism professor in residence as he taught two journalism courses in China for three weeks at Shanghai University. [9]

High schools have increasingly used the Maestro Concept to introduce students on how a newsroom operates. The online High School Journalism Initiative has lesson plans devoted to introducing high school students to the concept. One lesson plan titled “conducting the orchestra: how to implement maestro” details how students can be taught to build small teams that are able to motivate, be productive and encourage quality throughout the school year.[10] High schools have reported that since the concept was introduced, students who have never before worked together find that they can coordinate fully reported stories and photos in one day. Besides meeting deadlines, students working together see that their story packages are of higher quality and often have a greater page presence.[11]

"The Maestro Concept" is presented in and is the title of Chapter Eight in the 2001 book, The Editor’s Toolbox, A Reference Guide for Beginners and Professionals. Ryan co-authored the book with Michael O'Donnell.

Concept and quotations

The Maestro Concept is a time management technique for story planning and newsroom organization through team collaboration to shape stories early before they are written. The central concept is trying to anticipate readers’ questions about news and stories (“think like a reader”) and then answering those questions as quickly as possible through visual aspects with high-visibility points such as photos, headlines, captions and information graphics. It is a management technique to encourage collaboration across news departments and ensure that quality work in a story comes not from the traditional method of an assembly-line process, but from teamwork and good time management from all players working on the story.

By connecting the different roles in journalism, the Maestro Concept congeals the story plan process and pulls it all together by integrating the separate work done by writers, photographers, graphic designers and editors. These members will meet together in a maestro session and they will coordinate the story line/graphic design layout of how the story will be presented to readers.

"Reinventing the Newsroom" by Carl Sessions Stepp from the American Journalism Review:

  • A guru in this area is Buck Ryan of the University of Kentucky ... His system involves a coordinating editor (the maestro), who convenes writer, copy editor and designer, very early in the process, to discuss story focus, illustration and packaging.
  • "allow everyone – from the editor to the library researcher – to contribute, and let the story idea drive the organization of the newsroom, then you break through."[12]

The Maestro Concept:

  1. Idea-group meetings
  2. The importance of coaching writers
  3. The challenges of hurdling newsroom traditions
  4. The maestro session in action
  5. A lesson in critiquing

— The Editor’s Toolbox, A Reference Guide for Beginners and Professionals [13]

1. Idea-group meetings

Story-generating ideas were traditionally a job assigned to editors, but with the Maestro Concept an idea-group meeting contains reporters as well as various department editors. Non-traditional attendees such as photographers and librarians, and even advertising, are included. Therefore, the field of creativity is expanded and allows for a wider breadth of inputs and ideas before a story is finished. Each of these members learn to team up and work across departments to more fully develop stories that engage and answer readers' questions about the story. The editing process has expanded and is no longer the sole province of various editors.

This idea-group is concentric with the inner ring comprising the top editor, section editors, star reporters and the known creative members of that media organization. The next ring will comprise the copy editors, photographers, designers, graphic artists, newsroom librarians and editorial assistants. The next ring extends to the staff members who are not in the newsroom such as circulation, production and the pressroom. The final outer ring reaches readers and reader advisory groups. The advisory groups provide background information and evaluate coverage.

Idea-group meetings are short (15 to 20 minutes), structured and have three rules: Story ideas can be suggested by anyone for any reason; a person suggesting a story idea will not have to be the one to write it; and there is no critiquing ideas, just listing ideas. Editors and decision- makers will determine the story list later and assign them.

The frequency of idea-group meetings, whether weekly or monthly, has no set rule, although should a meeting arise then the actual time schedule such as 10:30 a.m. or 1:30 p.m. are pre- set. Meetings are held on days when the largest number of staff can attend.

2. The importance of coaching writers

How to make reporters' lives easier? The editor or assistant editor acts as the "maestro" in development of a story and time management of it. A three-part test is applied while brainstorming with the reporter in the “pre-maestro check” to see if the reporter is at a point where they can summarize the essence of the story. To identify key reader questions, the editor and reporter complete a 30-word summary of the story, a preliminary headline, an early lead and then they isolate readers' top questions about that story.

This brainstorm session or pre-maestro check is the time where the editor will decide whether to proceed with that story, and if the pre-maestro check is successful then a maestro session will be called to include a photographer, illustrator and page designer.

A good Maestro takes lots of notes from all the players in during the development of the story package to make sure good ideas do not disappear. Throughout this session, the editor asks questions instead of delegating.

3. The challenges of hurdling newsroom traditions

A lot of newsrooms run an assembly line approach to publication production where writers report to an editor to receive their assignments, write their article, and then the editor creates a photo assignment before the story is ultimately compiled into a publication. Reporters traditionally follow three standard notions in an assembly-line approach to journalism. One, do all reporting before writing. Two, write the story, then discuss with the editor. Three, don't write a headline, a copy editor will. The Maestro Concept challenges these notions and further challenges the journalist to be more successful by putting decision-making into the hands of those with the most expertise.

