I played football in high school and I was not particularly good.  I lived in a small town in Texas after my father had returned from Vietnam and had retired from the Air Force.  We played six-man football.  The coach of the team was also the science teacher and the high school principal.  The town was led by two competing churches: Baptist and Church of Christ.  Being an Air Force brat up till then, I had lived in a number of places, including many years in Europe and on the east coast.  The point is that there was a gulf of experience between the coach and me.  He was a mature town leader, conservative, and had lived in the town for most of his life, whereas, I had far more experiences in different places, but I was a rebellious adolescent.  One day after practice he was frustrated with my playing and the fact that I was constantly criticizing the school and pushing boundaries with my attitude and appearance.  He picked up a stick and drew an “X” in the dirt.  He pointed to one line and explained to me that the town was travelling along that line and I had come into the town on the other line.  He said they were quite happy traveling along the first line and would not be following me down my line.  He told me I would either have to follow him down his line or go my own way.  There was no other option.  It was actually my first encounter with an established authority over power dynamics that wasn’t based on brute strength—my parents were not authoritarians, but some bullies tended to be—and it was also the first time I encountered “framing” in the sense that it was a simplistic explanation of a much more complicated process of leadership. It became a story I have been telling most of my life.

Following the coach’s lead, I immediately began to think of alternative examples.  If “X” represents the primary conflict of the leader/follower dynamic, “Y” represents a successful resolution of that dynamic—two paths converging into one. Interestingly, I came up with this description independently of the Douglas McGregor Model of X and Y, which is completely different symbolically and yet we end up at the same place!¹ The “Y” or “why” is a communication that can lead to mutual understanding of the other’s position.  However, it is only a symbol that two lines have come together to continue on a shared path.  It does not follow that the original paths are equal in power.  In my example one line represents an entire town.  The other line represents an individual.  The group versus the individual — yet another power dynamic.  Back then, in the early 70s I was obsessed with power.  People were marching in the streets, getting killed by the National Guard on college campuses, burning draft cards— and bras!  The media said there was a “generation gap.”  The survivors of World War II were pitted against their children.  Parent and child— another power dynamic.  Despite anyone’s age, that original family dynamic can remain in personalities an entire lifetime.  An authoritarian response to “why” is “because I said so.”  Of course, that response is not always presented so bluntly. It can also be stated, “do you want this job or not?”

For most of my life I have been a storyteller, most recently a journalist.  I have worked in many news situations and it has been my experience that actually covering a story, doing everything necessary to report a story, is not as stressful as the management dynamic in a newsroom.  “Leadership” can come in many forms, but there are constructive and destructive styles.  As a matter of common sense, there is no advantage to most involved individuals for a leader to promote a destructive operation.  This paper will examine the leadership styles that are most productive and counter-productive in an American newsroom.  I describe the method I used, explain the difference between transactional and transformational leadership styles, and explain those differences in the context of the newsroom.

Method

I employ a postcritical ethnographic method in this analysis, applying theory proposed by Noblit, Flores and Murillo,² specifically the expectation of transparency of positionality.  However, critical ethnographic analysis proceeds on the assumption that society is constructed on power dynamics, so Foucault, Gramsci, and the post-Marxist Brown, are cited as a critical foundation.  I am also inspired by the approach of work by Madison.³ I advocate for a newsroom employee’s authority as the most effective way to create a productive working environment. I have worked in the news business, employing the tool of objectivity, so I am able to use the skill of observation dispassionately in most circumstances.  However, I am not pretending to do so in this essay.  Notice I say “tool of objectivity” rather than say “I am an objective person.”  I do not believe objectivity is an inherent characteristic in anyone’s being— other than perhaps a sociopath. I am approaching this essay largely from a position of diverse personal experience.  To that end, although I have interviewed newsroom veterans for this study, I have done so for the purpose of supporting my argument that a transactional leadership style is not conducive to a newsroom environment.  I do provide reasons why some managers do not agree with my assessment, and I provide context for those reasons, but ultimately, I base my conclusions on my personal experience.

I take a cue from qualitative researchers, Lester and Anders, who provide three lessons they learned while creating a postcritical ethnography on refugees in Appalachia. “1. value of generating a layered account of experience; 2. potentiality of experimental forms of writing, and 3. importance of foregrounding relational ethics.”⁴ I use each of these considerations.

 I employ an autoethnographic dimension to the study, because quite frankly, I am not a neophyte in matters of workplace power structures. To me it would be disingenuous and hypocritical to deny the truth of my subjective experience, considering my professional and ethical foundation has been “to seek out the truth and report it,” and to “be transparent.”⁵ Ellis’ reflexive approach⁶ is useful in this regard as I connect my individual life to the larger context of the political and social life of a newsroom culture.

