...ignores stupid project managers who don't understand the point of an article.
Haven't been online for a while. I spent most of the week DOING STUFF (a la LIFE) so I haven't even managed to take a peek at the Tropfest DVD that came with the Saturday paper (the one that just went up by 10c - it was just fortunate that I had some extra change on me).
In a nutshell, the rest of last week consisted of: Tafe, writers group, Tafe, Sing-a-long-a-Sound of Music, lunch with Ness then family dinner, free FBi radio 'King of Kong' screening at Dendy Newtown with bonus beer then Aus vs India one-dayer while listening to Lee Tran's show on FBi.
This week has thus far consisted of: two episodes of 'Life on Mars' followed by several hours of the Academy Awards, Tafe and tonight, laundry followed by loads of newspaper reading.
The reason I've not been online is that I've started to get this weird eye thing every afternoon, which happens when I look at a screen for too long. It happened while I was watching TV as well but not as severely, I think because I wear my real (ie the power they're supposed to be) glasses and the TV is a lot further away than my laptop. Anyway, it's not like I haven't developed a series of eye exercises and designated eye rest naps during the day, it's just unusually persistent. Maybe I need that new eye health supplement.
So, now to the explanation of the title/subtitle of this entry. You may recall that late last year I was stuck completing my first edition of TPM, which usually has a cycle of four weeks, in just two weeks. The upshot of that was that I had very tenuous control of the stories going in, let alone the ones I wrote.
First thing that happened (this was in November, from memory) was that I had to tell an interviewee, Paul S, that he wasn't going to feature in the Dec/Jan issue as planned because I thought his interview was better suited to the Feb/Mar theme 'joint projects'. He kicked up a fuss, which I later found out was due to a prior argument with the AIPM unrelated to my decision to pull the interview. Eventually I communicated what I needed to communicate and he calmed down.
So I paired Paul's interview with another conducted with John S, a keynote speaker from the 2007 conference for the article. Paul's part was the practical side of that article, using examples from his aid project work in Indonesia. He did say some things that were controversial but they were clearly represented as his views alone. Some of John's comments were based on Paul's comments as relayed by me in the interview, but otherwise John was not familiar with Paul's work directly.
Well, the tea was served just a couple of Mondays ago when I received an email from Tony C saying that while he agreed with some of the principles in the story, there were errors. I offered to ring him, which I did, and we discussed various things to do with his experience in aid project management.
He was constructive in his criticism but came to understand that my role in the 'errors' was merely in the reporting of Paul's comments as the only voice regarding aid project management. I told him this was due to the fact that I believed Paul to be a well-regarded project manager and quite an authority (Paul was a previous VIC chapter president and has won several awards for his work). Tony said while this was the case, Paul had scant knowledge of aid projects relating to the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami and he had misrepresented the state of these projects. I invited him to respond in the next edition of the magazine, which he will do.
Tony also mentioned he had had private words with Paul, as Paul was an old colleague, and all was settled there. Paul even offered him work!
The storm in the teacup began when Tony sent the article to a few colleagues in the aid world. One of them, wittingly or unwittingly, 'replied all' (I was CC'd on the initial email) to say that it was all blatant lies and that I was unprofessional – and other things that I have since forgotten. I cracked it.
Anyone who knows anything about journalism knows that not only is it near impossible to tell the absolute truth about anything due to the convolutions of language (go on, try it...) but that in most cases, especially when there are interviews involved, the journalist is invisible and it is the story that takes its own course with opinions of the interviewees clearly demarcated.
In this case, the story was about joint projects, NOT about aid project management. Paul's opinions (which I had since learnt may have been misguided) were his own, not mine, and were furthermore only used as examples of how relationships within joint projects could be improved. If other project managers not involved in the aid industry read the article, they should not come away thinking the aid sector was fucked, they would be thinking about how joint projects within their own industry does or does not work according to the principles discussed in the article. If I failed to do that, then I would accept I was a bad journalist.
However,I have found there are two types of project managers; the ones good at managing relationships and the ones who are egotistical nightmares. (Some fall into both categories, depending on the occasion, by exploiting relationships for egotistic gain). The respondent in this case chose to ignore the true pitch of the story and only saw what to him was 'offensive' to his ego.
Above all, I resented being called 'unprofessional' in a mass email. So, eschewing better judgement, I sent him a reply to outline exactly those things that I've explained above as well as the fact that a call in the issue prior gave other project managers the chance to contribute (ie the fact that all I could get was Paul was no fault of mine!). I said that Tony had had the same opportunity as Paul and of course I would have liked to have more voices in the story but I did the best I could with what I was given in the time allowed. And that is not unprofessional.
Right, I'm tired of defending myself. I know now that it could have been a better story but for all I knew at the time, it was the best I could do.
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