EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK: Reporting the news is a team sport

We adhere to high journalistic standards at Triad City Beat. Even though we’re a small team, we always check out the facts, pull the documents, ask the tough questions and even show up to people’s places of work when we need to get straight answers. 

But every now and again a story comes along that requires even us to reach out to our most trusted advisors for a third or fourth set of eyes.

And that’s because reporting the news is a team sport.

Even with a story that’s shorter and straightforward, it always is read by at least one other person who edits the piece, line by line, quote by quote to ensure accuracy.

It’s what keeps us safe and ensures that we can maintain the highest standards. It’s also what keeps us from facing legal action, being called “fake news” or losing the trust of our readers.

But it’s a process. No one reporter or editor can do it all.

In the early days of my time at TCB, my stories would come back with all kinds of line edits by Brian, Eric and Jordan. It was a humbling time. 

These days the process is a little easier, mostly because it’s just me and Brian editing the work. But like I said, for some bigger stories, we have to bring in the big guns. And that means, once again, humbling myself to the process.

It’s easy, when you’ve been working on a story for months to feel a sense of ownership of the piece. To be invested in it — not in a biased way — but in a way that makes you want to make sure that the words go from just a private Google Doc to a public website or even better, to becoming etched in ink onto paper.

But like with many important things, good news takes time. And as much as I don’t like it, more hands in the pot often yields a better product.

So that’s what we’re doing these days and hopefully you will get to see the fruits of that labor soon enough.