I interview three managers of Lubbock’s KCBD-TV “Newschannel 11” and observe the newsroom operation prior, during and following an evening newscast.  I also interview a News Director at a station in Colorado Springs. I had worked with him at a Sinclair-owned station in Amarillo, KVII-TV.  The newsroom at KCBD uses a type of transformational leadership style.  KVII under Sinclair uses a transactional style.  I compare the two approaches and argue Sinclair’s style is counter-productive to a newsroom’s mission.  The newsroom’s mission, despite local variations, is to conform to the Federal Communication Commissions’ mandate of “broadcast localism.”  The mandate requires broadcasters that are licensed to “serve the needs and interests of the communities for which they are licensed.”⁷ The station as a whole can help meet these ends, but because the newsroom is frequently the primary contact between the station and the public, it is incumbent upon the newsroom to play a vital role in public relations. There are distinct differences between the two stations I examine.

Because I am using my experience in this study it is important that my position is made clear.  I am an older white male in an increasingly diverse industry from markets the size of Amarillo to that of Phoenix.  It would not be uncommon in some markets to find the most racially and gender diverse employees of the area at the local television station.  Today more women are graduating from journalism programs than men, but as of 2017 there are still more men in management positions and in larger markets.⁸ In my experience I worked at a time when there were almost exclusively men in broadcasting and have watched that dynamic change. When I served in the Air Force at a broadcast facility in the Philippines, there were no women.  There were quite a few women at my last news experience, the Sinclair-owned station, including the General Manager and the News Director.  Over the years I have worked at virtually every position in production and news, from master control operator to studio camera to producer, reporter and anchor.  There is always stress, especially with breaking news, but I personally have never had difficulties working with anyone on the basis of anything other than personality.  On the other hand, I observed many instances over the years when my colleagues have been subjected to racist, sexist, classist or otherwise intolerant behavior, including at the workplace or among the public.  I am a natural observer.  As an Air Force brat, moving and changing schools often, I learned to understand the rules and power structures quickly through observation and conversation.  That skill aids a journalist.  Furthermore, in reporting a hard news story or telling a story in a more featured style, I learned the ethical considerations journalists should apply to the public.  Journalists should respect the public.  People are not obligated to be interviewed and when they are they should be treated with respect.  On the other hand, a reporter not only represents an individual, but also a business, an idea of objective journalism, and the rest of the public.  That can be a tough balancing act and sometimes a journalist must be aggressive.  In any event a reporter must be fair and mindful and sensitive of the potential repercussions that telling a story could have on that person’s position or reputation.  Truth is absolutely vital.

The process is similar to the evolution of sociological and anthropological ethnography.

If Malinowski’s colonial detachment reduced an indigenous community to the status of lab rats, today’s “objective” reporting done without sensitivity, viewing an interviewee as a thing to be used, can produce the same effect.  Reporters working for the first time in an area can bring many prejudices into the process.  That is why reporters are always encouraged to become part of the community.  If a fear of conflicts of interest prevents that from happening, it is simply better to be transparent than to consider oneself professionally distant from the community for the purpose of preserving the illusion of objectivity.  These considerations will become more important as the analysis of leadership style is made apparent in this essay.

Transactional Versus Transformational

I will briefly define the essential differences between transactional and transformational leadership styles before I show how they apply to the specific newsroom observations I have made.

Transactional leadership theory is defined essentially as how it is titled.⁹ A transaction takes place.  The leader in this instance has the power to reward or punish. Obviously, if the leader has the power to punish, the leader has the power.  Essentially the leader and follower make a deal.  Each receives something in return. Transactional leaders motivate primarily through appealing to a follower’s self-interest.  The most obvious example of such a motivation is money, of course: a salary, bonuses, promotions, perks. The leader’s goal in such a scenario, is to not actively engage with the workplace unless there is an issue (although there are micro-managers.)  The leader counts on having what Foucault would call “docile bodies.”¹⁰ By imposing enough discipline followers will anticipate punishment and avoid it by meeting the leader’s expectations.  Military leaders, coaches, and CEOs of corporations tend to be transactional.  They tend to be to some degree authoritarian and yet can be inspirational as well.  Following rules is important. Creativity is discouraged.  I played football and served in the military and have worked for CEOs.  The leaders in my experience were certainly transactional.