The trick is detaching from the journalist mindset and instead thinking and observing like the reader. Readers of a publication are seeing more than just a story. To them, a story is composed of everything on the page: photos, graphics, captions, and text.[14]

The goal is to list and identify key reader questions. A short list of key reader questions provides the framework for the reporting to tell the story. High-visibility spots on the page through photos, headlines and captions provide answers to the key reader questions and if the reader- friendly index is successful, the reader is hooked and reads through the story.

4. The maestro session in action

The Maestro Session is a 10-to-15 minute session that begins after the “pre-maestro session.” This pre-maestro is where the key players involved in a story package (i.e. the reporter, the photographer, the graphics artist) develop the main story idea before the writing is fleshed out. This is led by the “maestro” senior edition/section editor who handles all the follow- up critiques of that story package. The key players draft headlines, the layouts and photo assignments are made, as well as established deadlines and story length.

The maestro session itself will then focus on the quality of the story to ensure involvement of and relevance to the readers. The focus is on quickly answering the top questions on a reader’s mind. Quality is built into the story from the very beginning with teamwork instead of waiting until the end to rely on inspection.

The maestro session has three core components and works consecutively down them, thereby building quality along the way into these news stories. The concept is taught across the world via the use of a Story Plan form and its story-planning process to “Think Like a Reader.”

Think Like A Reader Story Plan.
Maestro Concept Story Plan – Think Like A Reader.
I. The first core component in the process is the “Reader’s Viewpoint” a.k.a. "Think Like a Reader."
  • First, essential questions that would immediately come to a reader’s mind in the story are asked
(the story will answer these questions).
  • Secondly, the question is asked “what is the single most important thing about the story?”
  • And finally, “is there anything else that readers need to find out from this story?”
II. The second core component involves picturing the story on the page and its best high
visibility points in the layout including graphics that will quickly attract a reader’s
attention to the details of the story (and thereby get the reader to open the story
and read). Some of those integrated graphics that quickly tell the story are:
  • Quotation boxes
  • Question & Answer boxes
  • Sidebar boxes
  • Lists
  • Maps
  • Graphics
III. The third core component involves pulling all the parts of the team’s work together
(photo, graphics and writing) along with any requirements.

Getting the whole story: reporting and writing the news by Cheryl K. Gibbs and Tom Warhover:

  • Some newspapers use a group brainstorming strategy called "the maestro concept" to plan stories and visual elements simultaneously. This approach was developed in the early 1990s by journalism professor Leland "Buck" Ryan in collaboration with journalists at the Logansport (Ind.) Pharos-Tribune. Editors, reporters, page designers, photographers and artists meet about individual stories, after enough reporting has been done to get a sense of them. In each story meeting, a person designated as the maestro uses a story planning format to help the group (1) think through questions readers would have about the story, (2) refine the story concept, (3) picture it on the page and (4) identify challenges. In picturing the story on the page, they consider what kinds of photographs and/or informational graphics might be appropriate, what kinds of sidebars or pullouts could be written, and whether series logos or other graphic elements will be needed. In these discussions, the journalists sometimes go so far as to sketch out possible page designs.
[15]

5. Lessons in critiquing

The maestro conducts follow ups or “audits” of the story package and asks for improved ideas and the story is fine-tuned.

Each reader question will be revisited to identify where it was answered. The goal is to answer the questions in the “high visibility” positions of the story page: the headlines, photos, information graphics and quotes. These high visibility spots are “hooks” which will pull the reader into the story to read it fully. If say, during this critique tally of five top reader questions, only three of the top readers’ questions are answered in these high visibility positions, that is a 60 percent efficiency rate. The team members will then ascertain why and how 5-out-of-5 questions could be answered. The goal is continuous improvement in identifying readers’ questions and answering them through page design and writing approaches.

The maestro concept respects the ability of journalists and team members to accurately list the top questions that readers would have of a story. Those "Reader’s Viewpoints" would then provide the framework for the reporting, graphics and design layout that successfully tell that story with the highest impact.

Four-graph Approach

The four-graph approach to writing, editing, photography and design is meant to efficiently create an article designed for the reader. The design is partly based on the findings in the "Eyes on the News" study that found readers typically look at photos first, headlines second, captions third, and text fourth. The goal of this approach is to engage the readers by presenting the primary factual information.

Inverted pyramid technique of journalism writing.


  1. Who? A photo or illustration shows the readers.
  2. What? A headline quickly gives reason to the visual.
  3. When and Where? A caption to further engage readers.
  4. The lead follows and eases the reader into the rest of story, summarizing in an inverted pyramid technique the who-what-when-where of journalism writing.

Frequent Mistakes

Mistakes point out three key areas

  1. Maestroing can be a big help or a big waste of time, depending on the participants' attention to detail and willingness to follow through on a maestro plan. The maestro needs to be a vigilant shepherd.
  2. Managing change is difficult enough without mistakes that demoralize participants and lead to a loss of confidence in the system.

