By Gregory Favre
Distinguished Fellow

(Favre delivered these remarks at the closing session of the National News Leadership Workshop June 16 in Cleveland.)

We are gathered here, almost in the shadow of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, at a time when the music in our newsrooms across this country sounds more like the blues of Beale Street.

And that's why today's session couldn't come at a better time. If ever we needed strong leaders in our newsrooms , we need them now. Leaders who will continue to define our mission and make sure that it is carried out. Leaders who will not surrender the values that are so fundamental and so vital to our existence. Leaders who will confront the fears that are so prevalent among journalists today.

Leaders who bring different backgrounds, different experiences, different hopes and dreams to our newsrooms. Leaders who will provide the energy and vision and inspiration to guide our futures in this new century. Leaders who joyously embrace what we do and who possess the power to heal our wounds. Leaders who know how to find the heart of a newsroom, whether it resides in one person or in dozens of people.

From what I have seen and what I have heard, most of you have the qualifications to fill those roles.

You came today because you want to be leaders, because you are willing to accept the responsibility that is such a vital element of true leadership, and not just to wear the mantle of authority. And I hope you came because you are committed to a culture that is informed by a moral compass. I hope you came because you have the confidence to confront change and to accept it. I hope you came because you want to make a difference.

You have had the opportunity today to hear from a number of outstanding leaders speaking on many aspects of leadership and management: How to lead through change, how to make ethical decisions, how to manage up, how to handle conflict, how to coach, how to recruit and retain the best and brightest, and many other areas.

These men and women have much in common. They have learned how to manage tensions and to lead in tough times. They are honest and direct in their dealings and know, as all good leaders do, that to truly succeed you must begin from a place of caring, you must have trust and the willingness and ability to engage people, you must have informed and civil conversations and give feedback

They know the importance of talking openly about our visions and needs, about common goals and obstacles, about the importance of understanding the expectations of those we work with and finding ways that those expectations can be fulfilled. They share the belief that what we do can be an enobling way to spend one's life. And that there can and should be a great deal of joy and fun in it.

So, please, take those ideas and those ideals that you talked about back to your newsrooms. Share them with others so that the message can be spread beyond the numbers that are here today. Good leaders are evangelists. Good leaders preach the word. Good leaders also practice that which they teach.

Jay Harris, the former publisher of the San Jose Mercury News, in an act of courage and devotion to his basic beliefs, left a wonderful job he loved because of a clash over values. Jay recently told a group of journalism students that the early steps of their journey will probably be more difficult and less direct than they expect. "The achievement of noble goals, " he said, "requires time and perseverance, patience and personal investment."

Certainly, it is not as easy to keep the faith in the current environment we are experiencing. Each day brings more news about layoffs and buyouts. Each day we read memos referring to high anxiety and stress in our newsrooms, of suffering through weeks of uncertainty, of trying to minimize the pain of those who are being let go, of how we can function best when the process is over, of how we have to downsize to stabilize.

Each day we are reminded more and more that we have to live with business rules that are alien to thosethat were our guides in the past, rules, as defined by some company heads, that are seemingly polar opposites of the idealism and creativity that have been such important components of the way we have done our jobs. Each day seems to unveil more Draconian moves than those introduced the day before.

No, it isn't easy. And it may not be for a while.

But I have always been an optimist and perhaps that has made it a little easier for me to keep the faith, that and the fact that in more than four decades I have lived through a lot of boom and bust times. And like you, I have such a deep and abiding love and passion for what we do, such an incredibly strong belief that we are needed today more than we have ever been needed before, that I will not allow myself to walk through the sludge of despair. I will not allow my hopes to be crushed by those who have eliminated the role of the heart in their decision making.

Good journalism and good business are soul mates not enemies and it is the role of leaders to make sure that message is heard loud and clear. As David Laventhol wrote recently in the Columbia Journalism Review, "The regular gatherings of media companies and financial analysts should include emphasis on editorial performance. Quality news coverage should be presented as a core cost of doing business." Unfortunately, the voice of the newsroom is rarely represented at these meetings.

Now is the time for us to make sure it is heard. Or as my dear friend Tim McGuire, president of The American Society of Newspaper Editors, whom you heard from today, said in a recent speech, "We must create our own future. It is time for each one of us to answer the call of leadership and the call of change. We must step up with courage, determination and innovation. We cannot continue to let things be done to us."

Tim is so right. Quality journalism will stand as the voice of credibility as never before. And our commitment to public service, the sacred trust we share with our readers and our viewers and our listeners, must be preserved and honored or we will become something most of us will despise. So we must look beyond the drive for higher and higher margins, beyond what Wall Street demands of our public companies on a quarterly basis, beyond the never-ending discovery of new hardware and new software, and always remember that we have a duty to be the news gatherers and the truth-tellers in our towns and to serve as trusted places for public discussion and public discourse.