Transformational leadership theory¹¹ is fundamentally different from the transactional.  Such leaders focus on what needs changing within an organization, things that do not work, and find ways to make the change.  They work for the greater good and strive to meet the needs of followers.  However, there is no emphasis on rulemaking or establishing a hierarchy. The idea is to be creative and empathetic, and above all a team leader who inspire the others on the team to be responsible.  The latter description is important.  Rather than catering to the self-interest of followers, the transformational leader encourages fellow group members to be equally devoted to the team, to repress the selfish impulses that result when every fellow employee is competing for a limited number of prizes.  It is not surprising in a capitalist system, or by operating in today’s neoliberal corporations, the transactional model would be prevalent.  The transactional discourages organizing by individuals.  Everything a transactional system does reinforces a class structure between management and labor.  Engels said “[Unions] imply the recognition of the fact that the supremacy of the bourgeoisie is based wholly upon the competition of the workers among themselves; i.e., upon their want of cohesion.”¹² However, transformational is not Marxist, per se, although it is cooperative.  Nevertheless, individual creativity within the transformational group is idealized.

The Newsroom

I started my newsroom career as a producer.  It was my job to organize the stories (stack the show) for two newscasts. That included determining how each story was formatted. In that capacity I was in charge of those shows. Reporters and photographers answered to me.  However, I did have an executive producer over me who was also the female anchor. I later became a weekend anchor and a reporter during the week.  Finally, at that station I was the 5 o’clock anchor and nightly reporter for the 10 o’clock newscast.  In those days at a small market there was little breaking news so I began to specialize in more feature stories.  I carried those skills to other markets.

My experience was fairly typical of generic newsroom dynamics.  Photographers had the least power. Producers had absolute power during their newscasts but little outside of that. Reporters, depending on their experience had relative power commensurate with their skill.  Management could include an assignment editor, who assigned stories.  The executive producer was in charge of the other producers and had ultimate authority over the execution of the shows.  There could be an assistant news director.  The news director ran things.  Anchors also had a lot of power depending on their tenure, their popularity with the public, or their charismatic influence over the others.  Today, because the technology has changed, there can also be a digital producer or manager.  Ideally the stories that ran in the newscasts were chosen by everyone in the newsroom, or from outside. People would generate ideas but ultimately the news director would make a decision, which often was a matter of consensus.  The news director also handled budget, personnel issues, mandates from corporate managers and issues from the public —such as complaints or potential lawsuits.  In such a scenario one can see how in terms of power dynamics, the essential chaotic nature of determining and bringing news to the public is controlled by a democratic process that operates within a flexible hierarchy.  Everyone has their job and place within the process.  They are working toward the same goal.  At any time, however, employees are allowed to express their displeasure with anything or anyone provided the newscast is completed.  The show must go on.  That inarguable fact reflects the performance aspect of the process.  That original workplace used a Transactional Leadership model, but it was not as severe as that at Sinclair.  The management was always fair and generally cared about people.  It was Transactional because people didn’t really know another way.  Most employment back then followed that model generally but became more empathetic when dealing with people.  Upper management believed it was the best way to handle employees in terms of rewards and punishments.  Sometimes it would be unjust and sometimes it seemed to be the best way to get what I needed.  I wasn’t paid well back then so the unlimited overtime truly helped me survive.

I have lived in many parts of the world and learned something profoundly simple.  If you go out of your way to learn the local customs and understand the people of an area, they will like you more than if you stick to what you are accustomed. “Reciprocal Altruism” is the focus of many biology, psychology and cultural studies.¹³ Those studies have basically shown that people will like you more if you like them.  It seems like an obvious thing, but that never stopped anyone from doing a study on it!  It follows then, that if you are not from an area, but find yourself in a job there, it behooves you to adopt some of the characteristics of the people around you.

Lubbock’s KCBD is the top rated news station in the city.  One reason is undoubtedly familiarity.  The primary anchor team has been together the longest in the country.  In a conservative city, they have essentially become part of the fabric of what it means to be conservative.  The newsroom is also made up for the most part by people from Lubbock, or who have made Lubbock a home.  Current News Director David Williams, whose last job had been in Alabama, values the local knowledge of his managers. “I certainly don’t know everything.  I certainly need that market perspective of my other managers in the newsroom.”¹⁴ The Assistant News Director, a Lubbock native and longtime employee, Ruben Villareal appreciates William’s respect. “We’ve had a few new News Directors come in before and they’ve come from the bigger cities and they may not necessarily know the Lubbock culture…some of the stuff the Lubbock culture wants isn’t going to work in Dallas or Seattle…I like the fact that David is open-minded when it comes to that kind of stuff…He really does lean on Amber and I to say, okay, this is a really good idea…He has a really good saying, he’s always like, look tell me if I’m about to step into a really big pile of shit right now.”¹⁵  That management expectation of personal respect filters to the other newsroom employers.  Digital Content Manager Amber Stegel, also a longtime employee and Lubbock native, describes her management style as “chill.”