Benefits

Benefits

  1. Fewer rewrites. Writers and editors see less need to rewrite stories because of missing information or organization problems.
  2. Fewer unpublished photos. Photographers and photo editors see less need to reshoot photos, and clearer assignments reduce wasted time and effort.
  3. Cost-cutting. Mileage reimbursement checks dropped to $300 a month from $350 for photographers at the first paper to adopt the maestro concept.
  4. More camaraderie. Teamwork across sections and departments raises the respect for each other's contributions to the paper.
  5. Increase in awards. Typically, results can be seen from one year to the next where maestro sessions become daily events. The opposite also is true: as the number of maestro sessions decline, so do the awards.

— The Editor’s Toolbox: A Reference Guide for Beginners and Professionals

Baylor University Lariot Online student newspaper: "There is a maestro concept in journalism, like looking at art," Huett said. "You look at stories and story ideas and then create a package." [16]

Kathy Silverberg, Executive Director of the Times Daily: "The writer should have planned strategy with her editor before making the call. The Maestro concept works." [17]

Critiques

The maestro plan is a cooperative editing plan to change the way newsrooms work. Not everyone agrees with the changes that are altering newsrooms.

Reinventing the Newsroom:

"They're getting involved in all this hokey bullshit instead of putting out a hard-hitting newspaper," Schwartz contends. "People are getting away from what really moves circulation, and that's news, stories that have gut appeal." [12]

American Copy Editors Society, Board Notes:

"... there’s always going to be turmoil in our industry. If it’s not the maestro concept or pagination, it’s readers’ short attention spans or the Internet. But through it all, we — as individual copy editors and the group ACES — adapt, grow stronger and get better." [18]

See also

References

  1. ^ Package Planning, Teamwork Can Help Turn Stories into Appealing Packages PDF
  2. ^ Eyes on the News
  3. ^ "The Editor's Toolbox: A Reference Guide for Beginners and Professionals – Buck Ryan, Michael J. O'Donnell – Google Books". Books.google.com. http://books.google.com/books?id=1PQTj4YFUT0C&pg=PA217&lpg=PA217&dq=The+Editor's+Toolbox+Chapter+8+Maestro&source=bl&ots=D-2gRtSVW4&sig=gg7bn5hzCJ0yrnmCQCX9WsqdGK0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=kq0cT_m0KMH5gge5r-X7CQ&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAA. Retrieved 2012-03-08. 
  4. ^ good indexing
  5. ^ The Maestro Concept, What is it?
  6. ^ Kentucky School of Journalism Buck Ryan
  7. ^ [1]
  8. ^ Ryan presents Maestro Concept, ‘Citizen Kentucky’ project to Russian journalists, professors
  9. ^ CHROIX, “Hot Off The Press” Business Lexington, Retrieved 2012-05-27
  10. ^ Conducting the “Orchestra:” How to Implement Maestro
  11. ^ The maestro concept
  12. ^ a b "Reinventing the Newsroom – Carl Sessions Stepp". American Journalism Review ajr.org. April 1995. http://www.ajr.org/article.asp?id=1677. Retrieved 2012-05-07. 
  13. ^ "The Editor's Toolbox: A Reference Guide for Beginners and Professionals – Buck Ryan, Michael J. O'Donnell – Google Books". Books.google.com. http://books.google.com/books?id=1PQTj4YFUT0C&pg=PA217&lpg=PA217&dq=The+Editor's+Toolbox+Chapter+8+Maestro&source=bl&ots=D-2gRtSVW4&sig=gg7bn5hzCJ0yrnmCQCX9WsqdGK0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=kq0cT_m0KMH5gge5r-X7CQ&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAA. Retrieved 2012-04-12. 
  14. ^ "The Editor's Toolbox: A Reference Guide for Beginners and Professionals – Buck Ryan, Michael J. O'Donnell – Google Books". Books.google.com. http://books.google.com/books?id=1PQTj4YFUT0C&pg=PA217&lpg=PA217&dq=The+Editor's+Toolbox+Chapter+8+Maestro&source=bl&ots=D-2gRtSVW4&sig=gg7bn5hzCJ0yrnmCQCX9WsqdGK0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=kq0cT_m0KMH5gge5r-X7CQ&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAA. Retrieved 2012-03-08. 
  15. ^ "Getting the whole story: reporting and writing the news – Cheryl Gibbs and Tom Warhover – Google Books". Books.google.com. http://books.google.com/books?id=fisqzJm-8FsC&q=maestro+concept#v=snippet&q=maestro%20concept&f=true. Retrieved 2012-05-07. 
  16. ^ "BU journalists earn sweepstakes award – Amy Anthony". The Lariat Online. 1999-04-13. http://www.baylor.edu/lariat/news.php?action=story&story=13472. Retrieved 2012-05-07. 
  17. ^ "When can a reporter not identify herself? – Kathy Silverberg". asne.org. 1997-09. http://asne.org/kiosk/editor/97.sept/silverberg1.htm. Retrieved 2012-05-07. 
  18. ^ "The glamour of it all – Teresa Schmedding". American Copy Editors Society, Board Notes. 2010-11-02. http://www.copydesk.org/board/musings/2010/the-glamour-of-it-all/. Retrieved 2012-05-07. 

External links

Look up maestro concept in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Maestro concept.