Stephanie Silverstein has been the editor at the Hamilton-Wenham Chronicle for the past year. She graduated with a degree in journalism from Quinnipiac University and worked for the Cape Ann Beacon for a year-and-a-half before coming to the Hamilton-Wenham Chronicle.
Can you describe a typical day on the job?
Working as an editor is a lot of pressure and responsibility. I am the only one that is on staff, the rest of the workers are on a freelance budget. I have never taken a sick day, and although we do get vacation time, we really earn it. In my job, on the important days you pretty much have to be there. People will come in really, really sick and put out the paper then go home.
What are some of the challenges you face?
What’s challenging is not having enough time. I have to do what’s most important, and a lot of times that is going through emails and saying “no” to people. It’s really easy to get off track and get bogged down with the little things.
One thing I have a hard time with is being a young editor. I’m twenty-five and I get a lot of judgment for that.
How do you stay true to the fundamental elements and ethics of journalism when there is so much easily accessible, yet often unverified information on the Internet?
This is one of the great things about being a weekly paper—I can take the time to verify a story. If I have a story in front of me and I think it still needs to be verified I can says “hold this story.” Because of the extra time we have, weeklies always have less errors than dailies.
Do you think the new wave of immediate information is a positive or negative for journalism?
I think that it can be damaging because some people will get the information they receive “out there” as soon as they possibly can, and they might have it first but they also might have gotten it wrong. Also, I see there always being a need for small, community papers in this market because even though there’s so much information, people want to know what’s going on down the street from them and really the only place to go is the local paper.
How do you verify facts? Do you have a kind of check-list that you go through?
First, you always need to go to the source—you can’t rely on community word-of-mouth information or blogs, etc. One thing we do at the Hamilton-Wenham Chronicle is verify every letter to the editor that we get. When it comes to reporters stories, if something is questionable or out of the ordinary I’ll call someone.
How does one stay competitive and ethical on the job?
Try to do things differently and try to do it better than your competition. I try to take a different route or interview different people than what a typical reporter might think to do.
Where do you see journalism going in the future? What other forms of media do you see merging with journalism? Do you think journalism could possibly “die out” in the future?
People want community journalism—I don’t see that going anywhere. One of the things we’ve done is created a partnership with channel five in Boston. I think sharing with other outlets is possible and beneficial. It would also be nice if we could figure out a way to make some kind of revenue off the Internet.
What is the one most important piece of advice you would give to an aspiring journalist/editor?
Go for it if you love it. Whether it’s journalism, photo journalism, writing for a magazine—go for it. Don’t let anything get in your way.
Community journalism is where it’s at—the bigger newspapers all do the same thing. You have to find your niche.
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