The Vanderbilt Business Review recently hosted a speaker event on campus with four people from various parts of the journalism industry. One of the questions we asked them was “What has been the most interesting adventure of your career?” Here is what each speaker said:
Eric Snyder
Snyder is the editor in chief of the Nashville Business Journal. He shared the story of him becoming editor in chief, a position he initially applied to “out of a sense of obligation” then dropping out of the running for. He explained that his boss, the former editor in chief, “was fantastic at the job. Absolutely fantastic. And she and I were not alike at all and because I was different from her I didn’t think I could do the job. I didn’t think I would have all the answers.” As Covid forced a pause on the search for a new editor in chief, he realized that how he was running the newsroom in lieu of an official #1 was working well, even during the crazy pandemic times. That’s how he knew he was truly ready for the role.
He gave these words of advice to the audience: “Remember that just because you will do a job differently than it is being done now or you have some contrast between somebody who is doing a job you would like to have, those aren’t mistakes or deficiencies they’re just differences.”
Doug MacMillan
MacMillan is a reporter for the Washington Post on the business and tech investigations team. He discussed his work investigating Uber in South Africa. He found that Uber was convincing people to start driving for Uber as a way to get out of poverty, but in reality, people in poor areas were mugging drivers when they showed up to pick their riders up. Read his full story here.
For stories such as his Uber one, MacMillan described a special emotion: “When you have that moment of knowing that you are writing a story that has not been in the world before and that you are uniquely positioned to write, it’s an awesome feeling. It’s like ‘that’s why I do this.’ That’s where the love of it really kicks in.”
Ty Trippet
In his prior role at Bloomberg News before becoming Bloomberg LP’s spokesman, Trippet’s job was to work with journalists and promote their work. When he first joined Bloomberg, no one was doing what he was hired to do. Trippet worked hard, early to prove the value of his work. With that tenacity, he booked a journalist to go on Good Morning America to discuss their newly published story. Trippet showed the video to his Editor in Chief who loved it and encouraged him to do more.
He successfully established himself and his work, got more resources, and embarked on a fruitful tenure at Bloomberg. Trippet told the audience, “Part of succeeding in any job is figuring it out, you know being eager … being curious, having the courage to see projects through.”
Davis Winkie
Winkie is a White House reporter for USA TODAY covering nuclear threats and national security. Back when he worked at the Military Times, Winkie discovered that tank unit members had a much greater suicide risk than other active duty service members. For this story he built a database of non-combat army casualties, consulted mental health research on suicide risks and information on overwork in various army units, and finished it off with “some old school shoe leather reporting.” Read the story here, and more details on how he made these findings here.
Reflecting on his work, Winkie generalized his experience for all journalists: “You don’t know necessarily as a reporter when you’ve pulled the thread that is going to be your big thing … Someday your moment is going to fall into your lap and you’re not going to realize it until it’s there and you need to be ready to do whatever it takes to ensure it doesn’t pass you by.”
