The risk-taker's manual: 3 insights into failing better from #IJF16

Credit: Image from Pixabay.com.

Experimenting in the newsroom and in your own work is key to ensuring you stay ahead of the competition and are quick to spot new opportunities as more technologies and tools become available.

But for both journalists wanting to start up a new project on their own and for organisations with a legacy to protect, the prospect of failure looms on the horizon and can stop experimentation dead in its tracks.

At the International Journalism Festival on Saturday (9 April), Andy Carvin, editor-in-chief and founder of reported.ly, and Mark Little, vice-president for media partnerships, EMEA at Twitter, who founded Storyful in 2010 and sold it to News Corp in 2013, discussed what they have learned from their mistakes and what people might misunderstand about failure.

Here are three takeaways from the session:

The 'loose cannon' in the newsroom

"The most common things that [people] get wrong is that they’re going to lose their job over failing," said Carvin.

He pointed to the reticence of junior and mid-level staff in an organisation, "who have the skills and the ideas and the know-how to try new things, but are utterly terrified of their editors because it has been hammered into them that the brand is everything".

When speaking to news organisations about incremental experiments, Carvin explained they always want to schedule meetings and seek various level of approval before proceeding.

"It’s unfortunate. Some of the most exciting things that happened were because people didn’t give a shit."

Little advised journalists struggling to get experiments past their editor to choose an area of work that is small enough to not cause any problems if things turn sour, but also to "seek forgiveness, not permission".

"Try to get a cross-functional team, and make sure that you have a data point," he added. Proving the success of a small-scale project can help you secure additional resources to continue with a more comprehensive version.

"The lessons I am learning are from people in big brands who break the rules and are probably seen as loose cannons in their newsrooms," he added.

If your organisation is still pushing against experimentation, Carvin said it is best to "trust your instincts and get a sense relatively quickly if there's any hope for them".

"If you get a sense in a newsroom that their traditional habit of how they work, potential arrogance towards new ideas, is so ingrained in them, [it's] unlikely they are going to change anytime soon."

The importance of an absolute moment of failure

Failure is a mental game, explained Little, it is as much about your personality as it is about controlling the process.

"You have to have an absolute moment of failure to get over a human flaw. At some point you have to move into that hopeful, leaning-forward part of the brain.

"Once you accept that failure is an option here, once you realise what's the worst that could happen, you realise you will never fear again. And that’s when you get liberated."

Getting too confident when your business is growing can also lead to basic mistakes, such as mismanaging cashflow, that can affect your team's lives.

"If you can avoid failure do, we’re not recommending this. But when you [fail], how you react to that as a person is absolutely critical," added Little.

Fail fast? Fail small

The 'fail fast' mantra has become omnipresent in recent years, a fixture of all advice for entrepreneurial and experimental journalism projects, but is it really good advice?

"Some people love the alliteration of the phrase," said Carvin.

"After a while when something isn’t going well, there's often this human tendency to go into denial."

This can often lead to simply throwing more money at the project, "turning inward and not knowing what to say to the public and not knowing how to react."

"With a bit more confidence and a bit more transparency, they begin the process of healing that relationship with the public." So it's true that failing fast and letting go can help.

Little explained there is a process of victimisation associated with failure in journalistic organisations. "You have to draw the blood before you learn the lesson. The process to get there can spread fear throughout the organisation." But he sees a new culture emerging around experimenting with technology in the newsroom: "fail fast and fail small".

Find more coverage of the International Journalism Festival here, and watch the full session below.

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