If bravery is indeed sticking to the courage of our convictions, then the time has come for us all to be brave. The time has come for us all to remember why we came to journalism in the first place. If you have lost any part of that passion, find it again and never lose it again.

If we lose that passion, that commitment we share, my greatest fear is that someday we will be without good, strong, dedicated news outlets representing the wholeness of our communities, echoing all of their voices so that we can hear and listen to each other, so that democracy can work for all, those who live in our inner cities and our rural areas, as well as those in our edge cities and our suburbs. We can't let that happen.

If we don't do our jobs, who else is going to explore and examine the issues surrounding us…hunger and housing, health care and elderly care, education for our children and their children, jobs and taxes, our air and land and water, not to mention such subjects as bio-technology and global warming and legal reforms and gene splicing and microbiology? To do this well will take a more sophisticated journalism than many of us have been practicing, and a wider recruiting net to bring people into our newsrooms who will understand and be able to explain these complicated and emerging subjects. It will take more training, not less, as is happening now.

And we will need leaders who can make the right choices, who can inspire and motivate and energize those who work with them, who can coach and nuture others, who have respect for different thoughts and ideas, who will involve people with their desires and dreams in the process. Leaders who earn respect by caring and by creating real opportunities for others to achieve their goals.

We will need leaders who understand that if we lose our commitment to strong story-telling, to solid content, to the power and elegance of our words, to the beauty and grace of our images, to the clarity and values and judgment we have brought to bear on the flow of information, we will lose. And if we lose, we will become more like so many of those talk show hosts and participants, who as a friend said, have pooled their ignorance to communicate with one another. If we lose, our communities will lose.

We need leaders who will strive to over-deliver on what they have promised, who will realize the importance of raising the educational level of staffers. Leaders, who, as Jack Fuller of Tribune newspapers said in his book, "News Values," believe that "honest and thoughtful journalism can be the glue that binds a community, that provides leadership and still is responsive to the community's needs."

Those of us in the information business have come a long way from the time when Guttenberg introduced moveable type. And so many other changes, such as the modern printing presses, radio, television, computers, 24-hour newscasts, an explosion of magazines and niche publications, have changed the way we practice our craft. And, obviously, the way we live and the way we communicate. But what hasn't changed for most of us is why we do what we do and how we can make a difference if we do it well and with care. May that never change.

I was thinking about this recently, as I often do, and I was recalling just several of the thousands of times when I had the opportunity to witness dedicated journalists leave a place a little better than it was before they arrived.

I remember the reporter and photographer who haunted area classrooms for months and exposed a system that practically programmed poor kids to fail.

Or the reporter who wrote of a 71-year-old nurse dying in a hospital in Chile and who wanted to come home to die, but couldn't afford the trip on a medical plane. A reader paid tens of thousands of thousands of dollars to make it happen.

Or the reporter who sat for hours with the mother of a child killed on a school playground, holding her hand, because the government official who was supposed to come didn't show up. The reporter sent to Mexico to cover an earthquake who put away his pencil and notebook and took up a shovel to help dig in the ruins for those who might still be alive.

The reporter, who while covering the story of hunger in the state, took money from his own pocket to buy food for those he was covering. And then when he and his colleagues received a $10,000 prize for the story they voted to give it all to the food banks in town.

The reporter who wrote of the senseless death of a four-year-old in a foster home and changed the way the Child Protective Services did its job.

The reporter and photographer who chronicled the story of those who would destroy the majesty of a mountain range and perhaps through their work saved its beauty forever.

All of us could go on and on and add to that list, including some of the good work done by many of you in this room. But these are not the usual things you hear about us or read about us, or what people think about us. They are, however, the kinds of things that take place in newsrooms, big and small, print and broadcast, day after day.

And we must never stop doing them.

As you progress in management and leadership roles make sure that will not happen in your shop. Recruit and retain talented men and women who care and then create an environment in which they can do their best work. And do everything possible to make sure they reflect the face of our changing communities.

We all have been given a great gift, the gift to be journalists. The gift to be touched by and to touch the lives of so many. The gift to meet the people we have met in every walk of life and at every level and have the chance to tell their stories. The gift to be able to say that in some small way, we made a difference; in some small way, we counted.

When I think of how lucky I have been to have been able to practice our craft for all these years, and because of my work to have had a chance to be more and to do more than I ever dreamed I would be and do, I think of something the character Crash Davis said in the movie "Bull Durham."

When Crash, an aging veteran, was told his job was to nurse a young pitching prospect, he asked the manager, "What's in it for me?" And the manager answered, "You get to keep coming to the ballpark and you are getting paid for it."

I got to go to a newsroom and got paid for it, just as you do. I can't think of a better reason to love what you do or a better reason to do it with love.

What a great gift!

Go home again and use it well. And lead us into the future with confidence and compassion and courage. More than ever, we need you.

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Also from the Cleveland workshop: Jill Geisler on the six things newsroom bosses need.