{"id":3627,"date":"2012-05-01T11:02:30","date_gmt":"2012-05-01T16:02:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/?p=3627"},"modified":"2012-05-28T15:30:18","modified_gmt":"2012-05-28T20:30:18","slug":"fare-thee-well-address","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2012\/05\/fare-thee-well-address\/","title":{"rendered":"Fare Thee Well Address"},"content":{"rendered":"

This column first was published as the \u201cPresident\u2019s Message\u201d in the May 2012 newsletter of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists<\/a><\/small>.<\/p>\n

Dear Larry,<\/p>\n

[NSNC Vice President Laurence D. Cohen is on the slate of nominees for the May 6 election, for 2012-14 president.]<\/p>\n

This, the columnists presidency, has been a humbling experience. I’ve had plenty of humbling experiences in my life, so I should know.<\/p>\n

When you were nominated for vice president, you asked me for tips so I suggested you consider U.S. vice presidents such as Alben Barkley and Charles W. Fairbanks.<\/p>\n

Now I offer:<\/p>\n

Hoist your opinions as the leader’s consideration counts.
\nAvoid saying anything, it’ll upset someone.<\/p>\n

The board is a single entity, proved by many unanimous votes.
\nThe board is a hydra of personalities, proved by many flurries of emails.<\/p>\n

The NSNC is trending down like the rest of the print media.
\nThe NSNC remains solvent with a consistent number of members, if you weigh 15 years not the last six.<\/p>\n

While I have held several mid-level newsroom management jobs, a nonprofit’s presidency proved surprisingly different.<\/p>\n

In business, workers accept pay in return for labor. That doesn’t mean the boss has much direct authority — that’s why bookstores have dozens of shelves of advice. In nonprofits, people offer to be officers and other positions for no or modest remuneration, so a president has little clout.<\/p>\n

Persuasion is overrated.<\/p>\n

What presidents do is make scores of decisions. Even with an able executive director — and Luenna Kim is a peach — there’s a zillion choices that fall below troubling the board for a vote yet demand direction.<\/p>\n

Some of these decisions are important enough to seek input from the board. Yet many decisions come to a president because they are too minor or too broad to be handled by anyone else. (This is also true in business management.)<\/p>\n

Over time, I realized directing a thumb up or down, along with an explanation, was so creative that it resembled writing columns!<\/p>\n

Being the pivot of a writers group (maybe other nonprofits) takes the skills of a columnist. You find or are assigned a topic, then there’s research (maybe mining your memory) and imagination. A column must be framed — satire or serious, story or exposition. Not least is weighing the impact of all these choices on the audience.<\/p>\n

When I didn’t feel like writing my blog, I’d recall that I’d spent 10-90 minutes several times that week answering NSNC e-mails.<\/p>\n

Lesson: Impatience or exhaustion pushes clarity to be inversely proportional to tact.<\/p>\n

Unless you’re an extrovert or believe yourself called to leadership, then you spend most of life trying not to be noticed. Exposure was just as vulnerable as I feared: I have pissed people off. I regret accidentally angering people in these two years.<\/p>\n

Every time there’s been a misstep, it was mine — I could tell you stories, but that would spoil everyone else’s fun. Every time something right happened, another officer or member deserved the credit.<\/p>\n

Because I was not seeking a leadership job, when nominated my first goal was to think up<\/a> some goals. I announced them at the 2010 Bloomington conference:<\/p>\n

I. Consider NSNC a triad: Education, support and advocacy. Everything we do provides all of these but in varying ratios. Greater success, fewer wasted moves, can be had by awareness of this.<\/p>\n

II. Respect all Three Waves of membership: Our first members were staff columnists. The second set comprised novices and free-lancers. The current, third wave are online columnists, bloggers.<\/p>\n

III. Use Points I and II to continue to ride out the Good Depression in general and in particular the media’s thrashing carnivorous evolution.<\/p>\n

Today, the NSNC is in the black, has great members and is days away from what promises to be a spectacular conference.<\/p>\n

What will success be for you, Larry? Your call. As for me, this Boy Scout dropout tried to leave the campsite just a little cleaner than I found it.<\/p>\n

[Note: Ben joined the NSNC board as archivist in 2005. He has been nominated to be 2012-14 NSNC Director of Online Media.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This column first was published as the \u201cPresident\u2019s Message\u201d in the May 2012 newsletter of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. Dear Larry, [NSNC Vice President Laurence D. Cohen is on the slate of nominees for the May 6 election, for 2012-14 president.] This, the columnists presidency, has been a humbling experience. I’ve had plenty […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-lessons"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2143,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2010\/07\/uphold-or-hold-up-standards\/","url_meta":{"origin":3627,"position":0},"title":"Uphold, or Hold Up, Standards","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"July 18, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"BLOOMINGTON, Ind., Sunday, July 11, 2010 -- Indiana University feels bigger than my hometown's University of Arkansas. Yep, 1,933 acres versus 345 acres. It has a journalism school not a department, a music school not a department. It is a handsome forested campus, full of sculptures (even a huge Calder)\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bloomers"","block_context":{"text":"Bloomers","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/nsnc\/bloomington-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"NSNC Oath of Office","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/Swearing-in-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3484,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2012\/02\/no-taking-ulysses-for-granted\/","url_meta":{"origin":3627,"position":1},"title":"No Taking Ulysses for Granted","author":"Ben S. 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Spring \u2014 OK, this is winter but I\u2019m an optimist \u2014 is busy-time for the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. \u2022 We\u2019re halfway through gathering entries for the annual\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Course of Words"","block_context":{"text":"The Course of Words","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/course-of-words\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"US 50 dollar bill obverse, series 2004","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/Series2004NoteFront_50-300x128.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2165,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2010\/08\/newspaper-paper-or-plastic\/","url_meta":{"origin":3627,"position":2},"title":"Newspaper, Paper or Plastic","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"August 1, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"My first \"President's Column\" for columnists.com. Thank you for electing me president of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. Didn\u2019t you hear? I have not published a running column since Sept. 16, 2001. Instead I\u2019ve written at www.benpollock.com\/brick for nearly seven years. After the first year, the water warms up.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Course of Words"","block_context":{"text":"The Course of Words","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/course-of-words\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2303,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2010\/11\/certifiably\/","url_meta":{"origin":3627,"position":3},"title":"Certifiably","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"November 1, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"First published in the November 2010 issue of the e-Columnist By Ben S. Pollock President,\u00a0National Society of Newspaper Columnists \"Politics make strange bedfellows\" goes the quote by 19th-century newspaperman Charles Dudley Warner, and this fall it's been columnists getting renown for jumping on the mattress. 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