Dear Coach,

I like my newsroom and the reporting I get to do, but I feel that our push to online takes away from the quality of our stories. We slap everything on the Web with multiple updates all day. The number of stories and updates you can do in a day is highly valued. Sometimes I feel I’m going nuts having to “feed the online beast.” How can I maintain my sanity in this environment? — Beast Feeder

Dear Feeder:

You are right. The task you describe is crazy-making.

The real question is not how can you dump more stories online faster, but rather, how are you (and your newsroom) using the potential of the Web to better build, organize, enhance and recruit good content?

Here are just a few examples, from a rich and bottomless well, for you to think about:

– Posting meeting agendas and minutes. http://www.melbourneflorida.org/meet/ahacmin.pdf and inviting reader comments vs. running around trying to cover every meeting in town. (You might be surprised at how many good stories emerge.) Identifying and organizing local experts to add context and content to news coverage. http://americanpublicmedia.publicradio.org/publicinsightjournalism/

– Posting documents, like courtroom testimony, to either tell or enhance a story. http://wweek.com/html/vogel.html

– Creating a place on your news site where community members can become news contributors. http://www.bakersfieldvoice.com/home/

– Writing terse blog items, as opposed to belabored stories, inviting people to read referenced documents. http://westseattleblog.com/blog/?p%20025

Remember, the newspaper beast was born hungry. These days, it is bigger and hungrier than ever. We are all struggling to balance smaller staffs with never-ending floods of stuff to cover for audiences looking for updates all day (and night) long.

Can you, as a reporter or news organization do this and stay sane?

No.

So stop. Think. Talk to your editors. Offer ideas. Regroup as a newsroom. Learn to use the beast as a resource rather than going nuts trying to feed it.

Related columns:

Stopping the gerbil wheel: http://www.chipsquinn.org/skills/ask/ask.aspx?idx9

Writing faster on deadline: http://www.chipsquinn.org/skills/ask/ask.aspx?id=187

Finding time for longer stories: http://www.chipsquinn.org/skills/ask/ask.aspx?id=207

Mary Ann Hogan of Boca Raton, Fla., has been a career coach with the Chips Quinn Scholars program for more than a decade.

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