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Keeping a Large Stable of Hard Chargers in Line
After working in the Chicago news market for 22 years, Angela Rosemond, managing editor of WMAQ-TV/Channel 5 since 1997, knows her stuff.
By Sarah Klein
■
The leader:
Angela Rosemond, local TV-news boss
■ The challenge: Corralling headstrong employees under tight deadlines.
■ The techniques: Never refer to employees as difficult or high-maintenance. Only
use the most glowing terms when speaking of them. Know their jobs as well as
your own.
here are few work relationships as adversarial as that of reporter and editor.
An editor’s job is to challenge a reporter’s story. Reporters, who bristle at
control, just want to chase it. With luck, the tension between the two leads to
a better product. But it goes more smoothly when they trust the other’s
judgment.
To gain credibility among reporters, Chicago editors have to know city politics,
history and basic geography, like where Wacker Drive is. After working in the
Chicago news market for 22 years, Angela Rosemond, managing editor of WMAQ-TV/Channel
5 since 1997, knows her stuff.
It also helps that her leadership style is low-key, despite the fast pace of the
newsroom, where stories are constantly breaking, changing and, sometimes,
falling apart. "I’ve never seen her raise her voice," says Nesita Kwan, the
station’s health reporter, who has worked with Rosemond for 10 years.
"I’ve never seen her throw things—the classic broadcast news things. She just
doesn’t do it."
Rosemond’s personality is a sharp contrast to those of many reporters who, under
pressure, lose their temper when they don’t get what they want. She has a
calming effect on them, says reporter Charlie Wojciechowski. "The fact that
she’s not high-maintenance makes her better-equipped to deal with people who
are.’’
Rosemond, 45, would be the last one to call her staff difficult. "I haven’t had
any issues with people giving me a hard time. We really get along really well,"
she says.
The key to being a good leader in this job, Rosemond says, is staying on top of
the news and being helpful to reporters. It’s also a matter of keeping her own
house in order. She’s at her desk by 6:30 a.m. to pore over newspapers and
newswires. She keeps police scanners on all day.
"You have to be really organized from the minute you sit down," she says. "You
have to communicate clearly what is expected of people. You have to be willing
to accept there may be a change, and you always have to have a plan B in your
pocket."
Workforce Management Online, October 2007 -- Register Now!
Filed by Sarah A. Klein of Crain’s Chicago Business, a sister publication of
Workforce Management. To comment, e-mail editors@workforce.com.
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