“That’s such a 90s word to say.  They kind of make fun of me for that.  I think that you gain respect not by barking orders, but by working with people.  They see me working in the trenches with them.  I’m in there digging away, going through documents, getting out breaking news stories just like they are.  I’ve been in management for a while now but I’ve never really elevated myself to that level…they respect that…but if I say hey, there’s something I need for you to do, they also see I have the experience to know what I’m talking about.”¹⁶

KCBD has recently been bought by Gray Broadcasting.  It was owned by Raycom.  Williams says neither corporation have made demands on them in terms of dictating content or newsroom management.  Ryan Hazelwood is currently the news director at KOAA in Colorado Springs.  They were recently bought by the E.W. Scripps Company.  He also says Scripps has not made demands on them.  One possible explanation is both stations are Number 1 in their market.  That was not the case when Ryan and I worked at KVII when Sinclair took over.  Sinclair invested money and changed the look of the news product, making it conform to the look of the other 192 Sinclair stations in the country. That branded look is a reflection of expected conformity to newsroom policy. “They told us this is how we run things and this is how you will run things going forward. And here’s how we’ll do it.  And you guys will either get on board, or you guys will find another ship to set sail on.”¹⁷ It was certainly a transactional expectation from the corporation’s point of view.  Essentially, they were imposing their culture onto KVII’s. “Sinclair had the must-run stories.  They had a system where [corporate management] could watch every newscast.”¹⁸ Hazelwood describes how the corporation would mandate what corporate stories would run, much of which was politically conservative propaganda, and spot check to see when they ran: what day, what newscast, which section of the newscast.  If those expectations were not met, the Corporate Regional News Director would meet with Hazelwood and the General Manager. “Sinclair was very top-down.  Under Sinclair I was made more of a manager and less of an innovator…it was more about managing their systems and processes and less about innovating and doing what you thought was best for the community.”¹⁹

Sinclair is a throwback to a transactional, class-stratified corporate culture that moves into a community and does not respect or understand the norms of the community, but rather communicates its prepackaged message to the community.  Sinclair’s hegemonic intentions are obvious to any journalist who respects a free press.  Gramsci said, “Ideas and opinions are not spontaneously ‘born’ in each individual brain: they have had a centre of formation, or irradiation, of dissemination, of persuasion.”²⁰ Sinclair is a colonizer, sending first the missionaries to propagate the faith.  Fox News has been exercising the same process through cable, but Sinclair goes directly into a community and builds a church of politically conservative misinformation. In the workplace, the addition of Sinclair oriented Human Resources Departments are actually Sinclair enforcers, the Gestapo for the Nazis or the local Communist Party officials for the Soviets.  Sinclair would work through HR to discipline employees who did not adhere to the company’s dictates—which tended to be based on neoliberal rationality —in which literally everything and everyone is identified and treated and valued as part of the market, nothing more than human capital, to be governed by the richest corporations.  Brown says, “Different from ideology—a distortion or mystification of reality—neoliberal rationality is productive, world-making: it economizes every sphere and human endeavor, and it replaces a model of society based on the justice-producing social contract with society conceived and organized as markets and with states oriented by market requirements. Neoliberal rationality becomes our ubiquitous common sense.”²¹

The difference between the two newsroom styles should be clear in terms of impact on the community.  If the FCC requires broadcast localism for a station to have its licensed renewed, the FCC should challenge Sinclair’s application.  The FCC did turn down Sinclair’s offer to buy the Tribune stations recently, delivering them a severe setback.²² The responsibility of a broadcast station to the local community involves showing the community who they are beyond offering important information.  They do so by getting into the community and returning to the station with a story written as fairly and objectively as possible to show back to the community.  The limited 30- minute newscast information, then, derives from the community or includes stories from national networks that produce fair and objective stories that are reasoned to be of consequence to the local community.  By contrast Sinclair’s focus is to provide propaganda to the local community—the same must-run propaganda that it produces for all its stations. Local Sinclair employees are chosen by the larger corporate office. Many times the employees have little or no experience of the community and little or no incentive to understand the community.  Therefore, the community has little incentive to return the favor and frequently do not, frequently causing a Sinclair station’s ratings and revenue to fall.

