SABEW critique offers great advice

By Jeff Ostrowski

Palm Beach Post

(Editor's Note: SABEW board members offered critiques to a dozen business journalists attending the fall conference at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill on Oct. 20-21. Ostrowski, (right) pictured below with Mark Essig, (left) the business editor of the Asheville Citizen-Times, reflected on what the critique session meant to him)

When reporters and editors work together for a long time, the relationship turns into something akin to a marriage.

The constant contact can be good. Both sides develop trust and a comfort level.

But the marriage-like relationship also can be bad. It’s far too easy to become overly sensitive to criticism, or tune it out (like I do when my wife tells me for the 20th time to get rid of those past-their-prime pants).

So I looked at my critique at the SABEW Fall Conference in Chapel Hill as a sort of marriage counseling session.

Seattle Times Business Editor Becky Bisbee took the time to pore over two of my stories and then spend a half-hour pointing out places where I could have made them punchier and more relevant.

I was surprised at how eager I was for a new perspective on my clips. After years of working for the same bosses, I all too often receive their criticism with eye rolls or sighs (inward eye rolls and sighs, of course).

But when I had a chance to hear fresh feedback from Becky, I was all ears.

One of her suggestions, which I hadn’t thought much about, was to write with a specific reader in mind, whether it’s a general reader for a 1A feature or a finance-minded investor for an earnings piece.

I encourage other writers to take advantage of SABEW’s critique sessions.

Posted Oct. 24, 2007