Conclusion

A transformational leadership style is the best leadership paradigm for a newsroom.  It most closely aligns with the necessary processes to create a newscast that is responsive to the public and all newsroom employees.

The newsroom morning and afternoon pitch meetings at KCBD require the staff to gather in a conference room where everyone pitches stories and the group makes decisions about what stories will run.  The more experienced usually have a greater say in the process but even rookies can have a good idea.  At KVII after Sinclair bought them, newsroom management would retreat to an office and then emerge with stories that were given to the staff.  There were no arguments that way.  A newsroom is supposed to have arguments, provided they are not violent of course.  In a democratic society that values free speech, the industry given the task to protect and honor free speech, must practice it in a newsroom and must help the public protect it.  Sinclair values preserving the hierarchical structure of a corporation, not giving the newsroom the opportunity of dissent.

Once there was a single newspaper in town that offered the folks in that town whatever they needed to know and whatever they wanted to know.  Obviously that has changed. Newspapers are dying if they are not going online and finding revenue somehow on the internet. Journalists have traditionally sparred against public relations experts who are generally beholden to protect their employers. Sinclair, however, is a bald-faced public relations company masquerading as journalists. Their transactional leadership style ensures employee compliance.  It does not provide freedom for creativity, innovation or free speech for storytelling. That philosophy infers they are not serving the public, because it is the newsroom that primarily represents the public. Transformational leadership style does provide freedom of expression for employees and public.  A democracy allows free speech and press for every individual.  A corporation, run by a CEO, who tends to be a top-down manager is a destructive force on American values.

Endnotes

1. The Mindtools Content Team. “Theory X and Theory Y.” Retrieved from: https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_74.htm.
2. George W. Noblit, Susana E. Flores, Enrique G. Murillo. “Postcritical Ethnography: An Introduction” in Postcritical Ethnography in Education. (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2004).
3. Madison D. Soyini Critical ethnography: method, ethics, and performance. (2005). Retrieved from http://www.sagepub.com/upmdata/4957_Madison_I_Proof_Chapter_1.pdf.
4. Jessica Nina Lester and Allison Daniel Landers. “Engaging Ethics in Postcritical Ethnography: Troubling Transparency, Trustworthiness, and Advocacy.” Forum: Qualitative Social Research. Volume 19, No. 3, Art. 4 – September 2018. Retrieved from: http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/3060/4255.
5. Society of Professional Journalists. SPJ Code of Ethics. Retrieved from: https://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp.
6. Ellis, Carolyn Ellis. The ethnographic I: A methodological novel about autoethnography. (Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press, 2004).
7. Broadcasting and Localism. FCC. Retrieved from: https://transition.fcc.gov/localism/Localism_Fact_Sheet.pdf.
8. Catherine York. Women Dominate Journalism Schools but Newsrooms Are Still a Different Story. Poynter. (September 18, 2017.) Retrieved from: https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2017/women-dominate-journalism-schools-but-newsrooms-are-still-a-different-story/.
9. Bernard Bass Bass & Stogdill's Handbook of Leadership: Theory, Research & Managerial Applications(4th ed.). (New York, NY: The Free Press, 2008).
10. Michel Foucault. Discipline and Punish: the Birth of the Prison, (New York: Random House, 1975).
11. Bass, 2008.
12. Frederick Engels, “The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845)”, in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 4 (New York: International Publishers, 1975), 507.
13. Robert L. Trivers, "The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism". The Quarterly Review of Biology. 46: 35–57. (1971).
14. David Williams. Interview by Larry Lemmons. Personal Interview. Lubbock. February 1, 2019.
15. Ruben Villareal. Interview by Larry Lemmons. Personal Interview. Lubbock. February 1, 2019.
16. Amber Stegal. Interview by Larry Lemmons. Personal Interview. Lubbock. February 1, 2019.
17. Ryan Hazelwood. Interview by Larry Lemmons. Telephone. Lubbock. April 24, 2019.
18. Hazelwood, 2019.
19. Ibid.
20. Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks. Translated by Geoffrey Smith and Quinton Hoare. (New York: International Publishers, 1971).
21. Wendy Brown. “Neoliberalism’s Frankenstein: Authoritarian Freedom in Twenty-First Century “Democracies.” Critical Times. Vol 1, No. 1. (2018). Retrieved from: https://ctjournal.org/index.php/criticaltimes/article/view/12.
22. Harper Neidig. “FCC Chair Rejects Sinclair-Tribune Merger.” The Hill. (July 16, 2018). Retrieved from: https://ctjournal.org/index.php/criticaltimes/article/view/12.